A hot new season has arrived
Once it was known merely as a time for reruns, but as this rundown shows, that’s no longer the case
When Beach Boys Brian Wilson and Mike Love wrote “All Summer Long” back in 1964, they did not think to include watching television along with miniature golf and spilling Coke on one’s blouse to capture the delights of the season. TV took a kind of summer vacation itself back then, filling prime time with reruns.
Well, things have changed. Trends emerge. At least six new series this summer are set in the 1970s or ’80s, four of those take place in Los Angeles, and two of them involve “The Tonight Show.” Two mess around with Shakespeare; two adapt Stephen King. Pick a few or watch them all — ha! Here’s a partial guide to what’s in store.
Still Star-Crossed ABC, Monday, 10 p.m.
Executive producer Shonda Rhimes delivers a fantasy of old Verona (developed by “Scandal” scribe Heather Mitchell from Melinda Taub’s young-adult novel) in which Romeo and Juliet’s double date with death has had zero calming effect on their totally crazy families.
I’m Dying Up Here Showtime, June 4, 10 p.m.
A more or less affectionate, bittersweet, believable take on the early-1970s L.A. stand-up scene, with Melissa Leo as a club owner who is not exactly the Comedy Store’s Mitzi Shore and Ari Graynor vivid as a female comic struggling to be heard in a little boy’s world.
Claws TNT, June 11, 9 p.m.
Niecy Nash stars as a Sarasota nail salon owner out to own a better salon, a dream that involves her with criminal types — though you could cut the crime from this story and still have characters good enough to go on. Carrie Preston, Judy Reyes and Jenn Lyon are in her crew; Harold Perrineau plays her brother.
The Putin Interviews Showtime, June 12, 9 p.m.
It’s nonfiction on the face of it, but viewers will have their work cut out sorting fact from fancy when Oliver Stone and Vladimir Putin rub their agendas together in this four-part chat. Episodes air consecutively across the week.
The Mist Spike, June 22, 10 p.m.
Stephen King’s Maine-set novella becomes a full-blown series, with Frances Conroy and Isiah Whitlock Jr. Don’t go in the mist, basically.
GLOW Netf lix, June 23, to stream
Alison Brie (desperate, determined) and Marc Maron (weary, grumpy) star in Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch’s spunky comedy of 1980s cable-TV women’s wrestling.
Prime Suspect: Tennison PBS, June 25, 10 p.m.
Prequel detective series features the 1973-model Jane Tennison (Stefanie Martini) before she grew up to be Helen Mirren.
Gypsy Netf lix, June 30, to stream
Movie star Naomi Watts takes the lead in a drama about a New York City therapist (Watts) who crosses lines therapists are not supposed to cross.
Snowfall FX, July 5, 10 p.m.
“Boyz n the Hood” director John Singleton co-created this glossy, well-acted tale of crack cocaine coming to L.A. in 1983. zit’s one of those stories in which everyone’s bad, but some are worse than others.
Will TNT, July 10, 9 p.m.
William Shakespeare is a hot twentysomething among hot twentysomethings in this Young Guns of Elizabethan Theater drama from regular Baz Luhrmann scripter Craig Pearce. Southwark represent!
The Bold Type Freeform, July 11, 9 p.m.
Print is still happening in this series set around a women’s magazine. Melora Hardin plays the editor in chief (partly modeled on executive producer Joanna Coles, who ran Cosmopolitan).
Salvation CBS, July 12, 9 p.m.
CBS marks another summer with a sci-fi serial. This one has an asteroid heading to Earth. Santiago Cabrera is the Elon Musk-alike who thinks he can stop it.
Hooten & the Lady CW, July 13, 9 p.m.
In the old spirit of plugging the summer with British imports comes this treasurehunting riff on “Romancing the Stone” and “Indiana Jones.” Michael Landes is an American regular guy, Ophelia Lovibond an aristocratic curator. Together they’re [see title].
Friends From College Netf lix, July 14, to stream
Into each generation a “Big Chill” is born. Reunion comedy directed by Nicholas Stoller (”Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) makes it official that Keegan-Michael Key, Fred Savage, Cobie Smulders, Nat Faxon, Annie Parisse, Jae Suh Park and Billy Eichner are no longer young.
Raven’s Home
Disney Channel, July 21, 10 p.m.; moves to 8:30 p.m. July 28 Or, “That’s Still So Raven.” RavenSymoné returns to her old network and character, now the mother of twins, sharing a house with former castmate Anneliese van der Pol, who has a kid of her own. Listen, it worked for “Fuller House.”
Midnight, Texas NBC, July 24, 10 p.m.
Other books by “True Blood” author Charlaine Harris are the basis of this more whimsical small-town mystery. François Arnaud playsa psychic medium in a hamlet whose residents include a witch, a vampire, an angel and a werewolf. There are weirder places in Texas.
Room 104 HBO, July 28, 11 p.m.
Mark and Jay Duplass (”Togetherness”) are behind this anthology series, which sets a dozen stories in the same “corporate chain hotel” room.
The Sinner USA, Aug. 2, 10 p.m.
In the first season of what’s meant to be an anthology series, Jessica Biel stars as a young mother who commits an apparently random act of violence; Bill Pullman plays a police detective trying to work out why.
Mr. Mercedes DirecTV/AT&T, Aug. 9, 8 p.m.
David E. Kelley adapts Stephen King’s 2014 detective novel. Brendan Gleeson plays an ex-cop taunted out of retirement by letters from crazy killer Harry Treadaway.
Get Shorty Epix, Aug. 13, 10 p.m.
Ray Romano and Chris O’Dowd co-star in a series inspired by the Elmore Leonard novel. O’Dowd plays a contract killer who wants to get out of that business and into the business called “show”; Romano is his reluctant new producing partner.
Marlon NBC, Aug. 16, 9 p.m.
Marlon Wayans plays a wacky dad coparenting with ex-wife. He’s the father as child and yet also the child as father. (Nods thoughtfully.)
Marvel’s The Defenders Netf lix, Aug. 18, to stream
Superhero collab brings crime fighters from “Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones,” “Luke Cage” and “Iron Fist” into a single series. Will it be four times the fun or just divided into quarters?
The Tick Amazon, Aug. 25, to stream
Third adaptation (second live-action) of Ben Edlund’s comical comic, with Peter Serafinowicz as the hard-to-kill, bluesuited superhero.
Disjointed Netf lix, Aug. 25, to stream
From Chuck Lorre and former “Daily Show” head writer David Javerbaum, a workplace comedy with Kathy Bates running an L.A. pot dispensary. This is indeed a changing world.