10 British Shows to Look Forward to on PBS In 2023

As 2023 rolls in, PBS viewers are gearing up for the new year. Since Masterpiece's mega-hit Downton Abbey turned the second Sunday in January into the debut point for period dramas on public broadcast, most local PBS stations now unofficially run programming on a calendar year schedule instead of the old September-June TV broadcast season. (If only the rest of the TV world -- and Emmy awards -- would follow this very sensible model.) It also means fans have a good idea of what's coming in the first half of the year, if not actual debut dates.

Even before the holidays hit, PBS viewers knew the January debuts to look forward to. The year will kick off with a trio of Season 3 arrivals: Miss Scarlet & the Duke, All Creatures Great & Small, and Vienna Blood airing from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET starting Sunday, January 8, 2023. Also, there's a new push to re-colonize Thursdays with imported dramas, with both 2014's Jamaica Inn and 2011's Without You (rechristened to What To Do When Someone Dies) will be arriving in January, on Thursday the 12th and Thursday the 26th, respectively.

But what else can fans expect for 2023? Here are some of the highlights.

As mentioned above, one of the big things for 2023 is that PBS is making a concerted effort to turn Thursdays into a new night of high-end imported dramas for the first time since Mystery! ceased being a stand-alone spinoff of Masterpiece and joined the Sunday night lineup in 2007. To that end, the popular Walter's Choice (known as Walter's Presents in the U.K.), which has thus far mainly been limited to streaming on PBS Passport, has begun debuting its popular foreign language offerings on most local PBS broadcast stations.

The project was piloted this past fall with La Otra Mirada (A Different View) Season 1 debuting on local stations on Thursdays starting in late September. January will see a significant push to bring more shows from streaming to broadcast, beginning Thursday, January 5, 2023. The Spanish/Italian rom-com Love, Inevitably (Lejos De Ti), and La Otra Mirada Season 2 will begin airing weekly on participating local PBS stations, notably with both shows under the old Walter Presents heading instead of PBS Passport Walter's Choice title.

Speaking of Passport, all episodes of La Otra Mirada Seasons 1 and 2 are already streaming there, while Love Inevitably will arrive with all episodes to coincide with the linear debut.

Other Walter Presents shows confirmed to come to broadcast this spring include the German-produced World War II series Our Miracle Years (Unsere Wunderbaren Jahre), arriving Thursday, March 16, with weekly episodes, and the ever-popular Danish series Seaside Hotel (Badehotellet), which will air Season 6 weekly starting on Thursday, April 27, 2023. 

Call The Midwife has been going for over a decade now, and even though Season 11's train crash ending might not have been a fan-favorite, as long as the sisters and midwives keep birthing babies, we'll keep tuning in. As with last year, PBS Passport will be getting back the prior two seasons to stream ahead of time for the Season 12 release on Sunday, March 19, 2023, at 8 p.m. ET. Episodes stream weekly on PBS Passport after they air on linear.

I'm not sure if "looking forward to it" quite applies to Sanditon anymore, as much as it is a must-tune-in march to the altar. Considering all of Charlotte's suitors basically sucked in Season 2 (sorry, y'all, but you know it's true), one can only hope the sudden arrival of a heretofore-unknown fiance helps matters along. Either way, Season 3 is also the series' final season, and perhaps next time we should be careful what we wish for.

Sanditon Season 3 premieres Sunday, March 19, 2023, at 9 p.m. ET, and probably will also follow a weekly release schedule on PBS Passport as it did with Season 2.

The most intriguing of the Sunday debuts this March is the relatively unknown Marie Antoinette series made by Canal+,  the same people behind the Versailles series streaming on Netflix.

The eight-episode French series is at least getting a hell of a one-two punch lead in with Call The Midwife and Sanditon (though unlike Marie Antoinette and CTM,  Sanditon is only six episodes, so who knows what will air at 9 p.m. for the last two installments.) The series debuts Sunday, March 19, 2023, 10 p.m. ET, with all epsiodes available to binge on PBS Passport the day of launch.

In the PBS Passport binge arrivals for the first half of 2023, DI Ray is the least heralded. This new police procedural debuted on ITV in May 2022, hailing from Line of Duty's Jed Mercurio and his HTM Productions. Created and written by Maya Sondhi, also from LoD, the series stars Parminder Nagra (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) in the title role working for a fictitious Birmingham-based police force (though not LoD's A-12).

Nagra's co-stars include Gemma Whelan (Killing Eve) and Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica) as her superiors. All four episodes arrive as a PBS Passport binge on February 20, 2023, ahead of a linear broadcast in July. Season 2 is already in the works.

Walter Iuzzolino of Walter Presents now has a nice secondary business going remaking the most popular of the anthology series foreign language series in English via his Eagle Eye Drama company. Before We Die was actually the first of the remakes but the second to cross the pond after Professor T in 2021.

Season 1 landed the plum 10 p.m. slot  after CTM and Sanditon that Marie Antoinette occupies this year. We didn't review it at the time, but suffice today, I'm not surprised Before We Die Season 2 is quietly being religated to only debuting as a PBS Passport binge for now, with all episodes arriving Monday, April 10, 2023.

Unlike DI Ray, which didn't get much fanfare when it came to PBS, Ridley has been on the radar ever since ITV initially announced it in 2021, most likely because it stars Line of Duty's Adrian Dunbar taking the lead in his own police procedural series.

This one doesn't come from Mercutio though, but from Paul Matthew Thompson, best known for writing the long-running Vera and Father Brown. Ridley will debut on broadcast on Sunday, June 18, 2023, at 8 p.m. ET and most likely arrive on PBS Passport with all four episodes on the same day. 

Tom Jones still doesn't have a firm release date. Still, the mini-series has been given a "late spring" release window; whether that means April, May or a June premiere with Ridley (both are four episodes) is uncertain. What is certain is that the period drama, starring Solly McLeod (House of the Dragon) and Sophie Wilde (You Don't Know Me), will probably be a significant hit since it also features Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso) and Pearl Mackie (Doctor Who) in 1700s era period costumes.

Like Tom Jones, there's no release date for Endeavour's final season, only that it's expected in summer, which is less news than "standard operating procedure for the last several seasons." The farewell to Morse (at least until ITV finds a way to reboot the series some more) is rumored to air in the U.K. in February 2023, which means the exclusivity window will expire in time for the series to come anytime from June onward; it's just a matter of whether or not the "summer of mysteries" schedule decides to have Grantchester go before or after it. Either way, the final season will run three feature-length episodes.

Speaking of Grantchester Season 8 and things airing in the U.K. in the next month or so, everyone;'s favorite vicar is scheduled to return to PBS ad ITV sometime this year, but since Masterpiece started taking the lead on co-producing, there's no telling which side of the pond it will air on first anymore, whether there is an exclusivity window fans have to wait out before it can air in the states, or if it will come in summer as it usually does or be held until fall or anything else at this time. At least we know Will will be married when we return.

Like Endeavour, Unforgotten Season 5 is also rumored to be arriving soon on ITV with its new lead Sinéad Keenan replacing Nicola Walker. It has an exclusivity window before it can cross the pond. However, if it does air in February, it could come anytime after June, either as part of the summer of mysteries or perhaps in the fall paired with Annika Season 2 as a double feature.

Annika Season 2 is also on track to debut in 2023, with the first images released around the December break. No premiere dates as yet, or word if it will be a PBS Passport early exclusive again or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's held until at least late summer, if not the 10 p.m. slot in the fall again. Likewise, Van der Valk Season 3 is on track to return and probably will find itself in the late August/early Sept berth. And both Guilt Season 3 and COBRA Season 3 are also floating out there somewhere, and if they make it over here this year will probably also occupy the August/September period.