Catch Up on 'Victoria' This Christmas on PBS
MASTERPIECE Victoria, Season 3 First look image for Victoria, Season 3. Premieres Sunday, January 13 on MASTERPIECE PBS Shown from left to right: Tom Hughes as Prince Albert and Jenna Coleman as Queen Victoria For editorial use only. Credit: ITV Plc for MASTERPIECE
Need to catch up on Victoria before Season 3 begins in January? This Christmas binge is right on time.
PBS' Victoria has not always adhered strictly to the historical record of the Queen's reign. The series loves to take liberties with the past, with the values Victoria (Jenna Coleman) herself held and stretch events for dramatic value. But there's one thing the show has consistently gotten right, and that's the queen's love of the Germanic Christmas traditions, first introduced to her by her beloved husband Albert (Tom Hughes), and then, in turn, introduced to the UK public. So it's fitting the PBS replay of last season is scheduled to occur over the Christmas holiday.
Starting this coming Sunday, December 23, at 7 p.m. WETA and other local PBS stations will kick of an encore broadcast of the whole of Victoria Season 2, with the first three episodes, airing from 7 p.m. ET to 12 midnight. The back half of the season, episodes 4-7, will run the following Sunday, December 30, 2018, from 7 p.m. ET to 11:30 p.m. As for those looking for Victoria Season 1 to refresh themselves on the entire series, it's available anytime on WETA Passport. (So is Season 2, for that matter. Pick your preferred viewing method!)
Victoria Season 2 picks up just after the birth of the queen's first child (also named Victoria) at the beginning of 1841 and technically ends around 1848, with a few zigs and zags in the timeline skipping ahead and then back over some of the most dramatic moments of the decade. The seven episodes cover everything from Victoria's postpartum depression after the quick succession births of her first few children, the Irish Famine, and some of Victoria's political highs and lows of her early years, from her attempts to bolster the silk market to the fall of monarchies overseas to rebellions at home. The season ended with the resignation of her current Prime Minister, Robert Peel (Nigel Lindsay).
Season 3 plans to pick up right around where the series left off, with an episode entitled "Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown." This was an era where monarchies began falling left and right, and concerns about a revolution on U.K. soil become more prevalent as the Chartist movement reaches its zenith towards the end of the decade.
Unlike previous seasons, the U.K. will also be preparing for Victoria to air on ITV around the same time it arrives in the states. After two seasons of the series airing in September and October over there, and then waiting three months to turn up in America, ITV has held the series until early January. Though no premiere date has been set, fans assume the UK debut will be close to, if not coincide with the episodes airing in the states, which begins on January 13.
As always, Lacy here at Telly Visions will be recapping the new season, and I'll be checking up on the real stories behind the show in our "Know Your Victorian History" series.
The Victoria Season 2 rewatch begins on Sunday, Dec 23, 2018, at 7 p.m. ET. Victoria Season 3 premieres on Sunday, January 13, 2019, at 9 p.m. ET on Masterpiece. As with all PBS shows, check your local listings, just to be safe - your station may be offering additional marathons or catch-up opportunities prior to the Season 3 premiere. (For example, here in D.C., WETA will broadcast Season 2 in its entirety on New Year's Eve.)
