The Best British Shows Coming To PBS in 2024

As 2023 draws to a close, PBS has had to say farewell to a couple of its most popular shows, including two Masterpiece series that have been mainstays the last few years, period drama Sanditon, and long-running mystery series Endeavour. But the end of one series merely makes room for the inclusion of another. Masterpiece has already started announcing the lineup for 2024, with British titles that fans are super excited about arriving at the top of January. But that's only the beginning of a long lineup of British shows this year. Between Walter Presents and other PBS distributors, 2024 promises to be filled with new titles.

However, we should note that as of this writing, there are a few shows that have not officially been announced as returning. For example, Van der Valk Season 4 was rumored to be going into production in July 2023, which aligned with how Season 3 was filmed the previous year. However, by November, Season 3 officially confirmed its return and announced its new cast, whereas there's been nothing official about Season 4 yet. 

Also still in limbo: World on Fire Season 3 and Annika Season 3. The former took so long to return after Season 1 that it lost its main leads, and it would not be a surprise if it failed to land another season. However, Annika's lack of renewal is a genuine surprise. The series has massively high ratings in the U.K. and the U.S., lead Nicola Walker is (by all accounts) super committed to it, and Season 2 left viewers on a major cliffhanger. Hopefully, the delay is due to a multi-season deal (or something of that nature) because it would be very odd for it to be canceled.

But for now, here's a rundown of the shows we know are returning we're most excited to see in 2024.

January's lineup kicks off with the fourth season of Miss Scarlet & the Duke, which sees Eliza Scarlet (Kate Phillips) now in possession of a successful detective agency while her bestie Detective William "The Duke" Wellington (Stuart Martin) helps her solve crimes from the official angle. Check out our recap of everything to remember ahead of the premiere from Seasons 2 and 3 as the Scarleteers gear up for another season of Eliza and William doing the will-they-or-won't-they dance.

Miss Scarlet & The Duke Season 4 premieres on Sunday, January 7, 2024, at 8 p.m. ET and streams on PBS Passport with all episodes the same day.

The most comforting TV show for winter's chill, the Yorkshire Dales are calling with All Creatures Great & Small, now rounding into Season 4. It's time once more for the gentle adventures of James Herriot (Nicholas Ralph) and the crew of Skeldale House, soldiering on in their mission to save one cow at a time, World War II and Hitler's Blitz be damned. Catch up with everything you need to remember ahead of the premiere with our Season 3 recap here.

All Creatures Great & Small Season 4 premieres on Sunday, January 7, 2024, at 9 p.m. ET and streams on PBS Passport with all episodes the same day.

The first brand new series to arrive in 2024 for PBS, Funny Woman is based on Nick Hornby's best-selling book Funny Girl. Written by Morwenna Banks and starring Gemma Arterton, the 1960s set period drama centers on Barbara Parker, who has just been crowned Miss Blackpool. Determined to be more than a beauty queen in a seaside town, she heads to London to become a TV comedian, only to discover it's a man's man's man's man's world. 

Funny Woman Season 1 premieres on Sunday, January 7, 2024, at 10 p.m. ET and streams on PBS Passport with all episodes the same day. Season 2 is already greenlit.

When it comes to comfort TV, no one does it quite like Call the Midwife. Now on its 13th season, with multiple more renewed through the mid-2020s, the series is verging on exiting the 1960s altogether as it reaches 1969. Nurse Trixie is now married and middle-class, new midwives are arriving to fill out the ranks, while the nuns continue to make sure Nonnatus House remains standing firm in Poplar's East London area despite the increasing modernization all around them.

Call The Midwife Season 13 debuts on Sunday, March 17, 2024, at 8 p.m. ET and airs weekly on linear for the show's eight-week run. Season 13 will debut one month early for PBS Passport members, starting Sunday, February 18, and stream episodes once a week.

Americans may not have heard of Noele “Nolly” Gordon, but once upon a time, she was one of the most famous faces on British TV in the 1960s and ’70s. Gordon, a vaudeville star who moved to radio and then TV, rose to household fame playing Meg Richardson in the hit ITV soap Crossroads, but the move that made her truly famous was the decision to axe her at the height of the show’s success. Helena Bonham Carter stars as the icon in Nolly, set just as her downfall hits in this three-part drama.

Nolly debuts on Sunday, March 17, 2024, at 9 p.m. ET and will debut with all episodes on PBS Passport the same day.

The Channel 4 romantic drama Alice & Jack was already being hyped in the summer of 2023 before Masterpiece boarded it in August. Created and written by Victor Levin (Mad Men), the series stars Andrea Riseborough (The Witness for the Prosecution) and Domhnall Gleeson (son of Brendan Gleeson) in a contemporary love story called "honest, intimate, and surprisingly funny; the series shows love in all its unexpected, technicolor, kaleidoscopic beauty."

Alice & Jack debuts on Sunday, March 17, 2024, at 10 p.m. ET and will debut with all episodes on PBS Passport the same day.

Suranne Jones’ first effort at penning her own series, MaryLand, also will be part of PBS' spring lineup, thanks to Nolly only running three episodes. A family drama about two sisters reunited over the death of their mother, Mary, the series stars Jones as Becca and Eve Best as her sister Rosaline with Stockard Channing as Cathy, an American who turns out to have known their mother far better than either sister did. The three-part drama takes over the 9 p.m. slot after Nolly concludes.

MaryLand debuts on Sunday, April 7, 2024, at 9 p.m. ET and will debut with all episodes on PBS Passport the same day.

With Endeavour over, new mysteries are heading to PBS, including Masterpiece's newest co-commission, The Marlow Murder Club. Starring Samantha Bond (Downton Abbey), Jo Martin (Doctor Who), and Cara Horgan (The Sandman) as the three women who start the club after murder strikes the quiet riverside town of Marlow, this brand new women-centric series currently is listed as a one-off, but will hopefully turn into a long-running cozy crime show if it hits big.

The Marlow Murder Club is expected to arrive on PBS in 2024 as part of the summer lineup of mysteries and debut on PBS Passport with all episodes on premiere day.

PBS and ITV confirmed Grantchester Season 9 filming was underway in July 2023, but that announcement also included Tom Brittney would be exiting the series in the show's first two episodes the same way James Norton did back in Season 4. However, fans will not be left without a spiritual guide, and Geordie will not be stuck solving crimes with Leonard again. Season 9 will introduce Rishi Nair as Rev Alphy Kotteram, a priest with an instinctive distrust for authority and no desire to get involved in murder investigations. But Alphy and Geordie will discover they have more in common than they think, and in Grantchester, murder is never far away. 

Grantchester Season 9 is expected to arrive on PBS in 2024 as part of the summer lineup of mysteries and debut on PBS Passport with all episodes on premiere day.

D.I. Ray Season 1 hadn't premiered on PBS linear channels before ITV announced Season 2 filming was underway in June 2022. Parminder Nagra returns as the titular Detective Inspector Rachita Ray in the Jed Mercurio-produced series where her status as one of the only South Asian women to reach DI status means she often gets assigned to high profile "racially sensitive" cases, not because her superiors respect her or think she's capable of solving them, but mostly to cover their arses. Season 2 will see her facing another case where the white men around her have misjudged everything, and this time, she needs to prevent a turf war on top of it.

D.I. Ray Season 2 is expected to arrive on PBS in 2024 as part of the summer lineup of mysteries and debut on PBS Passport with all episodes on premiere day.

The U.K. version of Professor T didn't start out promising, but Season 2 showed marked improvement, to the point that we find ourselves looking forward to the return of Ben Miller as the titular criminologist far more than we ever expected. It helped that Season 2 leaned into Frances de la Tour as Jasper's mother, Adelaide Tempest, and added Juliet Stevenson (The Long Call) as Jasper's therapist, Dr. Helena Goldberg. Season 3 promises to double down on them further, which sounds delightful.

Professor T Season 3 is expected to arrive on PBS in 2024 as part of either the summer lineup of mysteries or the early fall and debut on PBS Passport with all episodes on premiere day.

Unlike Professor T, Hotel Portofino did not improve as much from Season 1 to Season 2, but it did improve enough that Season 3 is not something anyone dreads. (Yes, this is a subtweet of Guilt Season 3, which is not on this list for that very reason.) In fact, Hotel Portofino improved to the point that it is now a pleasant escapist watch, even if it's not the best eight pm lead in series we've ever seen. Either way, we look forward to seeing how it progresses next year.

Hotel Portofino Season 3 is expected to arrive on PBS in 2024 as part of the fall debuts and land on PBS Passport with all episodes on premiere day.

Magpie Murders was the surprise PBS hit of 2022, one of the best murder mystery series debuts in years; clever, confident, intelligent, and above all, fun. It was merely a question of how long until Masterpiece greenlit the sequel based on Andrew Horowitz's follow-up novel, Moonflower Murders, and when Lesley Manville would be able to fit filming it into her schedule. Thankfully the answer to both was "not long," with the announcement that filming had concluded in December 2023. If you haven't read the book yet, start now.

Moonflower Murders (aka Magpie Murders Season 2) is expected to arrive on PBS in 2024 as part of the fall debuts and land on PBS Passport with all episodes on premiere day.

The introduction of Sinead Keenan as DCI Jess James was a little rockier than Unforgotten fans hoped in Season 5, primarily due to the show trying to shoehorn in too much mystery along with her arrival. (That was a season that called for a more straightforward mystery, and it didn't have one.) However, now that she's here and established (and the rating has gone through the roof), Season 6 was immediately greenlit in the spring of 2023 and hopefully, that means it will be along quickly enough that fans will not have to wait three years between seasons.

Unforgotten Season 6 is (hopefully!) expected to arrive on PBS as part of the 2024-2025 TV season and land on PBS Passport with all episodes on premiere day.

Masterpiece's adaptation of Gil Hornsby's novel Miss Austen has been brewing since the summer of 2022, but it wasn't until November 2023 that filming finally got underway. Starring future Dame Keeley Hawes, the story takes the real-life literary mystery of Cassandra Austen notoriously burning her famous sister Jane’s letters – and reimagines it as a fascinating, witty, and heartbreaking story of sisterly love. The limited series is a four-part drama and probably will not take that long to film, so there's a chance it may make it to PBS before the end of the year. However, it could also be early 2025 before we see it. 

Miss Austen is expected to arrive on PBS as part of the 2024-2025 TV season and land on PBS Passport with all episodes on premiere day.

For all of us who have been waiting since 2015, our time has finally come. Wolf Hall, one of the most gorgeously shot period pieces ever made, based on Hilary Mantel's novels, will return to finish out the story with Wolf Hall: The Mirror & The Light. Damian Lewis returns as the hottest Henry VIII to ever Henry VIII with Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell and a slew of A-list British talent co-starring. Like Miss Austen, filming has only just gotten underway, so 2024 is an optimist's outlook; it too could wind up as an early 2025 debut.

Wolf Hall: The Mirror & The Light (aka Wolf Hall Season 2) is expected to arrive on PBS as part of the 2024-2025 TV season and land on PBS Passport with all episodes on premiere day.