The Top British Shows to Look Forward to In 2024

The mid-2020s will be a time of realignment for streaming services after a decade of mass proliferation. Hulu is beta-testing as a tile under the Disney+ banner; Max has combined Discovery+ and HBO. But that's just the beginning of the Great Rebundling. Amazon will start offering MGM+ and Starz as a unit; it probably won't be long until Amazon Prime includes them wholesale. Max has already been hosting AMC+ series as a row; does it buy AMC Networks piecemeal or as a unit, or let someone else have it? Meanwhile, Paramount+ is looking for a buyer; Warner really wanted to be that buyer but isn't ready yet, and Paramount probably can't wait. Peacock probably isn't far behind on the chopping block; the question is if that's who Warner buys instead or if Netflix decides the best path to respectability is purchasing an old media company. 

In short, by the time the next two years are over, there will be several fewer streaming services to subscribe to. However, one thing won't change: British shows will continue to be everywhere they want to be. The BBC continues to profit off the mass confusion and desperations of these services needing constant content, and with TV licensing fees slashed and Tory threats to slash budgets, it's the best thing U.K. TV has going in terms of revenue. As long as that holds true, every year, we will need to run down a list of what's coming for the year and where you will find it.

So here's a rundown of the British shows we are most looking forward to in 2024 and where you'll find them in the endless row of apps on your television.

Netflix has a lot of British and "British-ish" fare coming in 2024, much of which fans know lots about and are highly anticipating, including new seasons of Bridgerton, The Sandman, The Diplomat, The Great British Baking Show, Heartstopper, and new Wallace and Gromit. That's why I'm using this platform to stump for something you probably don't know is arriving on Netflix in all of two weeks' time: Champion. The eight-part BBC musical series is a love letter to British Black music, with a story of Champion siblings Bosco (Malcolm Kamulete) and Vita (Déja J Bowens) and their musical rivalry to make it to the top. Nadine Marshall, Ray Fearon, and Jo Martin co-star.

All eight episodes of Champion arrive on Netflix in the U.S. on January 11, 2024.

For those who just finished The Gilded Age Season 2 over on HBO and are feeling bereft of hats, cloaks, and ridiculous Julian Fellowes-penned drama, fear not! Belgravia has arisen from the dead. You may vaguely remember Belgravia as that weird Downton Abbey follow-up from the middle of last decade that ran on that Epix channel and streaming service you never watched and then forgot all about. Well, Amazon buying out MGM means it now owns all things Epix, which it smartly rechristened MGM+ because no one knew what Epix was anyhow, and revived Belgravia for eight episodes on a new generation. Also: Hats! Cloaks! Ridiculous Fellowes Drama!

Belgravia: The Next Chapter (aka Belgravia Season 2) debuts on MGM+ on Sunday, January 14, and streams weekly through March 10, 2024.

There are a ton of shows that have aired on the BBC in 2023 that are coming to American shores in 2024 that we'ere excited for. Murder is Easy, for example, the Agatha Christie murder mystery was a massive hit over Christmas in the U.K. and will be heading to BritBox in the new year. But then there are shows like The Gallows Pole. The three-part period piece series, adapted by Shane Meadows from the novel by Benjamin Myers, is a historical fiction about the very real Cragg Vale Coiners set during the onset of the Industrial Revolution in 18th-century Yorkshire. 

Starring Downton Abbey's Sophie McShera and Being Human's Michael Socha, one would think this would be a no-brainer for PBS, BritBox, Acorn TV, or even HBO to pick up. And yet, it remains without an American distributor. Unacceptable. Someone bring The Gallows Pole to American streaming in 2024.

Nearly everything British Paramount+ greenlit in 2022 to bring to the American version of the streamer is about to end up somewhere else, so sorry to everyone who is waiting on A Gentleman in Moscow, The Burning Girls, The Doll Factory, The Serial Killer's Wife... I could go on, but you get the picture. Let's be thankful for the little we are getting, including the Ruth Wilson six-part series The Woman In The Wall, which is actually due to Showtime, which is still worth watching sometimes, despite Paramount's best efforts. Based on the horrific Magdalene Laundries practices in Ireland that were only uncovered in the 1990s, this mystery series got rave reviews in 2023.

The Woman in the Wall will stream on Paramount + starting on Friday, January 19, and air on Showtime starting Sunday, January 21, and run on a weekly schedule through the end of February 2024.

Raise your hand if you remember the movie Boiling Point, which came out during the pandemic in 2021 and starred Stephen Graham, Vinette Robinson, Ray Panthaki, and Hannah Walters. It was a post-lockdown hit in the U.K., a one-take, 90-minute film shot in a real London kitchen about the busiest night of the year at Christmas at a high-end restaurant. (It streamed here on Amazon Prime.) It was critically acclaimed, got a slew of nominations and awards, and a BBC spin-off starring the same cast, with episodes filmed in the same manner. It, too, is a critical darling, more than the original film, as the stamina to do episode after episode is far greater than a one-shot film.

I understand that Robinson and Graham aren't massive stars in the U.S., though she starred in the Rosa Parks Doctor Who episode, and he was in Line of Duty Season 5. But this is, like, BUILT for Netflix. Why is it not here? Fix it, 2024.

BritBox is the streaming service with the most coming in 2024 to look forward to. There are new seasons of Sister Boniface, Father Brown, Beyond Paradise, Death in Paradise, Vera, Grace, Karen Pirie, Sherwood, The Bay, The Responder, Time, The Tower... and that's not touching the new titles coming over. However, of the new series, the one I'm personally looking forward to is Sir Lenny Henry's first-ever penned series, based on his mother's experience immigrating to the U.K. as part of the Windrush Generation, Three Little Birds. The six-part series stars a lineup of brand-new talent and presents one of the under-told stories of British history.

Three Little Birds will arrive in two parts on BritBox, with the first three episodes on Thursday, February 1, and the other three episodes on Thursday, February 8, 2024.

I know that the BBC has spent decades as the dominant distributor of TV entertainment in the U.K. I understand that it does not necessarily consider Googlability when it chooses the names of its TV shows. However, The Following Events Are Based on a Pack of Lies may be one of the more painful search titles I have run across in The Year of our Lord Two Thousand Twenty-Three. That being said, the cast! Alistair Petrie! Romola Garai! Derek Jacobi! Marianne Jean-Baptiste! The plot, which isn't based on a true story, but there's truth in it, a non-true-crime true-crime-drama! Is your head spinning yet?

Mine is! Purely because there's no American distributor to pick this delightfully dark comedy up yet! AMC+, your brand is calling! The Following Events need to come to American streaming in 2024, please, and thank you.

Up until this entry, everything I've mentioned has been a TV series, but I'm making an exception for Firebrand. Unlike most Henry VIII films, this one bypasses Catherine of Aragon, skips over Anne Boleyn, does away with Jane Seymour, ignores Anne of Cleeves and Catherine Howard, and goes straight to Katherine Parr, final wife and only survivor of the famous Six Wives. Starring Alicia Vikander as Parr and Jude Law as the least hot Henry VIII to ever Henry VIII, the film premiered at Cannes in 2023 but only finally landed an American distributor in December 2023 and at last has a release date in 2024.

Firebrand will debut in theaters on Friday, June 21, 2024.

Since AT&T launched "HBO Max" while failing to market a single thing on it, assuming that if they built it, eyeballs would come, its British fare has been lost to Americans. Tons of ink has been spilled on Discovery's David Zaslav's cold-blooded murder of Warner titles and HBO series since Warern media was sold to Discovery, but no one notices the British fare has suffered just as badly. Finally, the first escapee, The Tourist, is moving to Netflix. Now it's time for the best show Max never marketed to find a new home: The Great Pottery Throwdown, and someone to bring over Season 6, which Max never bothered to import last year.

I'm begging someone, anyone! Netflix, BritBox, Disney/Hulu, PBS, Acorn TV ... (ok, OK, not Peacock or Paramount+) ... Someone rescue The Great Pottery Throw Down and restart importing new seasons.

Ever since a small blue police telephone box landed in a junkyard in 1963, Doctor Who has been a staple of British television, and ever since PBS stations launched a few years later, it's been a series that has been part of the American landscape. Over the decades, many different networks have been responsible for bringing Doctor Who to American shores, from Fox's 1996 film to NBC Universal's SyFy in the aughts to BBC America in the 2010s. Now it's Disney's turn, and in true House of Mouse fashion, they're attempting to restart the numbers system, with 2024's Season 14 billed as Season 1 all over again. Personally, I am going with Season 40, thank you very much. It makes it less confusing to have the season numbers not be so close to the current Doctor and all that. And current Doctor Ncuti Gatwa is quite the breath of fresh air. If I weren't 39 seasons in, I'd be happy to start from Season 1.

No matter what season this is for you, Season 1, Season 14, or Season 40, Doctor Who is, once again, the Number One show to tune into in 2024. Welcome back to the TARDIS y'all. Doctor Who returns to America in May 2024.