Everything British for PBS Viewers to Stream in January 2025

The holidays are nearly over, and the new year looms large on the calendar, even as emails are still bouncing back and half the people you need to talk to are on vacation. However, the end of the year also means it’s pledge drive time in the world of public media, and though you’ve already likely been hit up by your PBS and NPR stations during the past few weeks, we’re hoping you might not mind one more fundraising ask. Telly Visions is a product of Washington, D.C.’s WETA, and everything we do is only possible because of the support of readers like you. It’s not been a particularly easy year for any of us, either personally or professionally; we sunset the podcast (at least for now) due to budget and bandwidth, and who knows what’s heading our way in 2025.

We need your support. If you can, please visit our donation page and contribute.

The good news is that your donation will make you a WETA member, and being a member comes with benefits – and not just the standard mug-and-tote bag. While the PBS App contains lots of free content for everyone, pledging at the $5/month level (or $60/year) gives you access to PBS Passport, a streaming extra that includes most Masterpiece series, Walter Presents shows, and British content of all sorts, which we run down here every month. You’ll even get access to some programs (like the new season of Miss Scarlet) before they air! So do yourself and us a favor and give if you can. Help us keep you up to date on all the latest shows you love by donating today.

PBS Passport debuts two traditional programs on January 1, starting with the long-running Great Performances, which, since 1985, has broadcast From Vienna: The New Year's Celebration on New Year's Day. Initially hosted by Walter Cronkite until 2008, and then Julie Andrews through 2017, the annual event is now led by Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), who remains in that position for the latest installment, From Vienna: The New Year's Celebration 2025. One of the few places classical music still dominates on public television, the annual beloved concert from the Golden Hall of the Musikverein will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Johann Strauss for this year's theme under the returning baton of Riccardo Muti. 

From Vienna: The New Year's Celebration 2025 arrives on Wednesday, January 1, 2025, on most PBS stations, the PBS app, the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel, and PBS Passport; check your local listings/streamer.

While California has the Rose Bowl Parade on New Year's Day here in the States, hours earlier, London has its own parade through the city of Westminster, a tradition stemming back to the 1970s. Cultural and community groups rub shoulders with leading professional entertainers and the mayors of London. Plus, more than 20 U.S. marching bands and a thousand varsity cheerleaders fill the streets of the U.K. capital for their moment in the global spotlight. 

London's New Year's Day Parade 2025 debuts on PBS Passport on Monday, January 1, 2025. This is exclusive to PBS Passport and only available on certain stations, so check your local listings and streaming services.

Walter Presents has given the honor of kicking off the 2025 lineup of foreign language series to Astrid (Astrid et Raphaëlle), the super popular feminized French twist on the Sherlock Holmes mystery format. Not to be confused with the forthcoming English language remake, Patience, the original series stars Lola Dewaere as the outgoing and impulsive Commander Raphaëlle Coste and Sara Mortensen as the high-functioning autistic documentalist Astrid Nielsen. Astrid is the Holmesian observer with an uncanny knack for solving crimes, and Raphaëlle is the inspector who brings her along, making this an old-school odd-couple cop show. Season 4 will involve a bloody diamond heist, a Machiavellian murder, and a death at
30,000 feet, all while Astrid and Raphaëlle juggle chaos in their own lives.

All eight episodes of Astrid Season 4 join Seasons 1 through 3 on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel on Friday, January 3, 2025. Season 5 is greenlit and is expected to arrive in 2026.

It's almost a shame Vienna Blood is ending now that it finally figured out its formula, but the series, based on Frank Tallis's books, basically ran out of source material halfway through Season 3. Season 4 will, therefore, wrap everything up with one wholly original season-long mystery called "Mephisto Waltz," which debuts the first Sunday in January 2025 at 10 p.m. ET on most PBS stations. Viewers should be aware that even though the series will air at 10 p.m. (and arrive on streaming at that time), Vienna Blood's final season debuts on linear and the PBS app a whole week before the return of the rest of the January Sunday Night lineup. This is because Vienna Blood's final season will only air four episodes, unlike those other two stalwarts, Miss Scarlet and All Creatures, which run six and seven installments. Please make a note of it.

Vienna Blood Season 4 will debut on most PBS stations, the PBS app, and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel at 10 p.m. ET on Sunday, January 5, 2024. Starting on premiere day, all four episodes will be available for members to watch as a binge (or as initially intended, i.e., two two-hour-long episodes) on PBS Passport. As always, check your local listings and streamers. 

Lucy Worsley Investigates was a hit when it arrived on PBS in May 2022. The titular celebrity historian hosted four episodes deep-diving into some of the U.K.''s most notorious moments of history, including the witch hunts of the Middle Ages, the Black Death, the infamous Princes in the Tower from Richard III, and the madness of King George which helped drive American independence and the Bridgerton spinoff Queen Charlotte. Season 2 returns with four new episodes, three of which will debut in January and the fourth, which will air in March. Kicking off with a deep dive into Jack the Ripper, Season 2 also includes the truth behind William the Conqueror, Guy Fawkes, and the legend of Bloody Mary. 

Lucy Worsley Investigates Season 2 debuts on most PBS stations, the PBS app, and the PBS documentary Prime Video Channel on Tuesday, January 7, 2025, at 8 p.m. ET. Episodes will arrive on PBS Passport for members in February.

Walter Presents second debut for 2025 is its other massively popular women-led police procedural, Luna + Sophie. The series was one of the first to become so popular that it landed a linear weekly release on PBS stations. However, from the first, it wasn't clear how the show planned to continue, as the series was never about Luna or Sophie; the German series is actually called SOKO Potsdam, one of eleven case-of-the-week spinoffs from the popular German police procedural SOKO München, and by Season 4, both leads, childhood BFFs Sophie Pohlmann (Katrin Jaehne) and Luna Kunath (Caroline Erikson), left the series and were replaced by Tamara Meurer (Anja Pahl) and Pauline Hobrecht (Agnes Decker), respectively. Rather than renaming it Tamara + Pauline, Walter Presents has gone with the generic title Partners in Crime: Potsdam Homicide and restarts the numbering, making Luna + Sophie Season 5 Partners in Crime: Potsdam Homicide Season 1.

Partners in Crime: Potsdam Homicide Season 1 will arrive with all episodes on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel on Friday, January 10, 2025.

For those who are not members of PBS Passport and do not subscribe to the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel, it's been a long wait to see what Miss Scarlet is like sans Duke. Those platforms landed early access to Season 5 of the newly renamed series and have been streaming them through December 2024. However, the show returns to its usual linear slot of 8 p.m. on Sundays in January come 2025, as will our recaps,

Miss Scarlet Season 5 will officially premiere on most PBS stations and the PBS app on Sunday, January 12, 2025. It will air/stream weekly through mid-February. Check your local listings.

Season 4 was All Creatures Great & Small's first run at balancing an ensemble set in Yorkshire while multiple characters were away fighting World War II. However, it struggled with too much Siegfried and not enough of any other character to even it out. Season 5 promises a smoother ride; not only did the real James Heriott return to Yorkshire not long after basic, but Tristan Farnon finished his tour shortly after. This is all to say that by the time Season 5 reaches the Christmas special in late February, everyone will be back where they belong... well, ok, maybe not Mrs. Pumphrey and Tricki-Woo, whose house is commandeered by the army as a field hospital. 

All Creatures Great & Small Season 5 will debut on most PBS stations, the PBS app, and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel on Sunday, January 12, 2025, and stream/air weekly through mid-February. All seven episodes arrive on PBS Passport on release day for members to binge. 

Walter Presents is aiming for January to be all bangers, no filler, with the third debut of the month going to Sisi: Austrian Empress (Sisi)*. Season 1 debuted on PBS Passport in February 2023; Season 2 followed a year later in February 2024. Now, Season 3 of the German series, which aired in 2023, arrives with power struggles in Europe, labor troubles in Vienna, and the conflict over the upbringing of their son — crown prince Rudolf — putting Sisi (Dominique Devenport) and Franz’s love to the test. Season 4 just aired in Germany in December 2024, so expect more episodes next year.

All six episodes of Sisi: Austrian Empress Season 2 arrive on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Channel on Friday, January 17, 2025.

(*Not to be confused with The Empress (Maria Theresia), which was also released in 2021, or Netflix's 2022 series The Empress, also about Elisabeth of Austria, also released a second season in 2024.) 

Walter Presents' only new series to arrive in January 2025 is the 2022 hit Dutch series Sleepers. In it, Robert de Hoog plays corrupt policeman Martin Oudkerk, who navigates the dangerous line between his duty as a cop and his loyalty to the crime boss who saved his life. The show also stars Teun Kuilboer, whom PBS viewers will recognize from Van der Valk and Baptiste. The series was popular enough to land a second season, which debuted on Videoland at the end of 2023, so despite Season 3 not yet being greenlit, there's at least one more season to come.

All six episodes of Sleepers Season 1 arrive on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Channel on Friday, January 24, 2025.

Walter Presents was all in on Velvet (Galerías Velvet) when it acquired the 2014 Spanish series in 2024, giving it a direct-to-linear debut and a PBS Passport binge highlight in October 2024 due to it being the rare Walter Presents series that is a “feel-good family drama/romance” and not a police procedural/dark noir thriller. Set in a 1950s-era Madrid fashion house, the central relationship focuses on Alberto, heir to the Velvet empire, who falls in love with Ana, one of the seamstresses. But this is merely one plot in a web of money, fashion, love, jealousies, plots, and counter-plots involving its owners, customers, and residential employees. The series ran four seasons, so there’s still more to come.

All 14 episodes of Velvet Season 2 will stream starting on Friday, January 31, 2025, on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel.