MASTERPIECE on PBS has announced that Maigret, a contemporary series, will premiere on Sunday, October 5, 2025 at 9/8c on PBS. The first trailer for the brand-new series has been released in conjunction with the news. Scroll to watch the trailer, and scroll down for a short history of Maigret on TV and film.
Writer and EP Patrick Harbinson has taken the Georges Simenon detective stories and updated them into a contemporary show starring Benjamin Wainwright as the detective Jules Maigret. The Maigret novels are the second best-selling detective series ever, behind only Sherlock Holmes and this is the first modern-day adaptation for the screen.
Maigret inhabits a vividly realized Paris that takes us from the glitzy upper-class world of luxury hotels and mansions to local bourgeois bistros and bars and the underground haunts of the professionally criminal. “To understand and not to judge”: Maigret strives above all to unravel motivations. He is good at this not because he is a genius, or has special methods, but because he listens – he doesn’t solve crimes so much as he solves people.
Patrick Harbinson's adaptation reframes Maigret as an unconventional young detective with something to prove, a rising star in the Police Judiciare, relentless in his investigations, with an uncanny ability to get under the skin of the criminals he is chasing and a matchless knowledge of Paris and its inhabitants.
I haven't seen the series yet, but my main question is where is Madame Maigret? She is one of my favorite characters in the Simenon books. It doesn't look like she's in this new series which is about the 'young' Maigret. I guess we won't be seeing all those mouth-watering French meals. Other questions: Where is Maigret's crumpled trenchcoat, pipe, and hat? Perhaps he acquired them later in his life?
Since this series debuts in October, you have plenty of time to get reading.The Simeon Maigret mysteries are short and easy to read. And, there are 75 novels and 28 short stories, so lots to read.
FYI: There have been over 35 actors that have played Maigret. French film adaptations began in 1932, but Jean Gabin was the first 'well-known' French actor playing the role in 1958, 59, and 63. French actors Jean Richard and Bruno Cremer followed with Jean Richard appearing in 90 episodes.
On British TV, Rupert Davies starred in the role in the 1960s (more than 50 episodes). In the early 1990s, Michael Gambon solved 12 crimes. I loved this series, and I thought Gambon was the perfect Maigret. But, the first actor in the Uk to play Maigret was Charles Laughton in the 1949 film The Man on the Eiffel Tower. I think the most recent Maigret series on TV starred Rowan Atkins in 2016 and 2017. Several of these series are streaming.
Here's the trailer for the new series on Masterpiece.
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