Photo: PBS Masterpiece

Once again, PBS Masterpiece made their usual big splash at the recent Television Critics Association press tour. Aside from showcasing upcoming new seasons of Miss Scarlet and The Duke and All Creatures Great and Small and a new brilliant effort from Anthony Horowitz based on his Magpie Murders novel of the same name, Masterpiece Executive Producer Susanne Simpson announced an upcoming television adaptation of a five-part drama based on the public and private life of Clementine Churchill, wife of British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.

Who’s ready for more #AllCreaturesPBS? Mark your calendars, the series returns for an all-new season Sunday, January 8 at 9/8c on MASTERPIECE @PBS! 🐶🐷🐴🐮 pic.twitter.com/OvQdKEK9Uw

— MASTERPIECE | PBS (@masterpiecepbs) July 28, 2022

With a working title of Mrs. Churchill, the series will be the untold story of a fiercely independent and very modern heroine who risked everything to save her country and the world from fascism–and her husband from himself. Clementine’s story has slipped through the cracks of history. The magnitude of her many achievements are only recently being recognized.

Each episode of the limited series will follow Clementine through pivotal moments of her life. Raised by an unstable mother in relative poverty caring for her siblings, Clementine became a suffragette working two jobs. Known as the “Broke Beauty,” she refused to marry for money or to a man she didn’t love.

The series will follow her courtship with Winston and struggle with motherhood, her broken relationship with her young niece, Diana Mitford, who was brainwashed by fascism, her pivotal relationship with American Harry Hopkins (FDR’s conscience) who held the purse strings to (yet to be created) Land Lease, ensuring England could survive against the Germans until America joined the war, and a climactic trip to Russia where she goes toe to toe with Stalin. The show will be a window into one of history’s most remarkable and complicated women.

Look for new seasons of Van der Walk (Sept 25), Miss Scarlet and The Duke (October 16) and new series premieres of Magpie Murders (October 16) and Annika (October 16) this Fall with All Creatures Great and Small returning on Sunday, January 8, 2023 on PBS.