Ellen Gray: 'Foyle's War' takes a 3-episode step beyond the war

MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! FOYLE'S WAR. 9 p.m. Sunday, May 9 and 16, Channel 12.

IF "M*A*S*H" could drag the Korean War out for 11 seasons, who can blame PBS' "Masterpiece Mystery!" and Britain's ITV for wanting a sixth year of "Foyle's War"?

The World War II detective drama stars Michael Kitchen ("Reckless") as Christopher Foyle, the none-too-enthusiastic head of the police department in Hastings. For five seasons, he made it clear he'd rather be serving the war effort more directly than at first seemed possible as a local detective chief superintendent, though as fans of "Foyle's" know, the war came home to Hastings one way or another in just about every episode.

As "The Russian House," the first of three new 90-minute "Foyle's" episodes premieres Sunday, the war is over and Foyle clearly can't wait to move on.

As if that's going to happen.

Creator Anthony Horowitz had a way with war on the homefront and he has a way, too, with the not always easy peace. This series of "Foyle's" looks at the plight of anti-Stalin Russian POWs in Britain and the treatment of African-American U.S. soldiers in a country that supposedly didn't practice segregation while giving us a tragic glimpse of Foyle's distant romantic past.

And, no, the detective chief superintendent won't be alone in his adventures.

Though Foyle's driver, Sam Stewart (Honeysuckle Weeks), is now working as an artist's private secretary and his onetime sergeant Paul Milner (Anthony Howell) has moved up the ranks in Brighton, they're thrown together periodically.

What Foyle really wants to do is to go to America, where he has, he tells Sam, "unfinished business."

"They drive on the other side of the road there," she tells him. "Might need some help with that."

Season 7: Foyle and Sam, Stateside?

We can only hope.

On Sunday, the New York Times' Style section reported that "in small but significant numbers, filmmakers and casting executives are beginning to re-examine Hollywood's attitude toward breast implants, Botox, collagen-injected lips and all manner of plastic surgery" and that executives from Fox had "begun recruiting more natural-looking actors from Australia and Britain."

It probably doesn't hurt that the network's already struck it rich with "House" star Hugh Laurie, whose impeccable American accent sets a new standard for Brits abroad.

But I recalled that story this week as I watched the three-episode comedy "Freezing," which the Sundance Channel plans to air at 9:30 p.m. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Originally from the BBC, it stars Elizabeth McGovern as some version of Elizabeth McGovern, an American actress living in London with her British husband.

In real life, he's Simon Curtis, who directed "Freezing" and in the show he's a not terribly successful book editor named Matt (Hugh Bonneville), whose oldest friend is Elizabeth's agent, Leon (Tom Hollander), a shameless type who could easily last a round or two with "Entourage's" Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven).

Even if you're not enough of an Anglophile - or an indie movie fan - to catch all the inside jokes in James Wood's script, the outside ones are pretty funny.

But what really struck me about "Freezing" was McGovern, who appeared anything but frozen.

An actress in her 40s playing an actress in her 40s, she possesses the same adorable frown she had as an ingenue. And those eyes still have it.

I don't pretend to know from plastic surgery or Botox, but I can't help noticing actresses of a certain age who can still move their faces, much less achieve a full-on frown, are getting harder to find.

Maybe it's time someone at Fox called and told McGovern to come home.

"Freezing" itself is an amusing little what - series? They seem only to have made the three, starting back in 2008, and even by the abbreviated standards of the BBC, that's a short run.

Which makes it perfect, I suppose, for Sundance, which has become one of TV's better curators of small gems that, like "Slings and Arrows," "The Staircase" and even the home-grown "Be Good Johnny Weir," aren't likely to find a place anywhere else. *

Send e-mail to graye@phillynews.com.