Editor's Note: We admit we couldn't wait any longer for  the PBS presentation in early December to introduce Season 4 of Downton Abbey.  The actual season debuts with eight new episodes January 5, 2014 on Masterpiece. Six new characters join the cast including the famed opera singer Dame Nellie Melba: Lord Gillingham, the visiting valet named Green, 'government worker' Charles Blake, jazz singer Jack Ross and lady's maid Baxter. In addition, the character Edna Braithwaite, the below stairs flirt who tried to seduce widower Branson and was fired during the Christmas special, has returned, no doubt with still an eye on him. Lastly, there's another lady's maid on the move.  And, viewers take heart, the fifth season has been ordered up.

We are including one of Masterpiece's previews as well as another from ITV, one of England's networks. We've avoided the 'spoiler' websites, not wanting an advance look at season's conclusion. So enjoy the brief look and also read on to the decision for a second season of The Bletchley Circle, a British series which we thoroughly recommend for catching up to before Season 2, in case you haven't viewed it as yet, either online through Amazon Prime or DVD (see below). It was well-received here and in the United Kingdom.

The Bletchley Circle is returning to PBS for a second season; the four-part series will air on Sunday nights in spring 2014.

About the series

 With an extraordinary flair for code breaking and razor-sharp intelligence skills, four seemingly ordinary women become the unlikely investigators of a string of grisly murders in this original thriller, set against the backdrop of post-war London.

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