‘Grantchester’ Season 4 News: Meet The New Hot Vicar, ‘Outlander’ Alum Tom Brittney

Grantchester is coming back for Season 4! Your favorite PBS Masterpiece Mystery series about an emotionally-tortured vicar solving crimes is set to return. PBS and ITV announced this week that Season 4 of Grantchester is (finally) in production, but there’s a twist. Season 4 will feature star James Norton‘s final appearance in the series. Sidney Chambers will be leaving the town of Grantchester, and he will be replaced by a new dishy vicar named Will Davenport played by Tom Brittney.

For almost a year, we’ve been tracking the future of Grantchester amid rumors that Norton was holding up a fourth potential season. Back in August of 2017, it was reported that Grantchester series author James Runcie thought the show could return, but likely without Norton in the lead. Back in January, we asked Norton if he would be returning to Grantchester, and he diplomatically said,  I’m not sure,” and that he was waiting to hear about the show’s future, “by powers much more important than me.”

In Thursday’s official press release, Norton says, “As excited as I am to be filming a new series of Grantchester, it’s also heartbreaking to be saying goodbye to Sidney Chambers. I’ve loved this experience, and particularly working with such an extraordinary cast and crew. All the best to the fantastic Tom Brittney in his role as the new vicar. He is a wonderful addition to the Grantchester family.”

Tom Brittney has appeared in X Company, The Five, UnREAL, Call the Midwife, and Outlander, but this would be his first major turn front-and-center. The official press release from PBS gives us some clues as to how his character, Reverend Will Davenport, might differ from Sidney Chambers:

A man of the people—confident, caring and self-assured—Grantchester’s young new parish priest channels his boundless energy into a quest for social justice. He is a man of God, but with the devil inside of him. As Geordie draws him into righting the wrongs of criminal Cambridge, Will’s own troubled past is unearthed.

Grantchester creator Daisy Coulam offered up more tidbits about Season 4 of Grantchester in an exclusive podcast interview with PBS. According to Coulam, the next season takes place in 1956, a time of Elvis, change, and teddy boys. “Our theme is evolve or die,” Coulam said. “You have to move with the times or you kind of fade away. Our characters are all sort of struggling with that, really. Geordie Keating will be facing a world without his best friend, but in good crime tradition, he will still have a new best friend to fight crime alongside.”

Coulam joked that she could confirm that the town’s new vicar was a “hottie,” and explained that she wanted Will Davenport to infuse the show with that new spirit of change. She said, “He’s much younger than Sidney, which instantly gives him a new characteristic because our new guy didn’t go through the war…he’s the sort of face of modern Britain.”

PBS also confirmed on that podcast that Grantchester Season 4 will debut on Masterpiece Mystery in summer of 2019.

Where to Stream Grantchester