'Grantchester' Debuts Season 10 with the New Normal

It's been a decade since Grantchester first debuted on PBS, initially launching in January 2015 on this side of the pond, directly following episodes of Downton Abbey Season 5. The show has come a long way from the direct adaptation of James Runchie's six short stories from Sidney Chambers & the Shadow of Death, which was repackaged wth successive volumes as The Grantchester Mysteries, giving the show its name. After using Downton Abbey to successfully launch the new offering, PBS moved it wholesale to summer, pairing it with Endeavour through the early 2020s, as the show found itself cycling through vicars, just as Death in Paradise does with London-based detectives.

Much like the now-long-running Death in Paradise (and Doctor Who before them), Grantchester's non-specific name has allowed it to hire new leads every three to four seasons, and has allowed it to become the first series of Masterpiece's modern era to reach double-digit seasons. (Before Grantchester, the only shows that managed such a feat were from the Mystery! era.) But if Grantchester is super big on making this landmark season special, it certainly isn't acting like it, with a premiere that is as business as usual as it gets.

It's Easter 1962 when the show picks up for its first full season, with Vicar Alphy Kotteram (Rishi Nair, who began his new vicarship partway through Season 9). For the first time in years, the show isn't quite so focused on the when of it all; the setting things in a specific time and place via music and current events started fading away as soon as Rev. William Davenport (Tom Brittany) left, partly because the era and age difference between our regularly scheduled DCI Geordie Keating (Robson Green) and his religious sidekick is no longer a plot point.