Everything British Worth Streaming in February 2024

The grey days of February are here, when the snow turns to sludge, and the late blizzards arrive right when you wish everything would warm up. Somehow, the month is simultaneously too long and too short at the same time. Also, every four years, someone adds an extra day at the end of it just to cause massive confusion. In conclusion, February is the rudest month, and, amazingly, it hasn't been sacked as part of overall cost-cutting measures to bring the year down from 12 months to a more easily streamlined ten.

February is also rude because it is one of those months when very few new releases arrive either in theaters or on streaming. In films, the end-of-the-year releases that rushed to open in New York and Los Angeles to qualify for the Oscars have fully opened nationwide, and all that's left are the films being dumped because they weren't award contenders by the time they were finished, and the occasional Valentine's romance. In television, the major rush of British shows that debuted in January are all tickling to a conclusion; however, none of the award-worthy shows that want to make a splash with Emmy voters are ready to debut because the window for that doesn't start until March. Once again, there's little worth noting, save the occasional romance and Black History-oriented program.

That said, a few noteworthy programs are arriving this month that fall outside those two buckets, many of them from the U.K. that aired in January and are now legally able to air in America with the conclusion of their run across the pond. Plus, there are a couple of early award-season arrivals from networks that have so many they wound up having to back up a debut or two to the back half of February to fit everything in. Let's run down what arrivals there are to get us through this overlong, yet still too short, leap year February. 

Far North

Billed as "mostly based on an unbelievable true story," Far North stars Star Wars' Temuera Morrison as the real-life Māori diesel mechanic and his aqua-aerobics instructing wife who found themselves roped into a Tongan-Australian gang's drug deal when it went sideways, and how they fooled the inept gang into believing they were helping. The six-episode series premieres Thursday, February 15, 2024, on AMC+ and Sundance Now and streams with one episode a week through mid-March.

The Madame Blanc Mysteries Season 3

Madame Blanc is back for a third season of crime solving. Acorn TV's beloved cozy mystery series from creator Sally Lindsay, The Madame Blanc Myserties, returns for the rest of Season 3 after the series premiere/holiday special arrived in December 2023. Now Lindsay is back as Jean White with six more mysteries to solve, starting with a double episode premiere on Monday, February 19. 2024, with weekly episodes to follow through mid-March.

Murdoch Mysteries Season 17

Speaking of long-running cozy crime favorites, Murdoch Mysteries is also returning to Acorn TV for a new season. The beloved period Canadian mystery series debuted Season 17 in October 2023 and finally finished its run on the CBC in January. The new season will arrive on Acorn TV on Monday, February 26, 2024, again with a double episode premiere, before going to weekly episodes streaming every Monday from March to the end of July.

Argylle

Apple TV+'s foray into films has mostly been aimed at Oscar fare. It's hard to tell if Argylle was an Oscarbait film gone wrong or if it was always meant to be a hilariously godawful James Bond spoof, but anything with British mysteries, cat ladies, Henry Cavill and Dua Lipa being hot while dancing to disco, and train travel is clearly aimed at us. The film opens in theatres on Friday, February 2, 2024, and will arrive on streaming within days after it bombs spectacularly at the box office.

The New Look

The New Look, on the other hand, is very much awardsbait pushed back to February because Apple TV+ has far too much. Ben Mendelsohn, Juliette Binoche, Glenn Close, John Malkovich, and Nuno Lopes play real-life designers Christian Dior, Coco Chanel, Carmel Snow, Lucien Lelong, and Cristóbal Balenciaga during the post-World War II heyday of fashion design. The series premieres with two episodes on Wednesday, February 14, 2024, and then one a week through the end of March.

Three Little Birds

The best thing available for Black History Month is the British series Three Little Birds, Sir Lenny Henry's first foray into writing after decades as first a comic and then a serious actor. Loosely based on his mother's experience emigrating from Jamaica to the U.K. as part of the Windrush Generation, this period piece drama is one of the under-told stories of British History. The first three episodes debut Thursday, February 1, 2024, with the other three following Thursday, February 8.

Bad Education Season 5

The revival of the popular BBC series Bad Education was such a hit that it was renewed for another round, bringing the show's season total to five. The fifth season of the program is the second to feature original cast members Layton Williams and Charlie Wernham, who played students in the show's first three seasons, back as teachers to a new generation of misfit students dealing with new technology but the same old problems. All seven episodes debut Wednesday, February 7, 2024.

BAFTA Red Carpet & Film Awards 2024

The yearly British Film Awards, known as the BAFTAs are making a play for people to actually watch this year, since unlike regular years, they're not on the same night as the Grammys. (This is all due to the award schedule gone higgildy piggildy over the strike.) Anyway, they have David Tennant hosting, live musical acts, and both the red carpet and the show are streaming live on BritBox on Sunday, February 18, 2024.

Vera Season 13

Vera's first Christmas special after twelve seasons on the air was a massive hit in December 2023, and now the regular series returns to BritBox having finished its January run on ITV. The new season is made up of three feature-length episodes, with David Leon returning to the program for the first time since his departure in Season 4. The series debuts on Wednesday, February 28, 2024, and will stream weekly through mid-March.

Shogun

Another awards bait series arriving a touch early, Cosmo Jarvis and Hiroyuki Sanada anchor the period drama revival of Shogun, the 1970s British-written novel about a 17th-century soldier of His Majesty's Navy who joined forces with the Japanese emperor in the ongoing civil war. The new version is more Japanese-centric and less white savior-angled, but it's still our lane. The series premieres on Tuesday, February 27, 2024, at 9 p.m. and runs weekly on FX, streaming the next day on Hulu.

One Day

The major romance of the month for Anglophiles isn't Bridgerton; it's One Day, the first TV series adaptation of the popular David Nicholls novel of the same name, starring Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall. The story checks in on the couple in question once a year as they fail and try and fail to get together because the timing is never right. All 14 (FOURTEEN? In this economy?) episodes arrive on Thursday, February 8, 2024.

Lover, Stalker, Killer

Some horror documentaries really just are what they say on the tin. Lover, Stalker, Killer, sure. If you like this sort of thing, it's going to be the sort of thing you like. The documentary arrives on Friday, February 9, 2024.

Einstein & the Bomb

Some nerdy documentaries where they recreate scenes with actors really are what they say on the tin. Einstein and the Bomb is at least trying to take advantage of the Oppenheimer tie-in at the Oscars. The documentary arrives on Friday, February 16, 2024.

The Tourist Season 2

After HBO Max failed to market anything the BBC did with them the entire time it existed, the BBC did not wait around to see Max do the same thing. It took its hit, The Tourist, bag and baggage, to Netflix, where American audiences would actually be told the program exists. Season 1 is streaming there already; Season 2 joins it on Thursday, February 29, 2024.

Ghosts Season 3

Listen, the U.K. version of Ghosts may be over, but the American one lives on, and we here at Telly Visions feel we should at least let you guys know it debuts on Thursday, February 15, 2024, on CBS and streams on Paramount+ the same day. It's only polite.

Vigil Season 2

Even though Peacock has realized that it really isn't doing well with the British thriller dramas and has already started shedding them, it had already committed to streaming the second season of Vigil before that realization dawned. So sadly, the Suranne Jones-Rose Leslie smash hit from across the pond continues to be lost on a streaming service where no one knows it exists. Please go find it. All episodes of Season 2, which is airplanes instead of boats, arrive Thursday, February 15, 2024.