downton abbey returns for its second season next week in the uk but americans will have to wait (wink) until january for the bastardized version that pbs will likely offer. last year they chopped off at least an hour so they could create 4 11/2hour episodes instead of the 7 hour long episodes shown in the uk. still baffles me as to why. maybe they had to get to the doowop reruns offered during pledge week.
its sort of a hackneyed upstairs/downstairs period drama but its well done if you like that sort of thing.
and season three has already been greenlit so you can set your dvrs ahead of time for january 2013.
giving the bbcamerica show the hour a solid a- after watching the first two episodes. nice to see romola garai released from british period piece purgatory to act in something contemporary as long as your version of contemporary stretches back to the 1950s. for a very unoriginal tagline think madmen meets broadcast news with some thrillerish menace to boot. unfortunately as with all blasted brit shows this one only has a six episode season. what the fuck to do the rest of the year?