Everything British Streaming on PBS for August 2026
Our monthly rundown of everything British coming to PBS and PBS Passport for August 2026.
The dog days of summer have rolled in, and the world is gearing up for their August vacations. With a full month until the traditional September start to the TV season – and PBS Masterpiece making sure all their shows fit within the September-November timeframe for 2026 – it’s something of a slow month on public television.
However, it’s not quite as bad as July 2026 was, with all the focus on America’s 250th birthday. Viewers still have more Grantchester and Patience episodes to go once July is finished, with the finales for both shows landing on Sunday, August 2. Patience has already been renewed for Season 3, while Grantchester’s series finale brings the mystery series to a close after more than a decade on the air.
Meanwhile, Masterpiece is gearing up for the coming September debuts of The Marlow Murder Club Season 3 and Marble Hall Murders by making the first seasons of each free to stream for everyone on the PBS app, not just PBS Passport members. The two series will land on the free side of the divide towards the end of the month, with all episodes of Season 1 of The Marlow Murder Club coming out from behind the paywall on Saturday, August 22, and the original Magpie Murders following with all six episodes on Sunday, August 23, 2026, perfectly timed for that last week of the month before vacation ends.
Let’s run down everything British streaming and airing on local PBS stations for August 2026.
The Madame Blanc Mysteries Season 3
PBS has been importing new seasons of Acorn TV’s sleeper hit The Madame Blanc Mysteries as a summertime staple since July 2024. If you haven’t tried Sally Lindsey and Sue Vincent’s adorably silly “let’s solve crimes in Southern France among the ex-pats,” we highly recommend it as a great cozy crime to get lost in when you need to forget the troubles of the world. The show is still going, with Season 5 currently in production, so there's definitely more to go.
All episodes of The Madame Blanc Mysteries Season 3 will debut on select PBS linear channels and PBS Passports starting Saturday, August 1, 2026. As always, check your local listings and streaming services.
The Brontes & Me: Sisters of Disruption
Originally titled The Brontes by Anita Rani: Sisters of Disruption when it premiered in 2025, the standalone special features British presenter Anita Rani exploring the Brontë sisters (Anne, Charlotte and Emily) and the impact they’ve had on millions of readers, as well as her experience of growing up in the area they were famous for, with the stunning landscape of Haworth and the moors on her doorstep.
The Brontes & Me: Sisters of Disruption will debut on select PBS linear channels and PBS Passports starting Saturday, August 1, 2026. As always, check your local listings and streaming services.
Chatsworth Through Time
Until Downton Abbey made Highclere Castle a household name in the U.S, the most famous English Estate known on this side of the pond was Chatsworth House, owned by the Duke of Devonshire. The English estate is home to one of Europe’s most significant collections of fine art, and the special, Chatsworth Through Time, takes viewers through its original construction in the Tudor Period through the mansion’s five hundred years of history, including how it continues to be maintained today.
Chatsworth Through Time will debut on select PBS linear channels and PBS Passports starting Saturday, August 1, 2026. As always, check your local listings and streaming services.
Downton Abbey Season 3
Season 3 of Downton Abbey is famously the one that debuted at the top of the Nielsen charts in January 2013, beating out all four major broadcast networks just before the streaming revolution came through and destroyed the TV world as we knew it. This was the major turning point in the series, when the timeline stopped being a stone skipping over the ripples of a historic era and became a one-year, one-season period drama. It is also, famously, the last season in which Jessica Brown Findlay and Dan Stevens appeared.
Downton Abbey Season 3 debuts Sunday, August 2, 2026, at 10 p.m. ET on most PBS stations and the PBS app, and will air/stream weekly through mid-September. All episodes are already streaming on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel.
Call the Midwife Season 15
There won’t be a regular season of Call the Midwife in 2027, which means there’s no Christmas special this year – at least not one set in the 1970s. The forthcoming prequel, Sisters In Arms, on the other hand, will debut as a Christmas special in December 2026. There’s no word as yet if that’s coming to PBS or if it will land on BritBox instead, but PBS is forging on as if it’s business as usual, with our regularly scheduled return of the most recent season (in this case, Season 15) to PBS streaming after being a Netflix exclusive for the past four months.
All episodes of Call the Midwife Season 15 return as a binge on Thursday, August 6, 2026, on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel.
Madam President (Vigdís)
Walter Presents kicks off August with the 2025 Icelandic miniseries Madam President (Vigdís), a period drama tracing the rise of Iceland’s first-ever female president – and the first woman ever democratically elected – in the 1980s. Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir stars as the titular Vigdís Finnbogadóttir in a biopic that spans from her World War II coming of age to her election and 16 years in office.
All four episodes of Madam President will debut on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel on Friday, August 7, 2026.
Until The Last Heartbeat (Fino All’ultimo Battito)
An Italian one-season-wonder, Until The Last Heartbeat (Fino All’ultimo Battito) originally aired on RAI in 2021. The series stars Marco Bocci as famous heart surgeon Diego Mancini, who is forced into making a horrific (and very illegal) decision to save his young son’s life with an emergency transplant. When the Mob gets word of his crime, Mancini finds himself blackmailed into deeper and deeper trouble. While the series was never canceled, there’s still no word on Season 2 five years later, so it’s probably not getting one.
All twelve episodes of Until The Last Heartbeat will debut on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel on Friday, August 14, 2026.
Blanca Season 2
Walter Presents is taking the rare week off, with no debut on Friday, August 21. But the anthology series will return at the very end of the month with Blanca Season 2. Based on the Patrizia Rinaldi 2009 book series, Season 1 debuted on PBS only six months ago, in January 2026. Maria Chiara Giannetta (The Good Apprentice) stars as the titular blind intern, driven to become a consulting profiler after her sister’s death. Season 3 aired on RAI in September 2025, and Season 4 is currently in production, so there’s more to come.
All twelve episodes of Blanca Season 2 will debut on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel on Friday, August 28, 2026.
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