Everything British for PBS Viewers to Stream in August 2025

Streaming has significantly altered the TV season, but PBS remains a linear network at heart, and most of its shows follow the traditional September-May TV schedule. Usually, that means the dog days of August arrive with little in the way of new shows for public television stations; however, with 2025 doing thee most and being utterly extra, your local stations are keeping pace. The Sunday autumn lineup of mysteries, which usually debuts in the first week of September (or the very last days of August), kicks in weeks early due to the vagaries of the Gregorian calendar and an overstuffed Masterpiece 2025-2026 lineup.

Make no mistake, Masterpiece dictates the Sunday schedule for most local PBS stations, as one of the longest-running and popular series offered on public broadcasting. Although the ongoing funding crisis will likely be a significant factor for 2026, WGBH has already secured an A-Plus lineup for the 2025-2026 TV season, with so many titles that the only way to accommodate them all was to start the season before summer vacations were over.

Though the new shows are the headline, don't forget Grantchester still has one more episode, and Atlantic Crossing's finale will follow it, both airing on the first Sunday of the month. As for everything else coming, let's run down a genuinely stacked schedule of everything British streaming and airing on local PBS stations for August 2025.

August begins on a Friday, which means Walter presents gets the honor of leading off this month's listings. The Golden Swan (Zlatá labu'), the anthology series's first-ever Czech title, debuted in February 2025. The World War II-set series revolves around the glamorous new department store, The Golden Swan, which opened in 1939, just as Germany took control of the area, renaming it "The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia." The series' original Season 1 ran 21 episodes, but PBS's "Season 1" was only the first 11. "Season 2" runs 10 installments, so this is the other half of the show's inaugural season. 

(Don't worry, there have been two more seasons of the show already, both of which are long enough to split in two, so the show will run at least 6 seasons at this rate.)

The second half of The Golden Swan's first season, labeled Season 2, will be available on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel starting Friday, August 1, 2025.

Until the current funding crisis hit, PBS wasn't just surviving the streaming wars; it was genuinely starting to thrive. In the last year, public television has been scooping up the little-watched shows from failing streamers that should have been on its airwaves all along and turning them into the hits they deserve to be, including The Madame Blanc Mysteries, Dalgliesh, Whistable Pearl, and My Life is Murder, just to name a few. Now, Under the Vines joins that set, with Season 1 of the New Zealand-set soap starring Rebecca Gibney and Charles Edwards as an odd couple of city dwellers suddenly running a failing vineyard. The show is up to Season 3, so there's more to follow.

All six episodes of Under the Vines Season 1 will debut on select PBS linear channels and PBS Passports starting Friday, August 1, 2025. As always, check your local listings and streaming services.

From 2023's coronation series of documentaries and hagiographies comes Arthur: A Life with the Royal Family. Arthur Edwards, the legendary royal photographer for The Sun, has captured more than 200 royal tours across 120 countries in his nearly four-decade career. He’s been behind the lens at seven royal weddings, four funerals, and seven births. In this special, he shares his personal story alongside how he built an enduring and trusting relationship with the royal family, allowing him to capture many unique and intimate moments from their last 40 years.

Arthur: A Life with the Royal Family will debut on select PBS linear channels and PBS Passports starting Friday, August 1, 2025. As always, check your local listings and streaming services.

PBS is gearing up for the return of Call The Midwife with its second-ever two-part Christmas special, so Season 14, which aired on local stations in the spring, will be shifted from Netflix to PBS Passport. The BBC's longstanding contract with Netflix means the series exits the PBS streaming world only two weeks after the current season's finale. PBS Passport has been working to change that, bringing back recent seasons at the end of the summer. For now, Season 14 is back and will be available for the next several weeks.

The first half of Call The Midwife Season 14 arrives as a binge on Thursday, August 7, 2025, on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel, with the remaining episodes debuting the next day, Friday, August 8, 2025.

The Latvian breakout hit Soviet Jeans (Padomju Dzinsi) was initially meant as a standalone miniseries, about an ardent rock and roll fan in the late 1970s who sets up a successful and illegal underground jeans factory in a Latvian psychiatric hospital, during an era when the fiercest propaganda against Western culture was being waged throughout the USSR. The series proved so popular that it has been renewed for Season 2, which will be set a decade later. Season 1 ran eight installments, but PBS is planning to get an extra season out of the deal by only bringing over the first six in its initial debut.

Six episodes of Soviet Jeans Season 1 will debut on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel on Friday, August 8, 2025.

Professor T officially crosses from sleeper hit" to "bonafide PBS flagship show" with Season 4, which gets an early binge release for members on PBS Passport ahead of its linear debut a few weeks later. Few PBS shows get the honor of an "early binge release." Streaming may be eclipsing cable, but many local PBS stations, especially the smaller ones in rural areas, are still "linear first," so something has to be extremely popular for PBS to make it an early release streaming benefit for its members.

Professor T Season 4 will debut with all six episodes as an early release binge for members on PBS Passport on Sunday, August 10, 2025. Season 4 will premiere for everyone else alongside the linear debut at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday, August 24, 2025, on most PBS stations, the PBS app, and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel. 

In Dutch language shows, Walter Presents will debut the 2024 miniseries The Ring (De Ring) in mid-August. This standalone series tells the story of Anna, a lawyer, who accidentally (or "accidentally") pockets a client's ring from evidence on her way home one night, only for a hidden camera to capture the entire incident. When the client, Simon, starts blackmailing her, Anna schemes to evade Simon's demands while concealing the mistake that could cost her her career.

All episodes of The Ring arrive on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel on Friday, August 15, 2025.

Originally broadcast as a TV movie on France's TF1 network in 2021, The Devil's Leap (Le Saut du Diable) was recut into a two-episode format and then recut again into four installments, which is how it will be released in the U.S. under the Walter Presents banner. The film/series stars Philippe Bas in his first role after spending nearly a decade starring in The Paris Murders. Bas plays mountaineering expert Paul, who takes his estranged teenage daughter on a trip to reconnect. But when Sara witnesses a horrific murder, Paul must use his skills to escape the attackers and protect Sara, all as he tries to mend their relationship.

The four-episode version of The Devil's Leap will debut on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel on Friday, August 22, 2025.

Perhaps it's the starring trio of Samantha Bond, Jo Martin, and Cara Horgan, or that The Marlow Murder Club is penned by the same man who brought us the entire Death in Paradise franchise universe, but Season 1 was a smash hit right out of the gate. The return of Season 2 is highly anticipated — and Season 3 is already greenlit and filming! Season 2 will see Judith, Becks, and Suzie called back into action when a series of new unsettling crimes befall residents. From a seemingly impossible murder inside a locked study to a murdered man with no connection to Marlow and a shocking murder at the local sailing club, there’s no rest for our sleuthing trio.

The Marlow Murder Club Season 2 premieres on most local PBS stations, the PBS app, and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel beginning Sunday, August 24, 2025, at 9 p.m. ET. All six episodes of Season 2 will be available for members on premiere day via PBS Passport.

Speaking of shows that are still growing their audiences, Unforgotten Season 6 was the highest-rated of the decade-old series when it debuted on ITV in early 2025. (Season 1 debuted in the U.K. way back in 2015, y'all.) The successful transition from Nicola Walker to Sinead Keenan as partner to Sanjeev Bhaskar's DI Sunny Kahn has given the show a new energy, and there are some genuine surprises (and firsts) on the horizon as part of the show's latest case.

Unforgotten Season 6 premieres on most local PBS stations, the PBS app, and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel beginning Sunday, August 24, 2025, at 10 p.m. ET. All six episodes of Season 6 will be available for members on premiere day via PBS Passport. 

Finally, it would not be a hot summer without some cold Norwegian Noir, which arrives just in time for Labor Day in the form of the contemporary miniseries Ammo. As the title suggests, this series is a thriller set in Norway's arms industry. The series stars Nicolai Cleve Broch (The Sandhamn Murders) as Bjorn, who lands a top job at AGR, a Norwegian firm pioneering AI-driven drones. However, as he uncovers legal and ethical violations, he realizes he has been positioned as a sacrificial fall guy and must take on the entire industry to save himself.

All six episodes of Ammo will debut on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel on Friday, August 29, 2025.