The bell literally tolled on the First World War at the end of last night's Downton Abbey. It's been a challenging couple of years at stately Crawley manor and the residents' troubles don't seem likely to end, even now that peace has been declared. Here are the biggest home front battles still facing Downton:

Although the residents of Downton Abbey have witnessed the ravages of war courtesy of the steady stream of wounded soldiers that have passed through the sizeable manor, their own personal casualties have been limited... that is, until last night. In the opening sequence, Matthew and William go over the top for one more big charge and run straight into an explosion that leaves them bloodied and battered in a muddy pit. While both men are retrieved from the battlefield still alive, they arrive back at Downton considerably worse for the wear. By the end of the hour, one will die, while the other may find himself wishing he had. But they aren't the only people left wounded by the war. Here's our picks for last night's five biggest wartime casualties:

Downton Abbey is a beautiful estate with friendly hosts, lush grounds and a helpful staff. It also happens to be the worst place in England to keep a secret, as evidenced by last night's episode. Here are the supposedly confidential pieces of information that everyone in the house was buzzing about... even though they weren't supposed to be.

The second episode of Downton Abbey's second season literally brought the war home, as the Crawley clan began sharing their opulent house with a legion of wounded soldiers in desperate need of a peaceful place to convalesce. But with all the tensions running through Downton at the moment, those poor guys might find more relaxation back in the trenches. Here are the biggest feuds that are currently making life in the house difficult.

PBS's sudsy period soap Downton Abbey returned for Season 2 last night and we fell hard for this addictive upstairs/downstairs look at the goings-on in an early 20th century British manor house all over again. Granted, the season premiere was a more somber affair than much of last year, starting, as it did, in the midst of World War I. Downton's heir, Matthew Crawley is on the front lines, dug deep in the trenches at The Somme, as is the estate's former footman, the duplicitous Thomas Barrow. Back home, Matthew's mother Isobel is tending to the wounded soldiers that have been sent back from the continent and welcomes a new nurse into the hospital: the Earl of Grantham's youngest daughter, Sybil. Her sisters are asserting their independence in their own ways -- Edith is learning how to drive, while Mary tries to put her brief romance with Matthew behind her and finds a new man, newspaper magnate Richard Carlisle. As for the Abbey's staff, they're trying to deal with the loss of Lord Grantham's valet, John Bates, whose scheming wife blackmailed him into leaving the manor... and his One True Love Anna Smith. In Bates's absence, the butler Mr. Carson assumes too many responsibilities and overworks himself into exhaustion. Unfortunately for him, things are about to get even busier around the house thanks to Isobel's plan to turn Downton into a convalescence home for the returning veterans.

Everyone's buzzing (or grousing) about the Emmy nominees, with most of the conversation focusing on the major categories that get all of the attention during the live telecast. But there are plenty of deserving nominees in the secondary categories (the ones usually relegated to the Schmemmys technical awards ceremony) that are worth acknowledging. Here are the ones that had us cheering the most, which is a rare occurrence when it comes to Emmy noms:

I'll admit it. I've been a little depressed since Dr. Horrible ended. Even the good doctors' Twitter updates can't cheer me up. I'm in the Neil Patrick Harris doldrums. Desperately wafting along in a Doogie-less wasteland just waiting for new episodes of How I Met Your Mother to come back. And then, then, the most magical thing happened. This wonderful link arrived in my IM and it is from YouTube (which isn't being nice and letting my embed it or whatever so you've got to follow the stupid link). Neil Patrick Harris is on Sesame Street as a shoe fairy and it is Legen -- wait for it -- dary. Now I'm happy on so many levels because Neil Patrick Harris is singing, and dancing and a magical fairy and the whole concept is just incredible. But also because when I'm not writing about TV, I'm the mother to a toddler who insists on watching Sesame Street all the time and if I have to see Tina Fey as a Bookaneer one more time, I may cry... I love Tina... but there are limits. So now there's NPH making shoes appear and making my summer all better and well... I hope you enjoy as much as I do.

I was one of the lucky people (depending on your perspective) who actually got to see Ian McKellen live in King Lear last year. It was a fine production, highlighted by the fact that Magneto drops trou (well actually he doesn't drop it, he more like pulls off his nightshirty costume over his head in a fit). It got quite a bit of attention at the time and it's run at BAM (The Brooklyn Academy of Music) was sold out. I actually had to go to one of the boroughs in order to see a very long play.

Colbert's at his finest in this clip. He's all up in arms because kids are eating healthier foods instead of snacking on cookies. Fruit that isn't in loop or pebble form? That's positively un-American (his words, but I completely agree... just don't let my nutritionist find out.) Anyway, he blames this trend squarely on the shoulders of one Mr. Cookie Monster. And that is exactly where this belongs. Ever since the muppet started in with the "cookies are a sometimes food" shtick, kids are following his example, and maybe some adults too. Not Colbert though, he gets in an intense debate with the googly-eyed creature who ends up revealing way too much about his "Robert Downey Jr." like addictions to the delicious treats. This clip may be NSFW just because you'll be cracking up so much. It's a good thing my office mate is home sick today.

The PBS program everyone's talking about from last week is of course the Frontline special on the internet generation, which I found kind of terrifying, especially 1) the part where the teacher is talking about how the kids just don't read books anymore, and 2) the internet-bullying that goes on.  We had our own analog version of that back in the day, the three-way-calling prank, but it isn't the same thing; we had our own analog version of sneaking out and keeping secrets, too, and I think it's an important part of adolescence in that, at some point, you have to get into trouble, and out of it again, on your own so that you learn how.  But the special was based in towns adjacent to the one where I grew up, and it really brought me back -- because my parents would have been just as strict and zero-tolerance about my internet usage as they were about everything else. 

Including TV consumption, and we see how that worked out.  Heh.  Hi, Ma!

Anyway: another good bit of PBS programming from last week is the American Experience episode about Walter Freeman, the lobotomist.  I do not need to hear the word "transorbital" and then the word "icepick" in the same sentence, but there they were, hanging out together a bunch of times...I knew the procedure was primitive, but I thought of it as primitive in the sense of killing a fly with a howitzer, not in the sense of, you know, NO ANESTHESIA for God's sake.  This is the guy, and the procedure, that turned Rosemary Kennedy from a delayed but functional woman into an infant, more or less, who needed full-time supervision.

It's a disturbing hour, but fascinating, and I didn't want it to get lost in the shuffle with all the talk about that one Frontline.

It also put me in mind of Geraldo.  Geraldo is thought of indulgently now, I think, like a crazy uncle; when I was a kid, he was reviled as a shock journalist (possibly because the culture wasn't as inured to Maury-type shit as it is now), and it was a surprise to me to learn that his special on the Willowbrook institution had made his name and put a spotlight on the treatment of the mentally ill.  I just wasn't used to thinking of him as a serious-story guy.  I'm re-reading The Executioner's Song at the moment, and his name pops up there; already, by '76, he'd become this sensationalist gadfly people didn't want to deal with, but you forget he actually did some good.  Not without an eye towards his own reputation, I'm sure, but still.

But the Willowbrook report is really hard to find on VHS or DVD; I've got an eBay search out for it, but I've never seen it and I'd like to.  Anyone with some wisdom on how to get my hands on it can write me at sars at televisionwithoutpity dot com -- thanks.