Emmy-nominated "Downton Abbey"

Caption: Featuring an all-star cast, including Hugh Bonneville, Dame Maggie Smith, and Elizabeth McGovern.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Masterpiece

Downton Abbey season 2 has been honored with 16 Primetime Emmy® Award Nominations! Celebrate with us by indulging in the whole swoon-worth saga of seasons 1 and 2, as we await the arrival of season 3 in January, 2013!

WXXI-TV/HD is pleased to bring viewers the encore broadcasts of seasons I and II of Downton Abbey, every Thursday evening at 8 throughout the summer. To learn more about the nominations, click here.

The Downton Abbey estate stands a splendid example of confidence and mettle, its family enduring for generations and its staff a well-oiled machine of propriety. But change is afoot at Downton — change far surpassing the new electric lights and telephone. A crisis of inheritance threatens to displace the resident Crawley family, in spite of the best efforts of the noble and compassionate Earl, Robert Crawley; his American heiress wife, Cora; his comically implacable, opinionated mother, Violet; and his beautiful, eldest daughter, Mary, intent on charting her own course. Reluctantly, the family is forced to welcome its heir apparent, the self-made and proudly modern Matthew Crawley, himself none too happy about the new arrangements. As Matthew's bristly relationship with Mary begins to crackle with electricity, hope for the future of Downton's dynasty takes shape. But when petty jealousies and ambitions grow among the family and the staff, scheming and secrets — both delicious and dangerous — threaten to derail the scramble to preserve Downton Abbey. Created and written by Oscar-winner Julian Fellowes, Downton Abbey offers a spot-on portrait of a vanishing way of life.

Watch Downton Abbey Season 1 Preview on PBS. See more from Masterpiece.