PBS confirms ‘Downton Abbey’ season 4, ‘Sherlock’ season 3 start dates

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Sherlock season 2Want to see when some of your favorite British shows are coming to America? Well, PBS has confirmed now when two of their most-popular imports are going to be coming stateside in the new year.

We begin here with the fourth season of “Downton Abbey,” which, as expected, is going to launch on Sunday, January 5 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. Expect there to be some sort of double-episode thrown in here, since there are nine episodes of the show from ITV (including the Christmas special), but the show is only airing on PBS for eight weeks. This isn’t too much of a surprise, given that something similar was done last year. As for why they are doing this, we really don’t have any clue given that you want to make your episodes stretch out as long as possible, especially given that this is one of the most-popular shows in the history of public television.

Meanwhile, “Sherlock” season 3 is going to premiere on Sunday, January 19, and it is going to run there until February 2. (The show runs extremely short seasons.) What we find especially interesting about this show is that the BBC has not even confirmed their premiere date in the UK yet, though we know that it will be on at some point before its American counterpart given that they have the rights to broadcast first. Waiting to announce premiere dates is another strange and surprising British tradition. They did something similar to “Downton Abbey” on ITV, as there were not too many details handed down until close to when the show was actually set to air.

Without giving anything away on “Downton Abbey,” Americans should expect an exciting, controversial collection of episodes that tries to move forward following the tragic death of Matthew Crawley. There will also be new faces, including Tom Cullen as Lord Anthony Gillingham, and Gary Carr as the show’s first-ever black character in jazz singer Jack Ross.

What do you think about the premiere dates for these two shows? Be sure to share some of your thoughts below.

Photo: BBC One

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