Everything British for PBS Viewers to Stream in April 2024

Winter has officially rolled out, at least as far as the calendar is concerned, and spring is here. April is one of the best times of the year, both outside in the sunshine and inside in the glow of the television. This is the month when the big boys roll out: the new episodes of the highest-budget, best-reviewed, most-anticipated shows on the calendar. 

Most of the time, that's a sentence I would leave for the "Best of British Shows on Streaming" list, which is the other one we publish, detailing what's coming everywhere that's not PBS. But for once, just this once, Rose, everybody is getting a show to be proud of in April. Sure, Masterpiece had to cause chaos behind the scenes across the PBS landscape for it to happen, but honestly, I hope it becomes more of the norm if it means that we get more series like Mr Bates vs the Post Office and fewer shows like Alice & Jack.

To be clear, Alice & Jack isn't going anywhere this month; the six-episode series will continue to stream new episodes on the PBS app and PBS Masterpiece Channel weekly through April 21 until it is replaced by Masterpiece's next series, debuting April 28 (more about that at the bottom of the list). But with Nolly having shuffled offstage and Call the Midwife's early release on PBS Passport concluding Season 13 on April 5 (though new episodes will continue to stream on the PBS app and the PBS Prime Video channel throughout the month), Mr Bates has the lane to itself this month, along with a few other significant titles.

Here's a rundown of everything streaming on PBS or April 2024 and where to find it.

It's a plethora of mystery-solving women from down under to kick off April, and when I say "down under," I mean Acorn TV. First up, the series that put Acron TV on the map returns to its rightful home where most fans watched it in the first place, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. The 1920s period piece series from Australia starring Essie Davies streams for the first time on PBS Passport with all thirteen episodes of Season 1, with Seasons 2 and 3 lined up to arrive in subsequent months. The series will also air on linear stations for the first time in ages; check your local listings for debut dates.

All episodes of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Season 1 are streaming on select PBS Passport stations only on Monday, April 1, 2024. Check your local streaming service.

Miss Fisher isn't the only series from the other side of the world arriving on PBS Passport on April 1; also coming over from Acorn TV for the first time ever to PBS, there's the Lucy Lawless series My Life is Murder. This is arguably a slightly bigger deal than Miss Fisher, which at least had run on most PBS stations in the past, just not PBS Passport since it was already exclusive to Acorn by the time that debuted. My Life is Murder, on the other hand, was snapped up by Acorn TV before Season 1 debuted in New Zealand, and Acorn TV has been a driving force in keeping the show going since Season 2. This will be My Life is Murder's first time streaming on PBS Passport and airing on linear stations, so once again, check those local listings.

All episodes of My Life is Murder Season 1 are streaming on select PBS Passport stations only on Monday, April 1, 2024. Check your local streaming service.

If it's April, there will be Earth Day programming. That's just how it is; stop arguing about whether or not that's actually helping the earth. If there will be Earth Day programming, there's a 90% chance it will involve David Attenborough, especially if it's a show on PBS. And voilà, I give you Attenborough & The Giant Elephant, the 2017 documentary where David Attenborough investigates the life story of Jumbo the Elephant, the celebrity animal superstar who is said to have inspired the movie Dumbo. The film begins streaming at the top of the month; most stations will probably save linear airing for closer to April 22; as always, check your local listings.

Attenborough & The Giant Elephant is streaming on select PBS Passport stations only on Monday, April 1, 2024. Check your local streaming service.

You know the drill: He came, he saw, the BBC made a three-part series about him. (Veni, Vidi, Caesar est omnis BBC divisa in partes tres.) Julius Caesar: Making of a Dictator aired on the BBC in November 2023; the series now comes stateside to PBS, where it will air on most PBS stations starting April 2, 2024. Narrated by Janet McTeer, with a murderer's row of British actors dramatizing Caesar's story of dismantling 5000 years of democracy in the span of four presidential terms, the miniseries is far more relevant than any of us would like to admit right now.

Julius Caesar: Making of a Dictator begins streaming weekly on the PBS app and the PBS Masterpiece Channel starting Monday, April 2. All three episodes will be available to stream on PBS Passport from Monday, April 16 onward.

The Nordic Murders (Der Usedom-Krimi, technically The Usedom Mysteries, but also airs under Baltic Crimes) is considered one series, airing for nine years and counting. However, Walter Presents and PBS have broken it into seasons for American viewers. The first five episodes arrived in December 2022 as Season 1, the following five as Season 2 in April 2023, and the next six as Season 3 in September 2023. Now, Season 4 arrives, comprised of the following four installments. That takes viewers up through everything released up to 2022, so there's more to come.

The next set of The Nordic Murders episodes, dubbed "Season 4," will stream on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel on Friday, April 5, 2024. 

Masterpiece reconfigured its entire Spring 2024 lineup after it was locked and loaded across the national PBS network to bring viewers Mr Bates vs the Post Office, ITV's biggest hit since Downton Abbey in 2012. The level of "this never happens" cannot be overstated enough. It's only made the anticipation for the Toby Jones-led, star-studded series that tells the true story of how the British government would rather lock up its own innocent citizens than admit it spent millions on a faulty data system to track postage stamp sales that much higher.

Yes, you read that right. Locked up hundreds upon hundreds of its own citizens, insisting they were felons, and forcing them to pay thousands of pounds in fines for money it knew perfectly well they hadn't stolen just because they didn't want to admit to a bad decision in 1999. C'mon, let's all get mad at 9 p.m. on Sunday nights together in April as a family.

All four episodes of Mr Bates vs the Post Office arrive on PBS Passport for members on Sunday, April 7, and debuts weekly episodes on the PBS App and PBS Masterpiece Channel. The documentary detailing how the series got the details correct, The Real Mr Bates vs the Post Office, follows the series finale on Sunday, April 28, 2024, and streams the same night on all platforms.

PBS picked up the rights to start streaming the Gershiwin Prize for Popular Song in 2023, starting with Joni Mitchell's induction. This year, it's lucked into getting a British awardee, which means the yearly program gets to grace our list. Elton John & Bernie Taupin: The 2024 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song may be awarding John and Taupin for their catalog of songs, but it's also winning the award for the longest title I'll have to try to figure out how to fit into an SEO all year. Congrats all around.

Elton John & Bernie Taupin: The 2024 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song will stream on the PBS app only on Monday, April 8, and shift to PBS Passport for members on Tuesday, May 7, 2024.

The Dutch series Black Tulip (Zwarte Tulp) was originally released in May 2015. At the time, it was the first Dutch series to be broadcast via streaming before it aired on linear. All 12 episodes of Season 1 were dropped as a binge, and Season 2 (also 12 episodes) was released in May 2016.  Set in the flower bulb region of the Netherlands in the modern day, the series focuses on the feud between the longtime flower-growing families, the Vonks and the Kesters, reignited over the race to cultivate the rare black tulip. 

All episodes of Black Tulip Season 1 arrive on Friday, April 12, on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel.

It has been over a year since The Mountain Detective (Alex Hugo) debuted on PBS Passport in January 2023. The series is super popular in France; it started airing in 2014 on France 2 and switched to France 3 in 2021. Samuel Le Bihan (The Deep Dark) stars as the titular Alex Hugo, Mountain Detective, a former top cop from Marseille. Nicknamed “La Tendresse,” the case-of-the-week series begins when Hugo leaves the city, no longer able to tolerate the violence of his profession, only to find himself winding up the chief inspector of the rural police force in the mountains where he makes his new home.

However! It should be noted that “Season 1” of The Mountain Detective is not actually Season 1. For one thing, it’s nine episodes....and The Mountain Detective’s first season was three installments. Walter Presents’ Season 1 is a mishmash of episodes of Seasons 4-6 in randomized order. Season 2 will be ten episodes, the descriptions of which suggest they are Seasons 7-10, also smashed together in no particular order. Whether or not the series plans to go back for the early seasons or not remains to be seen.

New episodes of The Mountain Detective under the “Season 2” moniker arrive Friday, April 19, on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel.

There are two versions of The Crimson Rivers (Les Rivières Pourpres). There's the movie version, which debuted in 2000 starring Jean Reno and Vincent Cassell. Then there's this version, the TV series, which debuted in 2018 and is a spinoff of the film. The series stars Olivier Marchal in Reno's role of Pierre Niémans and ran four seasons on France 2, ending in 2022. Season 3 debuted in April 2023, Season 2 debuted in February 2023; Season 1 is not on PBS Passport. (No, I have no idea why.) 

The Crimson Rivers Season 4 arrives with all eight episodes on Friday, April 26, on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel. This will be the last season unless it gets renewed.

Like a bad penny, Masterpiece's insistence on guilting us into watching the Scottish series Guilt turns up once more after Alice & Jack concludes. The good news is that Season 3 is the final season of Guilt, so after this, we will be guilt-free (barring a revival or a reboot, of course). The better news for those who will watch it because they must is that both Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sivies are back for this final season, so at least it doesn't feel like someone's forcing it to keep going despite everyone else saying no. Unfortunately, Masterpiece chose now to be the time where it actually allows the show to run as four one-hour weekly installments as originally intended instead of forcing it into a pair of two-hour movies or two one-hour installments and then a two-hour finale, so it will take forever to finish.

All four episodes of Guilt Season 3 will arrive on PBS Passport for those who wish to get it over with on Sunday, April 28, and debuts weekly installments on the PBS app and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel through mid-May.