A Sad Loss at Acorn TV + Plain Old British TV Dramas

Dreaming Spires & Dead Dons: A 1960s Oxford Adult Coloring Book (inspired by Endeavour and Inspector Morse)

A Disheveled Detective’s Northumberland: Adult Coloring Book (inspired by Vera)

Watching: Sunset Grove - If you have a PBS Masterpiece subscription via Amazon Prime, this one’s available as one of their Walter Presents international selections (no idea if it’s on regular PBS, though, since that varies by city/region). It’s set at a Finnish retirement home, where a sharp 94-year-old resident suspects a young chef’s death might be murder.

Reading: Twist of Fate by Sally Rigby - If you’re a fan of JK Rowling’s Strike books, you might be looking for more British crime novels with that male + female PI vibe. This series is nowhere near as rich and layered as the Strike books, but they move quickly and I find them particularly enjoyable in audio format. If you’re new to the series, I recommend going back to book one, Web of Lies, instead of starting with the just-released eighth book that I’m reading now.

On BritBox, new episodes of Beyond Paradise continue weekly through July 14th (Tuesdays). Today (July 10th), they added a new season of Escape to the Country. On the 14th, look for season 2 of Return to Paradise.

On Acorn TV, the 13th brings us new episodes of season 19 of Murdoch Mysteries, season 5 of Harry Wild, Summertide, and season 2 of Inspector Ellis. On the 13th, they’ll add season 2 of True Crime Story: It Couldn’t Happen Here, followed by the New Zealand series Dear Murderer on July 20th.

On PBS Masterpiece and PBS.org, new episodes of the final season of Grantchester (11) continue weekly on Sundays through August 2nd.

On Netflix, July 17th brings Heartstopper Forever, which is adapted from the sixth and final novel in Alice Oxman’s Heartstopper book series. It’s very much a YA series, but Anna Maxwell Martin (Ludwig) and Eddie Marsan (The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe) are both among the cast.

On Apple TV+, new episodes of season 5 of Trying continue to drop weekly until August 26th.

On BBC Select, July 16th brings Tom Read Wilson’s Magnificent Tour of Europe.

Last Tango in Halifax (2012) - Two widowed septuagenarians (Sir Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid) rekindle a romance sixty years in the making, upending the lives of their very different daughters (Sarah Lancashire and Nicola Walker). Written by Sally Wainwright and inspired by her own mother's late-life remarriage, it's one of the great modern British dramas about family, love, and second chances.

Cold Feet (1997) - Three Manchester couples navigate love, marriage, parenthood, and loss across five original series, led by James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale, with Fay Ripley, John Thomson, Hermione Norris, and Robert Bathurst rounding out the ensemble. The definitive British relationship drama - and it returned in 2016 for four more series, picking up the gang in middle age with much of its warmth and wit intact.

Age Before Beauty (2018) - A former stay-at-home mum (Polly Walker) takes over her family's struggling Manchester beauty salon, stirring up long-buried rivalries, secrets, and infidelities among her sisters and their tangled clan. A glossy, over-the-top six-part series from Debbie Horsfield (Poldark) with Sue Johnston and Robson Green in the mix.

Moving On (2009) - Jimmy McGovern's anthology tells a self-contained story each episode, always about an ordinary person at a turning point in their life. The writing is sharp and the guest casts are stacked with familiar faces, with the likes of Sheridan Smith, Christopher Eccleston, and Joanne Froggatt passing through across its many series. Also on Tubi, Peacock, Plex, Pluto, Roku Channel.

Fat Friends (2000) - Kay Mellor's warm, funny, and occasionally devastating drama follows the members of a Leeds slimming club, each episode digging into a different life behind the weigh-ins. The ensemble is a who's-who of future stars, including Ruth Jones, James Corden, and Alison Steadman - and it's where Jones and Corden met before creating Gavin & Stacey. Also on Tubi.

The Syndicate (2012) - Each series of Kay Mellor's drama follows a different lottery syndicate - supermarket workers, hospital staff, staff at a stately home, kennel employees - whose lives are transformed, and often upended, by a big win. Note that only some of its four series are currently available to stream in the US. If you have a region-free DVD player, you can track down the other two seasons on import DVDs.

Ordinary Lies (2015) - Everyone at a Warrington car dealership is hiding something, and each episode unravels one employee's secret, starting with Jason Manford's salesman whose small lie about his wife spirals catastrophically. Both Jo Joyner (Shakespeare & Hathaway) and Sally Lindsay (Madame Blanc Mysteries) appear in season 1.

Mr Bates vs The Post Office (2024) - Toby Jones stars as Alan Bates, the relentless subpostmaster who spent two decades fighting to expose the Horizon IT scandal, in which hundreds of innocent Post Office workers were prosecuted for theft because of a faulty computer system. The story spans roughly 1999 to the 2010s, so it’s technically not 100% contemporary… but it’s good enough and close enough that we didn’t want to leave it out.

Ballykissangel (1996) - A young English priest (Stephen Tompkinson) is posted to a small village in the Irish countryside, where he clashes and sparks with the sharp-tongued local pub owner (Dervla Kirwan) amid a lovable ensemble of eccentrics. It’s a warm, gentle Sunday-night drama that ran six series - and gave a young Colin Farrell one of his first roles. Also on Pluto TV.

William & Mary (2003) - An undertaker (Martin Clunes) and a midwife (Julie Graham) meet through a dating agency and fall into a wonderfully grown-up romance, their work placing them at life's two bookends - birth and death. Also on Tubi, Pluto, Plex, Roku Channel, and Fawesome.

Hotel Babylon (2006) - Behind the doors of a glamorous five-star London hotel, an ambitious deputy manager (Max Beesley) and his polished boss (Tamzin Outhwaite) juggle celebrity meltdowns, scandals, and the chaos of keeping the show running. It’s glossy, escapist fun.

At Home with the Braithwaites (2000) - A Yorkshire wife and mother (Amanda Redman, Good Karma Hospital) wins £38 million on the lottery and decides to tell no one - not her husband (Peter Davison), not her three chaotic daughters - setting off four series of secrets and family fallout. Also on Tubi, Pluto, Fawesome, Roku Channel, BritBox.

Monarch of the Glen (2000) - A young London restaurateur (Alastair Mackenzie) is summoned home to the Scottish Highlands to save Glenbogle, his family's crumbling ancestral estate, presided over by his gloriously eccentric parents (Richard Briers and Susan Hampshire). Seven series of gentle romance, family friction, and gorgeous Highland scenery - with a pre-Downton Julian Fellowes among the ensemble as the bumbling laird-next-door. Also on Pluto.