‘Last Tango in Halifax’ Returns With Celia & Alan at Odds in Season 4

Last Tango In Halifax: Series 5: Episode 4
Preview
Stuart Wood/Lookout Point/PBS

We’re so bloody happy! Returning after a three-year absence is Sally Wainwright’s brilliantly written British comedy-drama, Last Tango in Halifax, about an extended Yorkshire family trying to do the best they can as life’s baggage accumulates.

At the show’s unsentimental center: conservative Celia and liberal Alan (Sanditon‘s Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi), octogenarians who joyfully got engaged in the series’ 2013 U.S. premiere after the passing of their lifelong spouses.

Now in Season 4 (No. 5 in the U.K.), seven years into wedded bliss, they’re at odds when he goes back to work. “I’m not quite sure whether he still loves me or not,” Reid says of her character. (“I do!” counters Jacobi.)

last tango in halifax season 4

(Credit: PBS)

Their middle-aged daughters — posh head of school Caroline (Sarah Lancashire) and sheep farmer Gillian (Nicola Walker), both moms — clashed initially but bonded when Gillian confessed she’d murdered her abusive first husband.

The two find trouble on the job, and, Walker notes ominously, “We have shared enemies.”

Last Tango in Halifax, Season 4 Premiere, Sunday, September 20, 8/7c, PBS (check local listings at pbs.org)