Communiqué

Sanditon, Season 3,
the final season
starring Rose Williams and Crystal Clarke on MASTERPIECE

Sundays, March 19 to April 23, 2023 at 9pm on PBS

Wedding bells ring, but for whom?

Jane Austen’s last, incomplete novel gets a glorious finish in the third and final season of Sanditon, MASTERPIECE’s acclaimed continuation of the story and characters created by Austen in her fascinating fragmentary work. Sanditon, Season 3, wraps up the plot in six satisfying episodes airing March 19 to April 23, 2023 at 9pm ET on PBS.

“We’re sad to take leave of this marvelous series, which has all the wit and joy expected of a Jane Austen-inspired drama,” says Susanne Simpson, Executive Producer of MASTERPIECE. “We know viewers will be on the edge of their seats as the final pieces fall into place.”

Belinda Campbell, Joint Managing Director of Red Planet Pictures adds, “Telling the stories of these Austenian heroines over three seasons has been a joy- their journeys, hopes, dreams, and romances have resonated with fans all over the world. The characters have grown just as beautifully as the town of Sanditon itself, and we’re delighted to showcase the enchanting coastal resort for a final time.”

Set amid the romantic intrigues of an English seaside resort in the early 1800s, the MASTERPIECE series has been called “a balmy retreat” (Salon), “lush and fun” (New York Times), and “perfect escapist fare” (Indiewire).

True to themes from other Austen novels, the first two seasons raised and dashed various matrimonial prospects for the heroines, played by Rose Williams (Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris) and Crystal Clarke (Empire of Light).

Williams appears as Charlotte Heywood, a young woman from the country whom fate has thrust into the social scene in Sanditon, which is vying to become the go-to spa for fashionable aristocrats and gentry. Although her father intends her to marry local farmer Ralph Starling (Cai Brigden, Summer of Rockets), Charlotte has attracted the attention of some of Sanditon’s most eligible bachelors—among them the enigmatic Alexander Colbourne (Ben Lloyd-Hughes, The Crown), a landowner with a mysterious past.

Clarke’s character, Georgiana Lambe, faces an entirely different problem. A mixed-race heiress from the West Indies, she can’t trust any of her suitors, because in all probability they are only interested in her fortune. The two women bond over these courtship dilemmas as well as their resolve to forge their own destinies.

Romantic possibilities this season are enhanced by new cast members, including Emma Fielding (Cranford) as the financially distressed Lady Montrose, who arrives in Sanditon to snare matches for her grown children: Lydia (Alice Orr-Ewing, The Theory of Everything), who is an independent-minded young woman; and Lord Henry Montrose (Edward Davis, Emma), a duke whose title alone is an attractive selling point, if he is perhaps less suitable in other ways. James Bolam (The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner) plays Rowleigh Pryce, a crusty investor whom Tom Parker is courting to bankroll a new hotel in Sanditon, subject to Lady Denham’s approval. It turns out that Pryce and Lady Denham share a very interesting past.

And there is Liam Garrigan (The Pillars of the Earth), who appears as Alexander Colbourne’s brother, Samuel, a London attorney whose legal help is crucial as the plot approaches its climax. An eligible bachelor himself, Samuel gets caught up in the Sanditon marriage market. Intrigued by this former sleepy village which has become a place of hidden passions, he eyes a new female acquaintance and muses, “There are so many interesting things going on in Sanditon that require careful observation.”