The Holy Grail (or How to watch Sanditon 3 in the UK)

Be still my beating heart. Sanditon series 3 has landed, and I’m in raptures… or at least I would be, if I didn’t live in England, glorious England, where Jane Austen lived and breathed and loved and wrote, where the beautiful story of Sanditon was filmed, and where ITV own the rights to said Sanditon and have no interest in allowing fans to see it! Bounders and cads the lot of them. 

Having followed the discussions on several Sanditon Facebook groups (highly entertaining insights if you wish to immerse yourself in the world of Sanditon but understandably full of spoilers at the moment from our lucky American cousins who hold PBS passports and have binged the whole series, oh what favoured folk they are!) I am delighted to inform you that you, dear reader, are able to watch the first episode of series three by following the steps set out below. You should then be able to watch it weekly on a Monday or at your leisure over the following few days once PBS Masterpiece has released it in the US. The local PBS site I’ve managed to connect to is streaming Episode 1 until 2 April 2023.

I have yet to discover a sneaky contrivance to become a PBS Passport holder so have been unable to binge but my expectations of being able to watch it at all were low so I am blissfully happy being able to watch the episodes in turn over the five remaining weeks.

My only caveats are: 

• You may have to pay for a VPN 
• I have only tried this on my phone as my VPN is on my iphone (other smartphones are available). You should be able to log in on a laptop too but I haven’t verified this. 
• Each site will only have each episode to stream for a limited time, this isn’t a once for all time solution, more of an immediate one.

Step 1) Download a VPN

This is a Virtual Private Network, according to NordVPN this protects your internet connection with an “encrypted tunnel for your data, protects your online identity by hiding your IP address and allows you to use public Wi-Fi hotspots safely.”

The most salient point, which they inconceivably fail to mention, is it allows you to use a server with an IP address elsewhere, for example, in the United States, so when you log on to a website, let us say, oooh, I don’t know, PBS Masterpiece, and try to access content only available in the US, it thinks that you are, in fact, in the US! Magic. 

I use the aforementioned NordVPN and paid just over 40 quid for the privilege (and that was on offer). There are lots of VPNs available (Express VPN seems popular), some are free, this TechRadar post explains the pros and cons of using a free vs a paid VPN and suggests some free options.*

*I am not being paid for any of these links and if you do opt for any of these VPNs, free or otherwise, it is at your own risk. 

Step 2) Google PBS Masterpiece and click onto the website (it may take you to a different website depending on where in America your VPN server is located.) 

I used a VPN in Chicago and used the link https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/episodes/sanditon-s3-e1/
This should take you to the first episode which should (Oh joy! Oh rapture!) play!

If it doesn’t work, you can try following these steps to find it:

Click the menu in the top 

On the drop down menu select ‘watch’ and toggle through to Series 3 Episode 1. 

I was delighted that this worked and I viewed it again this morning (review pending). It is marvellous. We’ll have to wait patiently for each episode but that is decidedly more tolerable than waiting for ITV to announce when they will show it.