The second series of the blockbusting British period drama doesn’t offer much of anything new. If you’re a fan, that’s probably a good thing. The eight episodes cover the second half of the Great War, and while the events of the outside world do touch the lives of Downton’s inhabitants – many of the male characters go off to fight – their lives, for the most part, still revolve around the smaller intrigues. The writers are smart enough to realize that this is where the show’s appeal really lies – in the subtle complexities of the upper classes’ repressed emotions and the scheming machinations or all-round decency of those ‘below stairs.’