'The Marlow Murder Club' Already Filming Season 3
The triaging of The Marlow Murder Club release schedule continues apace, as Season 3 gets announced by UKTV, despite the series being a co-production with Masterpiece, which has not even released the first images from Season 2, let alone a trailer. It's slightly better than the Season 2 announcement, which came on what would have been the heels of the series' premiere on PBS, had it arrived in the spring of 2024 as initially planned. However, the show was bumped to the fall to make way for Mr Bates vs the Post Office here in the U.S., while over in the U.K., the show remained on the original schedule, causing a six-month delay between the two release dates. Season 2 arrived in the U.K. in early 2025 and only just concluded a few weeks ago; however, this time, UKTV politely waited so that the Season 3 announcement came after the show's Season 2 premiere date was announced for the U.S.
Masterpiece had good reason to choose bumping The Marlow Murder Club over, say, the Suranne Jones series MaryLand, which wound up directly following Mr. Bates, because the latter was not guaranteed to be a hit (and was, at best, a mushy middler in the ratings for the public broadcaster). The Marlow Murder Club, however, comes with a long pedigree, conceived of and created by Robert Thorogood, the man behind Death in Paradise, which has reached 15 seasons and counting, plus two hit spinoffs. That track record, plus a cast led by Downton Abbey's Samantha Bond, Doctor Who's Jo Martin, and Cara Horgan (Murder in Provence), practically guaranteed hit status no matter when it premiered, or how long it took to arrive after airing in the U.K.
PBS is slowly shifting The Marlow Murder Club back down the schedule, premiering Season 2 in August 2025 rather than October. With a third season officially on the way for next year, I'd personally put my money on it arriving in June 2026, putting it in a relatively sensible position to UKTV's spring berth. But hey, don't quote me (unless I'm right.)
