Acorn TV Will Find 'The Gone' in January 2025

Here at Telly Visions, we sometimes encounter the problem of what constitutes a British series. Does The Lord of the Rings: The Rings off Power count? It's based on Tolkien's works and stars a heavily U.K. cast, but it's also set in Middle Earth. The Sandman is another weirdly borderline case — it's even set in an alternate London, and yet, one episode in, you know, it's not British. Meanwhile, Bridgerton, based on American books and produced by Americans at an American company, is absolutely considered a British show. But there's good news (well, sort of) in that Americans are not alone in having this problem. The supposedly Irish Drama The Gone, funded and produced by RTE, raised the same questions when it debuted in 2023. The series is set in New Zealand with a Kiwi sensibility to the overall themes and led some critics to ask if it's really an Irish Drama if it's only nominally about Ireland.

American viewers will get to decide whether The Gone is an Irish drama or a New Zealand one when the series comes to Acorn TV in January 2025. Unlike BritBox, which is set on being British above all with its programming, Acorn TV tends to pick up a lot of series from both Ireland and down under, so perhaps it will be a distinction without a difference. What does matter is that the Irish detective in the series is played by Richard Flood, who Americans know well from his time on the never-ending Grey's Anatomy.

Despite critics' uncertainty about whether to file the series under Ireland or New Zealand, The Gone was a big enough hit on RTE and TVNZ to earn a second series, which was filmed in early 2024. Though Acorn TV has only announced a Season 1 pickup, the fact that there are more seasons is almost certainly a factor, and if the show does well, one should expect Season 2 to eventually follow.