Everything British for PBS Viewers to Stream in April 2025

Because of the vagaries of the spring schedule, April is a funny time at PBS Masterpiece, programing-wise. It's either jam-packed with premieres and finales because everything is three or four episodes long, or it gets skipped altogether because the March premieres fell on the late side of the calendar, and everything is six to eight episodes. For 2025, it's the latter scenario: Wolf Hall is six episodes, and Miss Austen (which directly follows in May) is four; both are bookended on either side by Call the Midwife and Marie Antoinette, which are eight episodes a pop. 

That's how you get one of the most significant viewing months in quite some time on Masterpiece, and yet not a single entry in this month's streaming list.

While the Spring 2025 Sunday trio of British shows continue to air weekly, the other corners of PBS that provide British content are filling the gap. We've got an entire lineup of shows arriving on the first of the month on select PBS stations and PBS Passports around the country, ranging from nature and animal specials to historical documentaries and deep dives into the royal family. As always, Walter Presents will have Friday debuts of crime shows and thrillers. But perhaps the biggest debut is another Acorn TV series coming out from behind the paywall for PBS viewers to fall in love with.

Here's the list of April 2025 British premieres on most PBS stations.

Of all the Acorn TV cozy crime series that stars a now-aging fan favorite from 20 years ago, Whitstable Pearl has probably been the hardest to sell. Unlike Lucy Lawless or Jane Seymour, Kerry Godliman never picked up an American following despite starring with Ricky Gervais in Derek during the height of his U.S. presence. Americans were more likely to be familiar with her sidekick, Howard Charles, simply because he had the good fortune to have a prominent role in Shadow & Bone, which Netflix released ahead of Whitstable Pearl's first season arriving on Acorn TV. However, the show has found its groove, so PBS viewers can go in knowing this show will be worth it.

All six episodes of Whitstable Pearl Season 1 will land on some PBS stations and select PBS Passports starting Tuesday, April 1, 2025. Check your local listings & streaming services.

Fans of Doc Martin know that Martin Clunes is a passionate animal lover and has done multiple specials on our four-legged friends, including Martin Clunes: A Man and His Dogs. With the long-running sitcom over, Clunes has been back at making nature specials, such as Martin Clunes: Islands of the Pacific, which premiered on PBS Passport in 2024. For 2025, we're getting The Secret World of Guide Dogs with Martin Clunes, which was inspired by his adoption of a retired black Labrador guide dog named Laura. The special explores the history of guide dogs, from the first four trained in 1931 to the current process used at Britain's best-loved charity, and their importance to the visually impaired. 

The Secret World of Guide Dogs with Martin Clunes premieres on some PBS stations and select PBS Passports starting Tuesday, April 1, 2025. Check your local listings & streaming services.

Not to be confused with anything Lucy Worsley is doing (do you see her name in the title? I think not!), PBS imported Secrets of the Royal Palaces Season 4 (the most recent one) in April 2024, partially testing to see if there was interest in the Channel 5 series, which had been recounting the lesser-known stories about the British royals, their history, and their homes since 2021. It must have worked because a year later, here is Season 5 in April 2025. Whether or not PBS will backtrack to pick up Seasons 1-3 remains to be seen.

All four episodes of Secrets of the Royal Palaces Season 5 debut on some PBS stations and select PBS Passports starting Tuesday, April 1, 2025. Check your local listings & streaming services.

Speaking of Channel 5, the network that recently boarded The Forsytes provides quite a bit of royal programming. PBS also has picked up what really can only be described as an hour of hagiography, Kate: A Queen For The Future. The special premiered in the U.K. in January 2024, right around the time she disappeared from public view, so it at least has that angle to make it interesting.

Kate: A Queen For The Future debuts on some PBS stations and select PBS Passports starting Tuesday, April 1, 2025. Check your local listings & streaming services.

As if to balance out the Kate documentary (if one can really call it that), here is Edward & Wallis: The Bahamas Scandals, another in a series of regularly scheduled reminders that Wallis Simpson accidentally did the Royal family a solid by taking the Nazi sympathizer King voluntarily out of the line of succession just before World War II. (She also cleared the way for Queen Elizabeth. Lady does not get enough credit for all she did.)

Edward & Wallis: The Bahamas Scandals debuts on some PBS stations and select PBS Passports starting Tuesday, April 1, 2025. Check your local listings & streaming services.

Walter Presents first show for April is the relatively new French series Panda, which debuted in 2023. Season 1 introduces viewers to the titular character, Victor "Panda" Pandaloni, played by Julien Doré (Call My Agent!) Panda is a former cop who left the force to become a pacifist, living a relaxed hippie lifestyle full of vegan food and matcha. But like all cozy crime series, you can take the detective out of the uniform, but he'll still solve crimes anyway. Season 2 already aired across the pond, with Season 3 greenlit, so there's more where this came from.

All six episodes of Panda debut on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel on Friday, April 4, 2025. 

As much as I appreciate Walter Presents getting more up-to-date offerings, it complicates things when it's too soon to know if the show has been renewed. Such is the case with a show that's been rechristened The English Neighborhood (the original title was the direct translation of the Spanish one, Operación Barrio Inglés). The World War II series is set in Huelva, Spain, in 1941 and follows secretary Lucía (Aria Bedmar) as her work at an English mining company brings her into the world of Peter (Velvet's Peter Vives). The series aired in 2024, and no Season 2 has been announced yet.

All eight episodes of The English Neighborhood debut on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel on Friday, April 11, 2025. 

Maybe the biggest get Walter Presents has landed in quite some time, April will bring the amibitious French miniseries A Dangerous Friendship (Une Amitié Dangereuse). Alof tl four episodes he French/Belgian historical drama were written and directed Alain Tasma, inspired by the best-selling Marie novels by late French author Juliette Benzoni, Marie des Intrigues and Marie des Passions. Set in 17th-century France, it chronicles the unlikely friendship between Queen Anne of Austria, unhappily married to King Louis XIII, and the scandalous Marie de Rohan.

All four episodes of A Dangerous Friendship debut on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel on Friday, April 18, 2025.

It has been exactly a year since The Mountain Detective (Alex Hugo) Season 2 debuted on PBS Passport, arriving after the series first arrived in January 2023. The series, which has been airing since 2014 first on France 2 and now on France 3, stars Samuel Le Bihan (The Deep Dark) as the titular Alex Hugo, Mountain Detective, who retires from Marseille's force only to become chief inspector of the rural police force in the mountains. But as a long running series, this was not one made for Walter Presents, and thus far, what PBS Passport has found itself with is two seasons that are really a mishmash of episodes from Seasons 4-10, in randomized order. Season 3, which will contain seven installments, has synopses that match episodes from Seasons 9, 10, and 11.

New episodes of The Mountain Detective under the “Season 3” moniker arrive Friday, April 25, 2025, on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel.