The 'Hotel Portofino' Season 3 Trailer Introduces Bella's Papa

Hotel Portofino is PBS' Little Summer Series that Could. The Eagle Eye Drama, their first wholly original live-action period drama, initially debuted with little fanfare in the summer of 2022. As the lead-in for Endeavour's penultimate season, it was an awkward fit, the only non-mystery on the docket, and still clearly finding its feet in how many characters it should follow or where the best drama story was within the many threads. However, the series was already renewed overseas, and though Season 2 was still a mystery lead-in when it arrived in the fall of 2023, the show had built a core fandom via PBS Passport, and with an improved, more focused plot, it was well on its way to being a hit.

Season 3 arrives this summer as a direct follow-up in the 8 p.m. slot to Eagle Eye's other primary hit, Professor T, precisely the same as it did in 2023. But this time, it isn't a lead-in to a more popular mystery series, even though the first two episodes will air ahead of Grantchester's final two episodes of Season 9. Once Grantchester's last two episodes finish, Hotel Portofino will be the sole new program on the national schedule on Sundays through August, an honor rarely bestowed on a series that's not part of the Masterpiece anthology.

What is Hotel Portofino's secret? It turned itself into a family drama, making the Ainsworths' horrendous marriage (and their children's subsequent relationship failures) the program's central story. Season 3 trebles down on this by adding more of Bella's blood relations to the roster.