What to Expect From 'Miss Scarlet & the Duke' Season 4

As a show heading into its fourth season, there's a lot about the mystery series Miss Scarlet & the Duke that feels like a known quantity. After all, we've all done this before, and the beats are all still pretty familiar. Eliza Scarlet, Victorian London's first female private investigator, solves crimes, works to prove herself to a patriarchal society that refuses to take her or her skills seriously, and repeatedly puts up with what often feels like every other person she meets expressing disbelief about the basic facts of her profession. She shares a complicated history with Scotland Yard detective William "The Duke" Wellington, with whom she solves a lot of cases while they very determinedly do not deal with their years' worth of unresolved sexual tension or unspoken but glaringly obvious feelings for one another.

The show is a lot of fun, and the will they / won't they vibes are immaculate, but part of what makes it so appealing is the comforting, predictable nature of its formula. This isn't a show that has frequently chosen to rock the boat, narratively speaking. It does what it knows works, and it sticks with that framework. But, as we look toward Season 4, which premieres on PBS Masterpiece in early January, for the first time in a long time, it seems there are significant changes ahead in the world of Miss Scarlet for almost all its characters.

First of all, the show's very premise is shifting slightly. The main idea behind the show has always been that Eliza Scarlet is a female private investigator trying to make her own way under her own name. (Under the awning of the very agency her beloved father used to run.) Now, as Season 4 begins, she's left that behind her to lead the London office of Patrick Nash's agency, which comes with the additional staff, funding, and public awareness she's been longing for.