A Continuing Investigation

The fate of PBS’ long-running “Mystery!” series hangs in the balance. After airing two decades of acclaimed mysteries imported from England--among them “Inspector Morse,” “Reilly, Ace of Spies,” “Touching Evil” and “Prime Suspect”--”Mystery!”--has been pushed out of its regular Thursday night time slot and turned into a limited summer series.

“We stopped buying and co-producing British mysteries about a year ago,” says Rebecca Eaton, executive producer of both “Mystery!” and “Masterpiece Theatre” for WGBH in Boston. “We had some that we bought but had not aired, and PBS is redeploying ‘Mystery!’ as a limited series this summer and next summer.”

Nothing is certain after that.

“Mystery!” is losing its British accent because PBS chief Pat Mitchell revamped the prime-time schedule--including moving “Masterpiece Theatre” from its traditional Sunday night time slot to Monday evenings--and issued an edict for more American programming. “So they made the decision to stop doing British mysteries and to produce American mysteries with WGBH,” says Eaton.

A two-hour pilot for an American “Mystery!” series is set to air Nov. 24, based on Tony Hillerman’s “Skinwalkers.” “The rights were held by Robert Redford’s company, so we did it with his company and we are developing more,” Eaton says.

She would like “Mystery!” to feature a combination of British and American programming, which, among other things, would make the series more economically feasible. “American mysteries are more expensive because we are creating them from scratch rather than being an investor in British mysteries,” she explains.

“Mystery!” kicks off its summer season Monday with the three-part psychological thriller “Forgotten,” starring Amanda Burton (“Silent Witness”) as a grieving woman whose young daughter was murdered 20 years earlier. Paul McGann (“Our Mutual Friend”) plays the man convicted of the crime, now living happily with a wife and a daughter under an assumed name. She manages to find him and demands to know where he buried her daughter.

Beginning July 22 is a new four-part installment of “Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes,” starring Ian Richardson as Dr. Joseph Bell, the real-life model for Sherlock Holmes.

Rounding out the summer is the premiere of “The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: A Great Deliverance,” airing Aug. 19 and 26. Based on the novel by Elizabeth George, the contemporary thriller stars Nathaniel Parker as the suave, wealthy and sophisticated Inspector Thomas Lynley and Sharon Small as his partner, Sgt. Barbara Havers, a rumpled, resentful, working-class detective.

George, who is American and lives in Orange County, is thrilled that “Inspector Lynley”--already a hit in England--is arriving stateside on “Mystery!”

“I am really looking forward to seeing them on American television and seeing how people react to them,” she says. So far, the BBC has made five films based on her books and is about to make four more. Next summer, “Mystery!” will air four additional “Inspector Lynley” thrillers.

George says that she did have film offers from Hollywood, but “because these are British books I thought they would best be made in the hands of a British film team. That kind of quashed Hollywood’s interest in it.”

The BBC, she says, has done a “particularly fine job with the two main characters”--except that the actors don’t resemble the characters as she described them. “I think it is going to cause some real concern on the part of hard-core readers,” the author concedes, “but their performances are really wonderful -- particularly Sharon Small. She has brought a degree of vulnerability to the part, I think, that is really sort of emotionally clarifying for the viewer.”

Eaton hopes these two summers and the November special won’t be the end of “Mystery!” “I think it’s a big asset to PBS because it is such a recognizable brand,” she says. “British mysteries are always in season and fashionable. Other broadcasters come and go and dally with them, but for 20 years we have been in the forefront.”

“Mystery!” can be seen Mondays at 9 p.m. through Aug. 26 on KCET and KVCR. The network has rated the first series, “Forgotten,” TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).