'The Marlow Murder Club' Trailer Is on the Case for Season 2

For those seeking a bit of good news in 2025, may I direct your attention to your local PBS station. It's there, as a digital channel, part of the broadcast channels on your cable box, as an app on your TV, iPad, or phone, with livestreaming channels available for free on Amazon, even if you don't have a Prime Video subscription. Moreover, despite the upheaval of the last decade in the entertainment industry, where the streaming revolution has claimed the scalp of 115-year-old Paramount Studios, PBS isn't just surviving; it's bringing more programming than ever for Anglophiles from Walking with Dinosaurs to cozy crime shows like The Marlow Murder Club.

It may not be easy for people to remember the world of 20 years ago, but the late aughts were rough for fans of British TV. BBC America had barely anything other than Top Gear, HBO's big U.K. co-production after Rome, Game of Thrones, had stalled to the point that the BBC bailed on it, and on PBS, Mystery! and Masterpiece had merged (leaving a gap in the PBS Thursday National schedule that still hasn't been adequately filled) to ensure Sunday at least had one hour of imported programming. It was not an auspicious place to be working from when streaming hit.

Compare that to today, where Masterpiece has released the first trailer for the highly popular Marlow Murder Club, a show it produces in-house, just after the successful debut of Grantchester Season 10, which aired immediately after PBS' brand-new mystery series, Patience. Marlow is one of three series arriving in August, along with Unforgotten and Professor T, pre-Labor Day Weekend. The move was necessitated by PBS and Masterpiece having so much British programming to air before the winter holidays (The Gold, Maigret, The Great Escaper); it had no choice but to expand the Sunday footprint. That's not just surviving in 2025, that's thriving.