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Thursday, February 6, 2020

COMING TO MASTERPIECE PBS

Right now there are so many streaming services that carry my favorite British shows that it's sometimes hard to remember where to watch and often what to watch. There's Netflix, BritBox, Acorn, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and others. But ... Masterpiece PBS is the US original broadcaster of many of these shows. You can tune in to your local PBS station..or if you're a member of your local station (you donate to PBS), you can watch these shows at your leisure on PBS Passport.

So here's what's coming up on Masterpiece:

Baptise: 

Case File: While visiting his daughter’s family in Amsterdam, Julien Baptiste (The Missing‘s lead detective) gets drawn into the search for Englishman Edward Stratton’s missing niece…and before long, everything you think you understand about this mystery is upended!
 
Lineup: Leading Baptiste‘s cast is Turkish-born French actor Tchéky Karyo, whose career spans the stage, the big screen (La Femme Nikita), and the small screen (The Missing). Also starring as Edward Stratton is Tom Hollander (on film in Bohemian Rhapsody, In the Loop, and Pride & Prejudice, and on TV in Bird Box, The Night Manager, Taboo, and on MASTERPIECE in Any Human Heart and Wives and Daughters). Clare Calbraith (Downton Abbey, Home Fires) plays Stratton’s ex-wife, and Jessica Raine (Call the Midwife, Patrick Melrose, and on MASTERPIECE in Wolf Hall) joins the cast in Episode 3.

Scene of the Crime: The narrow, neon-lit streets of present-day Amsterdam’s red-light district—the seedy underbelly to the historic city of canals, bicycles, art, and flowers.
DNA: Baptiste is a spin-off of The Missing, putting the original series’ detective front and center. But you don’t need to have watched any of The Missing to watch—and get sucked in to—Baptiste!
Timeline: Baptiste premieres in 2020 on MASTERPIECE.

Grantchester Season 5

Case File: With God on his side and a motorcycle to ride, Grantchester’s crime-fighting clergyman Will Davenport teams up (voluntarily!) with Geordie Keating to solve a series of darker, grittier crimes than ever before…and face the challenges of celibacy head-on when journalist Ellie Harding enters the picture!

Lineup: One of Season 5’s new faces is Will’s love interest, Ellie Harding (Lauren Carse). Tom Brittney joked with RadioTimes.com that “Me and Ellie are going to be the Ross and Rachel of Grantchester…I want all Grantchester to be related to Friends, in some way!” Returning characters and cast include Will Davenport (Tom Brittney), DI Geordie Keating (Robson Green), Leonard Finch (Al Weaver), “Mrs. C” (Tessa Peake-Jones) and her husband, Jack Chapman (Nick Brimble), Cathy Keating (Kacey Ainsworth), Daniel Marlowe (Oliver Dimsdale), and Will’s mother, Amelia Davenport (Jemma Redgrave).

Scene of the Crime: As always, the titular Grantchester, the picturesque village on the river Cam.
Timeline: Grantchester Season 5 premieres Sunday, June 14at 9/8c on MASTERPIECE.

Endeavour Season 7

Case File: When we last saw Endeavour Morse at the end of Season 6, he was settling in at the station and the house that would become home to his character in the Inspector Morse series. But it doesn’t ensure happiness for our cerebral and solitary hero, who will face a series of enigmatic murders.

Lineup: At this time, we know that Shaun Evans and Roger Allam (Endeavour Morse and Fred Thursday) are returning for Season 7.
Scene of the Crime: Oxford’s spires and grassy quads, often its pubs, and all too often, its morgues.

Timeline: Endeavour returns to MASTERPIECE on PBS with three new mysteries in 2020.

Van Der Valk

Case File: Street-smart and unapologetic detective Piet Van Der Valk is an everyman of sorts, investigating high profile cases and gritty murders that immerse him and his team in contemporary Amsterdam’s fast-paced worlds of art, politics, addiction, mysticism, and fashion.

Lineup: Marc Warren (Beecham House) stars as Commissaris Piet Van der Valk, and Maimie McCoy (The Musketeers) is Inspector Lucienne Hassell. Other cast include Elliot Barnes-Worrell (Ready Player One), Darrell D’Silva, and Emma Fielding (MASTERPIECE’s Unforgotten Season 3, Les Misérables, Dark Angel, and Cranford.) Guest stars who MASTERPIECE viewers might recognize include Daniel Lapaine (The Durrells in Corfu) and Tom York (Poldark).
Scene of the Crime: Van Der Valk is filmed entirely on location in Amsterdam.

DNA: In a reboot of the original 1970s and ’90s Van Der Valk, which was loosely based on the novels by Nicolas Freeling, this reimagining departs almost entirely from the novels and thrillingly showcases today’s modern Amsterdam.
Timeline: Van Der Valk premieres on MASTERPIECE on PBS in summer 2020!

Miss Scarlet and the Duke

Case File: When headstrong Eliza Scarlet is left penniless after the death of her father, she has two choices for financial security: marriage or her father’s private detective agency. But no matter how well she knows the tricks of his trade, the trade itself is deemed entirely inappropriate for a genteel lady of the 1880s. Enter “The Duke,” Scotland Yard’s Detective Inspector William Wellington, a notorious drinker, gambler, womanizer…and a partner in running the agency and solving crime, all with a dash of will-they-won’t they energy, wit, and moxie!

Lineup: Kate Phillips (Peaky Blinders, The Downton Abbey Movie, Wolf Hall, and The Crown) stars as Eliza Scarlet, and Stuart Martin (Jamestown, Babylon, Medici) stars as The Duke.

Scene of the Crime: The dark underbelly of Victorian London.

DNA: Miss Scarlet and the Duke is created and written by Rachael New, who wrote for Grantchester Season 4.

Timeline: Miss Scarlet and the Duke comes to MASTERPIECE on PBS in 2020.

See mystery shows and more from MASTERPIECE when you watch with PBS Passport, an added member benefit. Find out what’s available in PBS Passport from MASTERPIECE.

 

3 comments:

  1. Thank you for all the hard work you put into the site. We, the public, are such ingrates that we don’t even comment on your posts. Keep up the good work.

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  2. Thank you, Janet!

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  3. Thanks for the anniuncement. There seem to be several goodies in the offing. I am especially intrigued by the new Van der Valk.

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