Promising Summer TV

A Wee Trip to the Trailer Park

Greetings, Dames Nation! This week, I bring you some tantalizing options for promising-looking new & forthcoming TV series, across a bunch of streamers, for your summer watch lists. Sure, the last four episodes of Bridgerton’s third season will hit Netflix on Thursday, but I assume everyone who wants to watch Bridgerton already has the date circled on their calendar. I’ve picked 5 series you may not have seen much about just yet. Here’s hoping one or more will strike your fancy –  let’s dive right in!

STAX: Soulsville, USA (HBO, available now) is a four-hour documentary series on Stax records, the Memphis label that nurtured the careers of Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Booker T & The MGs, The Staple Singers, Isaac Hayes, and many many more. The filmmakers don’t waste any of the time they have at their disposal, stretching out a bit to provide more texture to the well-known events providing the story's arcs, a welcome corrective supplement to the flattening effect that all word-and-time-limited retrospectives have on their subjects. 

The series has a deft touch, too – it never feels bloated, and is successful as a documentary created for TV. Each hour ends on as much of a cliffhanger as it's possible to generate within an already well-documented story of artistic and corporate ups and downs. I also appreciated that it’s all set not against but deep within the Civil Rights, Black Consciousness, and Black Power movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Powerful historical resonances and bangers galore? Sign me up! 

Queenie’s 8 episodes are all out on Hulu today. I’ve watched half of it so far and love it. The series is an adaptation of the novel of the same name (created and written by the author, Candice Carty-Williams – always a good sign, IMO), and is a contemporary piece about a young Jamaican-British woman whose breakup with her white boyfriend prompts a journey that straddles the line between self-discovery and self-annihilation. Queenie’s misadventures living in a ghastly rented room, being undermined at work by the white editor who thinks she’s being a supportive mentor, and scything her way through the dating apps are all held back from bleakness thanks to the warmth of Queenie’s friendships and warm relationship with her grandparents and cousin. It’s rich and vivid, and like several other recent short-form British series about deeply lovable, deeply flawed women (Big Mood, Fleabag, Chewing Gum, I May Destroy You etc.), is just straight-up good.  

I have very mixed feelings about cop dramas, but the unusual setting of Blue Lights – contemporary Belfast, where the Troubles are over but continue to loom very large in living memory – was too intriguing to not give it a whirl. I mainlined the first 6-episode season last week, am already deeply invested in a nascent ship, and am keenly looking forward to its second season, set to begin on BritBox June 13. Episodes will drop weekly, and I’m hopeful that it will have gained even more confidence in its storytelling and ensemble’s performances, and that it continues to build to increasingly interesting developments for its third and fourth seasons, which have already been ordered. 

 

I love the Very Loosely Based On History costume drama fantasy genre, finding things to appreciate in even so-so entries like The Buccaneers (AppleTV+). Whether it’s based on an old-timey book or a chapter of history, I’m into it, contemporary dialogue, anachronistic needle drops and all. Two forthcoming series in particular in this genre have caught my eye: My Lady Jane and The Serpent Queen’s second season. 

My Lady Jane will appear with all episodes on Prime Video on June 27. It’s a cheeky alternate historical take on Lady Jane Grey, aka the nine days’ queen. The series posits Jane as a plucky, horny hero rather than a damsel in terrible distress, and the cast is stacked. We’ve got Rob Brydon (any time I see him, I imagine that we’re ten seconds away from hearing his superlative Michael Caine impression), Anna Chancellor (aka Queen Of Haughty Snobs), Dominic Cooper (aka old-timey Howard Stark), and Kate O’Flynn (who you might not know yet but by God, you will soon). The trailer doesn’t include a key feature of the popular YA novel the series is based on, specifically, its fantasy element: a bunch of people in this world are shape-shifters, aka Ethians, who are feared and hated by everyone who isn’t a shape-shifter, aka Verities. I’m hoping that’s just a marketing decision to focus on the alternate history, action, smooching, and voiceover narration. 

The Serpent Queen’s second season will air weekly on STARZ starting July 12, and I think all anyone really needs to know is that the first season is well worth a weekend binge, and this season’s marquee guest star is Minnie Driver as Queen Elizabeth I, featured in first look photos. I cannot wait to see QEI go toe-to-toe with Samantha Morton’s Catherine de Medici, and to enjoy more of the absurdities of the Bourbon Boys. While you wait for this season to arrive, don’t forget Mary & George, aka Nicholas Galitzine and Julianne Moore chomping all scenery to pulp while seducing everyone in sight in King James’ I’s court. STARZ has absolutely nailed this formula, and I am grateful.

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Naturally, I’m just scratching the surface with these picks. What series are you looking forward to getting involved with this summer? Spout off in the comments, friends!