Show of the week: Masterpiece: Downton Abbey

World War I is raging as this acclaimed drama begins it second season, the conflict roiling the lives of both the servants and the aristocrats residing at the series’s titular English estate. Thankfully, the cast is unchanged: Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, and the peerless Maggie Smith (all of whom recently received Golden Globe nominations) expertly play out the series’s rich narrative of romance and intrigue against an eye-filling backdrop of colorful costumes and period detail. Sundays, Jan. 8–Feb. 19, at 9 p.m., PBS; check local listings