— Others Include “Frankie Drake Mysteries Season 4,” “The Defence,” “Hotel Sacher,” “Witness” and “Mayor of Casterbridge” —
Arlington, VA – September 27, 2021 – September is chock-full of exciting new programs for drama fans to stream on the PBS MASTERPIECE Prime Video Channel. Titles include MASTERPIECE’s new darkly funny comedy “Guilt” as well as Season 4 of the upbeat mystery series, “Frankie Drake Mysteries.” The four international Walter Presents programs include a Polish crime mystery series “The Defence,” a new German period drama “Hotel Sacher,” and the French crime thriller, “Witnesses.” In addition, a host of period dramas, crime and mystery programs will be available including “The Mayor of Casterbridge,” “Jamaica Inn,” “Capitol,” and many others.
The subscription rate for the PBS MASTERPIECE Prime Video Channel is $5.99/month with an Amazon Prime or Prime Video subscription. Every purchase helps support public television for all.
MASTERPIECE: Guilt
Streaming Date: September 5, 2021
Episodes: 4
Genre: Drama, Crime
Language: English
A drunken drive home from a wedding lands two brothers in increasingly hot water, as they commit more and more serious crimes to hide their culpability in a hit-and-run. Mark Bonnar (“Line of Duty,” “Catastrophe,” “Unforgotten”) and Jamie Sives (“Valhalla Rising,” “Mean Machine”) star as the brothers, with Ruth Bradley (“Grabbers,” “Flyboys,” “Pursuit”) as the victim’s niece, who falls for her uncle’s killer. “A darkly delicious tale,” declared The Guardian (London).
Frankie Drake Mysteries, Season 4
Streaming Date: September 3, 2021
Episodes: 10
Genre: Drama, Crime
Language: English
Season Four opens with our intrepid detectives Frankie Drake (Lauren Lee Smith) and Trudy Clarke (Chantel Riley) alongside their best gal pals, Mary Shaw (Rebecca Liddiard) and Flo Chakowitz (Sharron Matthews), traipsing through the woods on a scavenger hunt that quickly turns deadly. From the wilderness to the world of high society, from an underground cabaret to a candy factory, Frankie and Trudy investigate murders, kidnappings, heists and poisonings. Using her position as a morality officer, Mary is able to snoop through police files and be privy to non-civilian discussions, while Flo lends a hand with autopsy reports, science experiments and her newly acquired medical skills.
As always, amid high-stakes danger, excitement, intrigue and friendship, the women find their balance in their lives outside of work. Frankie has a European race car-driving beau; Trudy’s dreams of home-sweet-home are closer than ever; Mary falls for the wrong fella; and Flo starts a family.
Walter Presents: The Defence
Streaming Date: September 3, 2021
Episodes: 7
Genre: Drama, Crime Thriller
Language: Polish with English Subtitles
Adapted from the renowned crime-thriller novel by Remigiusz Mróz, “The Defence” follows a well-regarded lawyer who agrees to help her friends when their baby goes missing.
Joanna Chylka is a capable, uncompromising, courageous and rebellious lawyer in a legal world that is full of stubborn and power-hungry men. When three-year-old Nikola Szlezyngier disappears without a trace and the police find no evidence of kidnapping, the child’s parents become the main suspects. Desperate, they decide to contact Chylka, an old friend, who agrees to undertake their defense despite other cases piling up on her desk and mountains of evidence indicating the couple’s guilt. Will her legal team manage to find the real guilty party, or has the truth been under their noses this whole time?
Walter Presents: Hotel Sacher
Streaming Date: September 10, 2021
Episodes: 2
Genre: Period Drama
Language: German with English Subtitles
Based on true events, “Hotel Sacher” explores the renowned owner and hotel’s reputation and the tales they kept behind closed doors.
The imperial era is about to end; but what will replace it? One key, or rather many keys, lay in the hands of Anna Sacher, the domineering proprietor of the Hotel Sacher, the most distinguished hotel in Vienna. The city is the center of Europe, where the aristocracy still sets the tone and servants must know where they belong. And Anna, the unchallenged “Queen of Vienna,” makes sure that the “upstairs” and “downstairs” folk keep to themselves. They know they can rely on her discretion.
At the center of all this are two couples, the independent-minded publisher Martha and her unsuccessful writer-husband Max; and the romance novel authoress and princess, Konstanze and her socially committed husband Georg. Living on the edge, their destinies get intertwined as they conduct passionate but doomed affairs.
But there is another figure waiting in the wings to take a place on the chessboard of a new society: Marie. The illegitimate child of Georg – who had no idea of her existence – escapes the miserable conditions she was raised in and claims her rightful place. A new era is about to begin…
Walter Presents: Witness
Streaming Date: September 10, 2021
Episodes: 6
Genre: Drama, Crime, Thriller
Language: French with English Subtitles
Mystery is everywhere and nobody will be spared by revenge…
Set in the coastal town of Le Tréport in Normandy, France, three bodies with no apparent connection are discovered in a show home of a house developer. The police find the deceased man, woman and teenager staged as if they were a living family. Detective Sandra Winckler arrives at the morbid scene to search for clues leading to the perpetrator but instead comes across a photo of ex-police officer Paul Maisonneuve. The retired policeman is forced to return to work in order to get to the bottom of the grim mystery.
Other titles coming to the PBS MASTERPIECE Prime Video Channel this September:
Jamaica Inn
The Making of a Lady
Dancing on the Edge
Mayor of Casterbridge
Kidnap & Ransom, Season 1 & 2
Capital
Angel of Death, Season 1
To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters
About PBS MASTERPIECE Prime Video Channel
MASTERPIECE has been setting the standard for exceptional British drama in the US for 50 years and the PBS MASTERPIECE Prime Video Channel continues this legacy and has expanded to include award-winning TV series from around the world – all carefully curated for ‘viewers like you’.
About MASTERPIECE
Winner of 83 Primetime Emmys® and 18 Peabody Awards, MASTERPIECE has been essential Sunday night viewing for millions of fans since 1971. Susanne Simpson is the executive producer and Rebecca Eaton is the executive producer-at-large for the series. Funding for MASTERPIECE is provided by Viking and Raymond James with additional support from public television viewers and contributors to The MASTERPIECE Trust. Produced for PBS by GBH Boston, MASTERPIECE is known for hits such as All Creatures Great and Small, Sherlock, Downton Abbey and Victoria, and beloved classics such as Upstairs Downstairs, Prime Suspect, The Forsyte Saga and Poldark.
About Walter Presents
Walter Presents launched January 2016 in the U.K. as a video-on-demand service, founded by Jason Thorp, Walter Iuzzolino and Jo McGrath. Dedicated to showcasing award winning foreign language drama, the service is named after its curator, Walter Iuzzolino, a passionate drama fan. In March 2017, Walter Presents launched as an SVOD platform in the U.S., with the New York Times hailing it as a “chic TV boutique with a foreign accent.” Walter Presents launched in Italy September 2018, its first roll-out in mainland Europe, on Discovery’s Nove, Giallo and Dplay channels. In October 2018 Walter Presents partnered with PBS Distribution in the US, to make premium foreign language drama available on PBS Masterpiece on the Amazon Prime Video channel. Additionally, select top-tier titles chosen by PBS are also broadcast on PBS stations and streaming on PBS Passport, a digital member benefit available through local stations. In February 2019 Walter Presents increased its US distribution further launching on Comcast Xfinity X1 and later in June Walter Presents launched on the Roku Channel. In 2019 Walter Presents teamed up with Medialaan to make the service available to Flemish audiences on their newly launched digital channel StreamZ, and also joined forces with S4C to make its dramas available in Welsh. In 2020 we partnered with TVNZ with over 250 hours of content on their VOD service and also launched Walter Presents in Russia exclusively on Start, Russia’s fastest growing SVOD platform, providing 400 hours of hit international drama as well as launching with PBS Masterpiece in Canada. This year Walter Presents partnered with Australia’s largest subscription streaming service, Stan.
About PBS DISTRIBUTION
PBS Distribution is a leading distributor of public media content around the world, reaching audiences through multiple platforms and formats. The company operates five streaming channels —PBS MASTERPIECE, PBS KIDS, PBS LIVING, PBS DOCUMENTARIES, and PBS America (U.K.). Other services include transactional video-on-demand, subscription video-on-demand licensing, physical products on DVD and Blu-ray, theatrical releasing, educational, non-theatrical, inflight, and international program sales and co-productions.
PBS Distribution offers consumers and educators the highest quality factual, scripted, and children’s programming including films from Ken Burns, hit series from MASTERPIECE and foreign language dramas from Walter Presents, entertaining and educational PBS KIDS series, and award-winning documentaries from NOVA, FRONTLINE, AMERICAN MASTERS, NATURE, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, and many independent producers. For over 10 years, the company has extended the reach of programming beyond broadcast while generating revenue for the public television system, stations, and producers.
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