'Grantchester' Renewed for Landmark 10th Anniversary Season

In the least surprising announcement this month, Grantchester has been renewed for Season 10. The Odd Couple Solving Crimes in a Small U.K. Town series has been a fan-favorite ever since it launched in 2014, with fans first falling in love with original odd couple Rev. Sidney Chambers (James Norton) and Det. Geordie Keating (Robson Green), and then growing to love Norton's replacement, Rev. Will Davenport (Tom Brittney), who came on halfway through Season 4. Even with Brittney's exit, which just aired at the top of Season 9, viewership remains high, with more than a few who left after Norton's departure checking back in to meet the new vicar, Rev. Alphy Kotteram (Rishi Nair) and see how Geordie handles the next new kid. Naturally, Masterpiece and ITV were quick to announce production for the next season was already underway.

However, reaching ten seasons on Masterpiece is no small feat. The anthology series has always been a mash-up of different well-made shows from the U.K., from the original Masterpiece Theater period classics to the Mystery! spinoff filled with both contemporary and historical adaptations. It was easier for a mystery series to run long enough to get double-digit seasons deep during the Mystery! years, since that's all the Thursday program showed, with the original Dagliesh with Adam Marsden (later replaced by Martin Shaw) and the OG Morse with John Thaw both reaching Season 12.

Poirot, by then renamed Agatha Christie's Poirot, bested them both by hitting Season 13 and in the Masterpiece Mystery years to boot. However, it was a singular phenomenon, with David Suchet having created the platonic ideal of the detective that no one could match, agreeing to play out the detective's final years. For Grantchester to now sit among these giants of yesterday as only the fourth mystery series to reach double-digit seasons on Masterpiece is a remarkable achievement.