With an Early Season 3 Renewal, PBS Is Betting Big on 'The Forsytes'
Get ready to spend a lot of time with this sprawling nineteenth-century family.
The first season of Masterpiece’s buzzy remake of period drama classic The Forsytes doesn’t even premiere in America for another two weeks, but PBS and the U.K.’s Channel 5 are already committed to the series for the long haul. The show has landed a (very) early Season 3 renewal, which means that we’ll be watching this complicated story of a messy wealthy family in 1880s London for literal years to come.
This is, of course, great news in many ways, not the least of which being that in the streaming era, the threat of early cancellation hangs over many (most?) shows almost from the jump. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for viewers to trust that any series they invest their time in will last more than a single season. But now, with The Forstyes, viewers can tune in already knowing they’re getting at least three seasons’ worth of material.
(Also: God forbid that the initial season ends on a cliffhanger! Yes, Sanditon, we are looking at you.)
Based on John Galsworthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series of novels known as The Forsyte Saga, the plot spans four generations and multiple decades, featuring over half a dozen main characters, conflicting loyalties, and a prodigious amount of yearning. Billed as a “reimagining” of the original, it aims to expand and update the series’s larger world by incorporating prequel-ish elements set before the events of the first book, starting with the show’s first season.
The main story revolves around cousins Soames and Jolyon’s battle to see who will take over the stock brokerage that made the Forsyte family’s fortune. But their competition is complicated by the arrival of two very different prospective wives, as well as Jo’s ongoing attachment to a Soho dressmaker who isn’t the sort of woman that the Forsytes are allowed to marry.
(If you’re thinking this all has a kind of Downton Abbey feel, well. That’syou’re probably on purpose.)
Here’s the series’ synopsis.
Desire, ambition and betrayal simmer at the heart of the The Forsytes which chronicles the lives, loves, trials and triumphs of a wealthy Victorian era stockbroking family, whose generations find themselves torn between tradition and self-sacrifice versus personal happiness and the pursuit of love.
The cast is massive, as befits such a sprawling, intergenerational saga, and full of faces familiar to anyone who’s spent pretty much any time watching British TV in recent years. Francesca Annis (Flesh & Blood) stars as the Forsyte matriarch, Ann, with Stephen Moyer (Art Detectives) as her eldest son, Jolyon Senior, and Jack Davenport (Ten Percent) as the competitive younger son, James. Danny Griffin (The Gentlemen) plays Jolyon Sr.’s bohemian son Jo, Tuppence Middleton (Our House) is Jo’s status-driven wife, Frances; Eleanor Tomlinson (The Couple Next Door) plays Jo’s first love, Louisa Byrne; and Tom Durant Pritchard (Miss Scarlet) plays Monty Dartie, James’s son-in-law.
Other notable members of the sprawling ensemble cast include Josette Simon (Broadchurch), Tristan Sturrock (Poldark), Justine Moore (Call the Midwife), Jamie Flatters (Liar), Naomi Frederick (Belgravia), Sharon Rose (Silent Witness), Owen Igiehon (Disclaimer), Fiona Button (Truelove), Eleanor Jackson (The Royal Mob), and OG 1967 The Forsyte Saga star Susan Hampshire OBE, who plays Lady Carteret in this version.
The series is written by Debbie Horsfield, who brought PBS’s 2015 Poldark adaptation to the small screen. Directors Meenu Gaur (Murder Is Easy) and Annetta Laufer (Get Millie Black) are splitting helming duties, and Sarah Lewis (The Long Shadow) is producing. Horsfield and Gaur executive produce with Sheena Bucktowonsing, Damien Timmer for Mammoth Screen, and Susanne Simpson for Masterpiece.
Production on Season 3 will begin next month in the U.K. and around Europe.
The Forsytes Season 1 will premiere on Sunday, March 22, 2026, at 9 p.m. ET on most local PBS stations, directly following the premiere of Call the Midwife Season 15. All episodes will be available on PBS Passport for members starting on premiere day. Check your local listings.
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