'Professor T' Season 4 Lands Early Release on PBS Passport

Watching a sleeper hit become one of the most popular British shows that airs on PBS always feels a bit miraculous, like seeing a full double rainbow or a meteor shooting across the sky. That goes double if the first season of the show wasn't all that great, or something you didn't like very much. Over the past decade, it's happened to me twice: Unforgotten Season 1's failure to stick the landing seemed like a death knell for the series, but was blessedly negated by Season 2's pitch-perfect conclusion. The other is Professor T, which has become so popular that it's getting the honor of an early release on PBS Passport for August 2025.

Few PBS shows get the honor of an "early binge release" for members. Though streaming is eclipsing cable, many local PBS stations are still "linear first," especially in rural areas, so something has to be really popular for PBS to make it an early release streaming benefit for members. Thus far, Call The Midwife, Sanditon, and Miss Scarlet are the only British shows to land early release more than once. Annika streamed its inaugural season early, in hopes Unforgotten fans would find it. On the other end, COBRA's final season landed early release because the schedule was so crowded, it wound up airing on Thursdays, and PBS was worried it'd get lost.

But Professor T's early release is not a one-off. The U.K. version of the show has already been renewed for Season 5, making it the longest-running version of Professor T in history. (That's going by season, not episode count!) Meanwhile, viewership in the U.S. has risen year on year, and with Season 3's shocking twist ending, fans have been rabid to find out what happens next.