The 'Bergerac' Trailer Puts the Detective on the Case

The 2015 reboot of Poldark turned out to be the leading edge of a wave of British remakes of TV series from the 1970s and 80s, many of which were broadcast on local PBS stations during the era when the PBS mothership didn't try to control what aired on its rapidly proliferating affiliates. Nowadays, these remakes are more official; the original Van der Valk and All Creatures Great & Small were never national shows for PBS, though so many local channels took it on a second run, they might as well have been. Both reboots are now under the Masterpiece banner, guaranteeing them Sunday night berths in primetime.

The mid-2020s will bring another wave of remakes of familiar titles from PBS' early days, including Maigret to The Forsyte Saga. Meanwhile, across the pond, there's a new version of Bergerac, the 1980s-era detective series that originally made Midsomer Murders' John Nettles famous. This reimagined version is based on the original series, which Robert Banks Stewart created. However, it will bow to some of the newer standards of prestige TV, going from case-of-the-week to one murder mystery per season, the way modern hit dramas like Unforgotten do.

Set across the channel in Jersey, France, DS Bergerac is initially introduced as a detective with Le Bureau des Étrangers (The Foreigners' Office), a department of the State of Jersey Police. The original series kicks off when he leaves to become a private investigator due to his mental and physical health issues, and one assumes the new series will follow that same eventual track. What won't change is Jim Bergerac's demons, including disabilities that come from his injuries on the job and his alcoholism from self-medicating his depression.