PBS Signs on to English 'Astrid' Remake 'Patience'

PBS continues to draw dividends from its ongoing relationship with the team from Walter Presents, which also runs Eagle Eye Drama. On the heels of the announcement that Eagle Eye and PBS have greenlit the popular English language remake of Professor T for a fourth season comes word that the companies are banding together for an all-new series titled Patience. But while Deadline and the other trades reporting on the news take the press release at its word that this is a "new original show," anyone who has watched PBS Passport shows will recognize it immediately as a remake of the popular French police procedural Astrid (Astrid et Raphaelle).

Connecting audiences with shows in the streaming era has become one of the most difficult tasks to achieve in television. The fractured landscape, in which new series are strewn across one of a dozen streaming services, all vying for viewers' eyeballs, attention, and dollars, has made it all but impossible for networks to gain attention for their debuts unless those shows come backed with a massive marketing campaign, or hit Netflix's properly programmed algorithm just right. 

That's what makes PBS' relationship with Walter Presents so remarkable. Despite PBS doing almost no marketing (or for a long time sending sites like our information that changed after we published it or was just wrong), series like the original Belgian Professor T, Astrid, Luna + Sophie, Before We Die, Face to Face, Seaside Hotel and others have found a devoted following on streaming via the PBS Masterpiece Channel and PBS Passport. Those shows, in turn, have begotten a cottage industry of U.K. remakes, providing a new set of British shows for PBS to air and stream.

While some of those remakes have not been successful (Before We Die and Face to Face, we're looking at you), others, like Professor T, have improved as they've gone along. Hotel Portofino, a genuine Eagle Eye original (though it does have some echoes of Seaside Hotel mixed with Downton Abbey), has also improved year on year. However, the issue, each and every time, is that the English language version has hewed too close to the original version without bringing anything new to distinguish itself in its first season.

For this new version of Astrid, Patience is attempting to change that dynamic by improving on the original out of the gate. For those unfamiliar, the premise of Astrid (or Astrid et Raphaelle) is that DCI Raphaëlle Coste comes across an autistic savant, Astrid Nielsen, working in the police archives. Recognizing her genius, Raphaelle takes her out on cases, and the two become an unstoppable team. 

However, the actor who plays Nielsen, Sara Mortensen, is neurotypical. For Patience, Eagle Eye has cast autistic actor Ella Maisy Purvis (A Kind of Spark) in the titular role of Patience. This sort of representation of neurodiverse actors playing neurodiverse roles has been lobbied for, much the same as the LGBTQ+ community lobbied for shows to cast trans and nonbinary actors in trans and nonbinary roles, though so far, with few results. Hopefully, Patience will help make a difference in that arena.

Here's the synopsis for Patience:

Patience Evans works in the criminal records department of Yorkshire Police, cataloging and filing the evidence produced during major cases, and is a brilliant, self-taught criminologist with an instinctive eye for crime scenes and a passion for problem-solving. Detective Bea Metcalf is the first person to spot and utilize Patience’s talent, which opens a door into a whole new world for the archivist. Metcalf forms an unlikely duo with the young autistic police archivist as their investigations unfold against the backdrop of the historic city of York.

Purvis has been cast alongside Scottish actor Laura Fraser (Traces), who takes on the role of Bea Metcalf, the Raphaelle of the pair, who most Americans will recognize best from her years on Breaking Bad. More cast is expected to be announced in due course, with the assurance that "all neurodivergent characters within the series will be played by neurodiverse actors."

Matt Baker (Hotel Portofino) heads up the writing team, which also includes Stephen Brady (Professor T), Sarah Freethy (The Porcelain Maker), and Daniella DeVinter (Before We Die). The press release states the entire writing team has "personal experience relating to autism" and "neurodiversity will play a thematic role in the series." Director Maarten Moerkerke (13 Commandments) will helm all six episodes. Walter Presents' Jo McGrath and Walter Iuzzolino will executive produce for Eagle Eye.

Patience has begun filming in the U.K. The series is expected to debut on PBS sometime in 2025.