Julie Walters as Cynthia Coffin and Henry Lloyd-Hughes as Ralph Whelan

With Downton Abbey coming to an end in January, you’ll soon have room in your life for a new period British drama. So why not sample one that comes spiced with more exotic flavors? Enter Indian Summers, the latest English import to make its American debut on Masterpiece on PBS. After premiering to solid reviews in its native land in February, the 10-episode first season premieres stateside on Sept. 27.

Opening in 1932, when the British still controlled the populous nation of India, the series unfolds during the sweltering summer months when the then-ruling classes made the move from overcrowded cities to remote hill stations like Simla, a town nestled beneath the Himalayas. Veteran British actress Julie Walters (who acquired a whole new generation of fans by playing Mrs. Weasley in the Harry Potter films) plays Cynthia Coffin, the proprietor of the city’s most popular English-only club, which counts influential civil servant Ralph Whelan (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) and his recently returned sister, Alice (Jemima West), among its members. (Do we even have to mention that Alice has stuffed some secrets into her suitcase along with her clothes?)

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While the British are living it up, hardworking Indian families like the Dalals are just trying to get by. That explains why the younger members of the clan — especially rebellious daughter Sooni (Aysha Kala) — are drawn to the burgeoning Independence movement led by Mahatma Gandhi. Family intrigue, fiery daughters, and changing times? That’s the Downton trifecta right there. Yahoo TV spoke with executive producer Charles Pattinson, who revealed five things you need to know about Indian Summers.

Malaysia is the New India
If the lovely landscapes glimpsed throughout Indian Summers leave you with a burning desire to see them in real life, plan on booking an airline ticket for Penang, Malaysia, rather than Simla, India. Early on, Pattinson fully intended to shoot the show on location in what’s become one of India’s most tourist-friendly cities. But while Simla is designed to satisfy travelers, it’s less ideal for an extended film shoot. Faced with bureaucratic red tape, too many modern buildings, and the monsoon rains, he made the difficult decision to direct his crews almost 2,000 miles east to Malaysia. “That was as much a surprise to me as anyone else. I spent quite a lot of time touring various other hill stations in India figuring out how to shoot it there. It just seemed to me like there was no way it was going to work,” Pattinson says. Whereas in Penang, which was also once an outpost of the British Empire, Pattinson found a local government eager for their business, not to mention intact buildings from the Colonial era. Of course, they weren’t always accessible at first. “The building that serves as Cynthia’s club had been left derelict for 30 years,” he says. “We had to cut through the jungle to restore it.”

Jemima West as Alice

The Series Has a Built-In Five Season Arc
Unlike Downton Abbey, which played it coy for a long time about which season would be its last, there’s no upfront mystery about when the curtain will fall on Indian Summers. Pattinson promises a five-year story, one that will span 1932 to 1947, the year that India finally gained its independence. “From the very beginning, our writer, Paul Rutman, wanted to tell the story of India from an Indian and British family’s perspective as it moved towards independence. We have it all mapped out: each season will take place during the summer months of a different year. Season 1 is 1932, Season 2 is 1936, Seasons 3 and 4 will be during World War II, and Season 5 takes place in 1947.” Even if the series achieves Downton-sized ratings, don’t expect a post-independence Season 6. “For now, we’re firmly focused on trying to tell this story,” Pattinson says.

Aysha Kala as Sooni

Little Boy, Big Plans
Pay very close attention to the child you’ll meet in the opening moments of Indian Summers’ series premiere. First glimpsed collapsing on the railroad tracks delaying the arrival of the train carrying Alice to Simla, this boy — who is given the name Adam by his British rescuers — will grow up to become the show’s most important character by Season 5. “Adam will be in his 20s by the time we get to 1947, and he’ll be a significant player in the Indian independence movement,” says Pattinson, adding that Rutman actually began his outline for the series with Adam as a grown-up and then worked his way backwards. “We knew where the show’s historical endpoint was, and we needed characters we could engage with over time. We approached it in novelistic fashion.”

West and Lloyd-Hughes

There’s Villainy, But No Villains
It would be all too easy to depict the British characters in Indian Summers as wealthy, privileged oppressors. And there will certainly be some introduced during the course of the series who appear to fit that description to a T. But Pattinson and the show’s creative team also intend to make it clear that these less-than-noble characters are a product of their times rather than inherently evil. “What I think Paul has done really well is show these characters as people who behave badly, but aren’t necessarily villains,” Pattinson says. “It was important to place these characters in their time, and not impose a contemporary sense of villainy on them. You have to be careful when you’re doing drama not to demonize individual characters, but place them within their time. And this wasn’t just a world of privilege. The British working classes — like Cynthia — also lived and worked in Simla, and for them it could be a hard life.”

Don’t Get Too Hung Up On Downton
The blessing and curse of Downton Abbey’s success is that practically every other costume drama made since is held to the same high standards. And while Pattinson is hugely grateful to that series for reigniting international interest in British period drama, he also wants to emphasize some of the things that set Indian Summers apart. “The stakes are ultimately much higher,” he says. “It also has a definite political arc: the question that overhangs the series is, ‘How does Britain leave India?’ And, ‘How will Indians organizes themselves to rule?’” At the same time, he adds with a laugh, “I hope people enjoy this as much as they enjoy Downton!”

Indian Summers premieres Sept. 27 at 9 p.m. on Masterpiece on PBS.