What’s coming soon to Acorn TV UK in March 2021?
David Farnor | On 03, Mar 2021
Acorn TV has officially landed in the UK. The AMC Network platform, which specialises in British and international TV, has racked up more than 1 million subscribers in the US, and aims to find similar success on British soil by growing a bumper crop of crime and period dramas. The service launched in 2020 with the UK debut of Queens of Mystery, plus Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Partners in Crime and The Witness for the Prosecution and hit Welsh drama Keeping Faith.
Spring has almost sprung this March Acorn TV is showing shoots of promising new entertainment from around the world, with the US remake of The Slap, Australian drama Safe Harbour, Spanish hit The Plague and a trip to Tasmania The Kettering Incident with Hollywood star Elizabeth Debicki. Back in Blighty there’s John Hannah’s charming, motorcycling forensic pathologist McCallum, and let’s not forget Season 1 and 2 of Keeping Faith, ideal for bingeing before Season 3 arrives on the BBC.
Here’s what’s coming to Acorn TV in March 2021:
A Place to Call Home: Season 3 – 1st March
Acclaimed actor Marta Dusseldorp (Jack Irish, Stateless) stars as Sarah Adams, a nurse with a mysterious past who returns to Australia after 20 years abroad, and a chance meeting sees her life becomes intertwined with the privileged Bligh family, in this internationally loved Australian saga, which aired in the UK on BBC One.
Old School – 8th March
Acting legends Bryan Brown (Gorillas in The Mist) and Sam Neill (Jurassic Park) team up for a cops and robbers show with a difference. They play retired criminal Lennie Cahill (Brown) and retired cop Ted McCabe (Neill). The unlikely pair join forces to try and crack a slew of mysteries, but could they be connected to a heist‐gone‐wrong that happened 12 years earlier, that left both men physically and emotionally scarred?
McCallum: Season 1 and 2 – 8th March
John Hannah (The Mummy, Sliding Doors) plays the eponymous lead Dr. Iain McCallum, a charming, motorcycling forensic pathologist, with a passion for the truth and a complex love-life. We meet McCallum in the morgue of St. Patrick’s Hospital in the East End of London where he’s investigating the body of a missing Vietnamese banker who has washed up on the shore. But he soon has problems closer to home, when a female police officer – who he’d been been having an affair with – is found dead and he becomes the prime suspect.
Love My Way: Season 3 – 8th March
This Australian family drama set in Sydney follows the trials and tribulations of Frankie (Claudia Karvan, Newton’s Law, Jack Irish), a tempestuous ball of energy who works as an illustrator at a large daily newspaper and lives with partner Tom (Brendan Cowell, The Borgias, The Letdown), a fallen star chef, now a cook at the local rehabilitation hospital. Just down the road in a much nicer house lives Tom’s brother Charlie (Dan Wyllie, Romper Stomper, No Activity), who also happens to be Frankie’s ex and father to their daughter Lou. Along with Charlie’s ambitious new wife Julia (Asher Keddie, Party Tricks, The Cry), this group of 30-somethings must tackle the tangled web of life, love, family and friendship.
Safe Harbour – 15th March
When five Australians on a sailing holiday come across a fishing boat full of desperate asylum seekers, they stop to help. They tow the boat and its passengers through the night, but later discover it’s mysteriously disappeared. Years later, one of the Australians, Ryan (Ewen Leslie, Operation Buffalo, The Luminaries), gets into a taxi driven by Ismail, one of the refugees. Overjoyed to learn they reached Australia, he invites Ismail and his family to a BBQ. It’s there Ryan and the others learn the real truth – someone cut the rope leaving the boat to sink and seven people to lose their lives, including Ismail’s nine-year-old daughter. As suspicions are raised and fingers pointed, will they find out what happened that night and was it really a coincidence that Ryan saw Ismail again?
The Plague (La Peste) – 15th March
This gripping Spanish historical crime-drama set in the late 16th-century was a smash hit when it originally aired in Spain as La Peste, and aired to critical acclaim in the UK on BBC Four. 1600s Seville is flourishing, as this gateway to the western world sees international travellers land from far and wide to seek their fortune…but the crowded and chaotic area has been devastated by the Black Death. Mateo Nunez (Pablo Molinero) is forced to return to the city that’s condemned him to death – but there might just be a chance at redemption, as he’s tasked with finding the serial killer who is responsible for a spate of ritual killings. Can he solve these disturbing crimes and save his own life?
In Deep: Season 1 – 15th March
Heartbeat’s Nick Berry (Eastenders) and Wild at Heart’s Stephen Tompkinson (Marple) play undercover detectives Liam Ketman and Garth O’Hanlon in this gripping BBC crime drama.
The Plague: Season 1 – 15th March
This hit Spanish historical drama is set in late 16th-century Seville where the Plague is rife and a spate of horrific ritual murders sees a man forced to investigate to save his own life.
Moving On: Season 9 and 10 – 22nd March
BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning writer Jimmy McGovern’s moving standalone dramas follow people ready to move on after life-changing situations. Season 9 and 10 join the first eight seasons already streaming.
Reunions – 22nd March
After the death of his estranged father, Jérémy (Loup-Denis Elion) uproots his family from France to the sunny beaches of Réunion Island, in the Indian Ocean, to run his newly inherited bankrupt hotel with the help of his half-brother, who he never knew existed. This warm-hearted, modern drama is filled with humour and explores the importance of family and overcoming problems with the help of your loved ones, instead of running away.
The Kettering Incident – 29th March
Elizabeth Debicki (The Night Manager) takes the lead as a woman with a mysterious past. Set on the isolated island of Tasmania, this tense, gripping thriller follows one woman’s journey to find the truth about life-changing events from her childhood. In 2000, a young Anna (Debicki) and her friend Gillian saw strange lights in the forest, but after going to investigate, only one of them returned. Years later an unwelcome Anna, now a successful doctor, returns to Kettering and is drawn back into the past. 15 years later the lights return, and another disappearance sees the community ask: is history repeating itself and what really was The Kettering Incident?
The Slap (USA) – 29th March
This American adaptation of the hit Australian series based on Christos Tsiolkas’s 2008 novel stars Brian Cox (Succession), Melissa George (Mulholland Drive), Thandie Newton (Line of Duty), Zachary Quinto (NOS4A2), Peter Sarsgaard (Boys Don’t Cry) and Uma Thurman (Kill Bill). When Aisha and Hector host a birthday party in their garden to celebrate his 40th birthday, things go horribly wrong as Hector (Sarsgaard) wrestles with his attraction to the teenage babysitter (Makenzie Leigh), and his cousin slaps a child who is not his own. The party ends abruptly with the child’s parents threatening legal action, and a chain of events is ignited that will uncover secrets, challenge core values, and leave the party guests and hosts forever changed.
Acorn TV is available on Roku, Fire TV, Android and iOS and Apple TV, costing £4.99 a month or £49.99 a year.