Big names fuel your favorite series
This summer will be full of liars, handmaids, demogorgons, criminals and plenty of drag balls.
The normally sleepy TV season isn’t particularly quiet this year, packed full of A-list stars, Emmy-winning dramas and a series revival that fans have been waiting for since 2007. In addition to a batch of new shows with big potential, this summer has some of the heaviest hitters in TV coming back for new seasons, including “Big Little Lies” (now with an even bigger star), “Stranger Things” (with more teen hormones) and “The Handmaid’s Tale” (now in the nation’s capital).
Here are the five biggest returning shows worth checking out in between barbecues and trips to the beach.
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
Hulu (June 5), Wednesdays
The Season 2 finale of Hulu’s Emmywinning juggernaut sharply divided fans and critics, with June (Elisabeth Moss), aka Offred, making an eleventhhour decision to stay behind in the oppressive Gilead to search for her daughter, rather than flee with her friend Emily (Alexis Bledel) and newborn child. The third season looks to justify that choice, with a renewed emphasis on June’s efforts to take down the patriarchal system from within, finding an unlikely ally in her calculating former owner/boss, Serena Joy Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski). – Patrick Ryan
‘Big Little Lies’
HBO (June 9), Sundays, 9 EDT/PDT The only way to top a cast that already included Nicole Kidman, Reese
Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Zoe Kravitz and Shailene Woodley was to go straight to the queen herself, Meryl Streep. The legendary actress joins the series for a second season that many fans didn’t expect, as the “Monterey Five” reel from the death at the school fundraiser at the end of Season 1. Streep joins as Mary Louise Wright, Celeste’s (Kidman) mother-in-law who’s desperate to find out what happened to her son. – Kelly Lawler
‘Pose’
FX (June 11), Tuesdays, 10 EDT/PDT You might already know that Ryan Murphy’s musical drama is groundbreaking, assembling the most trans series regulars ever in an American scripted series. What you may not realize is
that it also is one of the most stirring, vibrant and heart-rending shows on TV right now. Led by the fearless Mj Rodriguez, the series authentically explores the inner lives of people of color in the LGBTQ community, set against the backdrop of New York ballroom culture in the 1980s and creating breakout stars of Billy Porter and Indya Moore. – Ryan
‘Stranger Things’
Netflix (all episodes available July 4)
It’s summer in Hawkins, Indiana, but the Upside Down isn’t taking a vacation. The third season of Netflix’s nostalgic horror series mixes its otherworldly horrors with a far more terrifying one: puberty. Our core cast of kids aren’t really kids anymore, including Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Mike (Finn Wolfhard), and hormones are raging as relationships change. Coupled with a new monstrous threat, well, parents just don’t understand. – Lawler
‘Veronica Mars’
Hulu (all episodes available July 26)
Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) is back and ready to uncover all the dirty misdeeds in Neptune, California. And there are a lot. The beloved neo-noir series (which already was resurrected once as a fan-funded film) returns for an eightepisode series with the original cast intact as Veronica and her father, Keith (Enrico Colantoni), investigate recent murders of spring breakers in Neptune. Even though the series ran for only three seasons more than a decade ago, it remains as beloved as ever. Considering the show examined classism and power dynamics in its highly stratified town, 2019 seems an apt time for it to return. – Lawler