Will 'Baptiste' Have A Season 3? The Detective Has Retired

When Baptiste was announced in 2018, it had been two years since the show that introduced the titular character, The Missing, had been on the air. The two-season series starring Tchéky Karyo as Julien Baptiste had taken quite a bit of time between seasons. The show initially aired in 2014, with Season 2 in 2016; both seasons aired on STARZ in the U.S., about six months after their respective U.K. runs. Baptiste debuted in 2019 in the U.K. and 2020 on PBS, a second season already greenlit before the show arrived in America.

But with filming on Season 2 delayed due to the U.K. lockdowns, the new season didn't arrive until mid-summer 2021 in the U.K., followed by its recent run here on PBS. With both airings so close, fans could be forgiven for wondering if a Season 3 announcement simply hasn't gotten around to happening yet. After all, the green light for the second season of Baptiste came in January 2020, months after it had already aired in the U.K., but before it hit U.S. shores that spring. Perhaps the quick turnaround on PBS meant they'd beaten the production to the punch before the BBC could announce a renewal.

But as fans saw, the Season 2 finale was pretty conclusive in wrapping up Baptiste's story. The final episode spent the last fifteen minutes of the mystery not on yet another terrorist attack but a quiet ending that saw Baptiste head home to France and adjust to being home as a grandparent. That's because there is no Season 3 to come. The show was confirmed as canceled in July 2021, a decision made not by the BBC, which aired both Baptiste and The Missing, but by the show's creators, brothers Harry and Jack Williams. Speaking to The Express at the time, Jack said, "We didn't want to just be a detective series like so many others, and we began to worry it was becoming that if we continued."