Edith's choices on Downton Abbey,Chopped's latest food themes and The Amazing Race All-Stars!

As I feared,Lady Edith of Downton Abbey is most definitely pregnant and this past week,came rather close to having an abortion. Her last minute hesitation is understandable due to such procedures being seriously life threatening in those days,even with the connections to a higher quality of medical care she had available to her.

What is really the saddest of all is that Edith had no one to confide in for such a dilemma,other than her Aunt Rosamund(not the warmest of people) who seemed resigned to be taking this position. Part of Edith's whole problem in maintaining any sort of romantic attachment is the lack of emotional support given to her by her family- I'm not even sure she has any friends outside of that particular social circle!

 This disinterested display of affection from her immediate family for most of her life,with just about everyone either invested in Mary or Sybil(mainly Mary,who rarely misses an opportunity to slam her Jan Brady of a sis) and only making a fuss about her marrying a much older man out of concern for how it would look to others, it's no wonder that she suffers from an extreme lack of self esteem.

Don't get me wrong,Edith has had her bitchy moments(that letter from season one) and is prone to be quite as snobbish as any Crawley can be. However,she also has talents that have been lately giving her the freedom to break away from those lower expectations and find a new life in London,which I hope continues.

With Edith deciding to keep the baby for now(I suspect a dubious plot maneuver in mind to somehow allow her to stay "respectable" as it were), her road will be a rather hard one to walk on. Yes,Mary is finding new love just about everywhere, including muddy patches while watering pigs(a very cute moment there,I grant you), but would it be too much to ask for Edith to get a break in this department just once?:

In the meanwhile,it does appear that new love is blooming below stairs as Moseley is becoming rather smitten with the new lady's maid Baxter,from what I gather in this preview clip.

Baxter seems nice enough and Moseley deserves to be cheerful about something for once,so I hope it will work out. Then again,Thomas does have some sort of hold on Baxter  which means trouble is just around the corner...:

The gang at Chopped is trying to keep things interesting,so one of their latest themes is making their quarter of chef contenders make one type of dish for all three rounds, like pizza,burgers,bacon(due this weekend) and this past week it was chocolate.

I find that kind of fun,especially since it's pretty hard to make certain things work-how would you make a dessert pizza or a dessert burger?  Plus,the judges also take a whack at these culinary challenges for the online series Chopped: After Hours and it certainly is satisfying to see them put their talents up to the same task as the contestants:

Coming soon(as soon as February 23) to Sunday nights is a fresh new season of The Amazing Race All-Stars,which gives some of the former fan favorite teams another shot at winning.

While it's great to see such likable pairings as Harlem Globetrotters Flight Time and Big Easy or cowboys Jet and Cord(not to mention lifelong buddies Mark and Bopper) back in the TAR saddle again,plenty of obnoxious folks are also on board here.

*sigh* I had hoped to never again see the likes of  Big Brother players Brendon and eternal whiner Rachel or the sneaky "Twinnies" Natalie and Nadiya but I suppose you have to take the bitter with the sweet here,in order to make things interesting. With any luck, a really deserving team will take home the big money and a good time will be had by all:

RANDOM NOTES:

THE WORST COOKS IN AMERICA:  Season four of this instructional competition starts next Monday and as past participants can tell you, Chef Anne and her current co-chef challenger Bobby Flay insist that their teams talk the talk as well as cook the food right: