Acorn TV Sets 'Dalgliesh' Season 2 Premiere for April 2023

P.D. James' novels may not have the iconic status of Agatha Christie, but since she started writing in the late 1950s (and her Adam Dalgliesh novels took off in the early 1960s), her name has been grouped with other female mystery writers of U.K. fame, from Dorothy Sayers to Val McDermid. Her books were initially adapted for television in the early 1980s by ITV and then the BBC (and aired in the states on PBS under the Mystery! banner); however, those concluded a decade before her passing in 2014. Acorn TV and Channel 5's new series is the first since her passing, and its popularity has been strong enough to greenlight two more seasons, the first of which debuts in April 2023.

The deal to create a new adaptation, with Bertie Carvel (The Crown) in the titular role of DI Adam Dalgliesh, was first set into motion in 2019 but ran right into the buzzsaw of the pandemic and not confirmed until October 2020. Filming was further delayed, finally getting underway in 2021, and Season 1 arrived on Channel 5 in late October 2021 and followed on Acorn TV in November. A second season renewal was announced in March 2022, which Channel 5 then upped to a Season 2 and 3 order in July as Season 2 filming got underway.

Like Season 1, Season 2 will cover three of James' classic novels, each comprised of two feature-length episodes. Season 2 starts with Death Of An Expert Witness, initially published in the late 1970s between 1975's The Black Tower and 1986's A Taste for Death, covered in Season 1 along with the 1971 best seller Shroud for a Nightingale. The series will then jump ahead to two of James' later works. 1997's A Certain Justice and 2003's The Murder Room. Season 3's episodes have yet to be announced, but unless the show decides to rewind to James' earliest 1960-set novels, viewers will most likely get Devices and Desires, Original Sin, and Death in Holy Orders.