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Summer 2019 TV Preview

Which new and returning TV shows should you be keeping an eye out for over the next few months? Here’s our pick of the best…

By Kayti Burt, Alec Bojalad, John Saavedra, Nick Harley, Chris Longo | May 29, 2019 | | 0

Summer is officially here! Well, summer doesn’t actually arrive in a geological sense until June 21. But as Den of Geek Editor-in-Chief Mike Cecchini always says, “Why would you run a summer preview in mid-June? Everyone knows that summer begins after Memorial Day.”

Well, happy unofficial beginning of the 2019 Summer TV Season, everyone! While fall has always been the domain of television with summer taking rights to the movie blockbuster, those lines are ever-blurring. There are plenty of fun summer television options and, funnily enough, it all begins with a summer movie blockbuster of sorts…

Deadwood

Release Date: May 31

After a long hiatus, beloved TV creator David Milch (NYPD Blue, John From Cincinnati) returns to finish what he started on the critically-acclaimed HBO series Deadwood, penning a script for a TV movie simply titled Deadwood: The Movie. The film will rightfully conclude the show’s story. Despite doubts that the project would ever move forward, HBO was able to wrangle stars Timothy Olyphant and Ian McShane, as well as returning faces Brad Dourif, Molly Parker, Anna Gunn, Kim Dickens, Paula Malcomson, Sean Bridgers, Robin Weigert, Gerald McRaney, W. Earl Brown, Jeffrey Jones, William Sanderson and John Hawkes for what can be considered a reunion in more ways than one.

Directed by HBO regular Daniel Minahan, Deadwood: The Movie will be set against the backdrop of a celebration for the statehood of South Dakota (which historically occurred on November 2, 1889,) bringing the show’s character back together after about a decade apart.

Good Omens

Release Date: May 31

The BBC and Amazon’s adaptation of Good Omens, a collaborative novel written by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, features a cast including *deep breath* Michael Sheen (Masters Of Sex), David Tennant (Doctor Who), Jon Hamm (Mad Men), Miranda Richardson (Sleepy Hollow), Michael McKean (This Is Spinal Tap), Jack Whitehall (Bad Education), Adria Arjona (True Detective), and many, many more…including Frances McDormand as the voice of God, Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of Satan, and Brian Cox as the voice of death.

Yeah, so you can go ahead and call it “star-studded.” Good Omens tells the story of the approaching end times and follows characters who are either bent on avoiding the apocalypse or actively seek to bring about Armageddon. From the unlikely partnership between Aziraphale (Sheen) and Crowley (Tennant), to a hospital mix-up with the birth of the antichrist, this tale is both dark and hilarious.

read more about Good Omens here

When They See Us

Release Date: May 31

When They See Us finds academy award nominee filmmaker Ava DuVernay tackling the story of the Central Park jogger case that divided New York City at the end of the ‘80s. When They See Us is a four-episode miniseries for Netflix spanning from when each of the Central Park Five were first questioned to the settlement they reached with the city of New York in 2012.

Swamp Thing

Release Date: May 31

Joining what is becoming already becoming an impressive lineup of original programming on the newly named streaming service, DC Universe, Swamp Thing is wading in to bring the psychedelic horror romance vibes. James Wan, Mark Verheiden, Gary Dauberman, and Michael Clear are executive producers, with Rob Hackett (also of Wan’s Atomic Monster) serving as co-producer. Verheiden and Dauberman are writing.

The series finds Andy Bean (It: Chapter 2) and Derek Mears (Sleepy Hollow) sharing the role of the titular creature, with Crystal Reed (Gotham) on board as love interest Abby Arcane. The series will be rounded out with a slew of classic DC Comics characters that could open the door to all manner of other weird and supernatural corners of the DC Universe.

read more about Swamp Thing here

NOS4A2

Release Date: June 2

AMC is in the horror business and business is booming! Their next chill-inducing project is NOS4A2, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Joe Hill (son of Stephen King). The 10-episode series finds Zachary Quinto (Star Trek) playing Charlie Manx, an immortal parasitic serial killer who uses his 1938 Rolls Royce with the license plate number “NOS4A2” to kidnap children, feed off their souls, then deposits what remains of them into Christmasland – an icy, twisted Christmas village of Manx’s imagination where every day is Christmas Day and unhappiness is against the law.

Ashleigh Cummings (Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries) will play series protagonist Vic McQueen, a young New England-based starving artist who suddenly discovers that she possesses a supernatural psychic ability connected to the killer, allowing her to track him and rescue his victims, an endeavor she will attempt to accomplish without losing her own mind.

read more about NOS4A2 here

Fear the Walking Dead

Release Date: June 2

Arriving after the landscape of its mothership series, The Walking Dead, was significantly altered – not only because of the exits of main cast members, but a six-year time jump, spinoff series Fear the Walking Dead – which started as a prequel, and, at one point, jumped ahead – is now back to being a prequel. However, that is not to say that Season 5 of Fear won’t be bringing new concepts to the shared-universe series.

Indeed, the showrunners are – with typical ambiguity – teasing a game-changer: a functioning airplane! Fully embracing their new mission of helping people, our survivors will – thanks to the plane – encounter more hostile elements of the living, and even showcase the (re)return of the repeatedly presumed-dead Daniel Salazar (Rubén Blades).

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The Handmaid’s Tale

Release Date: June 5

Get ready for the feel good hit of the summer! Kidding, obviously. Season 3 of the dystopian drama The Handmaid’s Tale will premiere with three new episodes and then continue its usual once-a-week schedule for the rest of the season’s planned 13-episode run on Hulu.

Christopher Meloni (Happy!) and Elizabeth Reaser (The Haunting of Hill House) will guest star this year and the show’s official synopsis teases June’s (Elisabeth Moss) resistance efforts, reunions and betrayals, and trip to the terrifying heart of Gilead. Get ready for a fight!

Black Mirror

Release Date: June 5

Since Black Mirror made a streaming home on in 2015, the show doubled its usual number of episodes per season from 3 to 6. But now, for Black Mirror Season 5 it’s back to 3 episodes. Thankfully, with episodes like Season 4’s “USS Callister” or even choose-your-own standalone Bandersnatch, Charlie Brooker’s sci-fi anthology epic has show that it works best when it has a lot of breathing room.

The three episodes that premiere on June 5 will feature the acting stylings of Andrew Scott, Anthony Mackie, Miley Cyrus, and more. Judging by the season’s trailer the episodes will cover everything from videogames to technology fatigue to some good old fashioned song and dance.

Pose

Release Date: June 9

Season 2 of Ryan Murphy’s celebration of NYC’s underground ball culture = will pick up 3 years after the events of the first season’s finale in 1990, as Madonna’s “Vogue” music video brings the ball scene to the mainstream for the first time ever. Meanwhile, AIDS epidemic continues to ravage New York’s LGBTQ community and incites inflammatory reactions from groups of activists.

Featuring the largest cast of transgender actors in series regular roles, including Mj Rodriguez, Dominique Jackson, Indya Moore, Hailie Sahar and Angelica Ross, and also starring Billy Porter, Ryan Jamaal Swain, Angel Bismark Curiel, Dyllón Burnside, Sandra Bernhard and Charlayne Woodard, Pose Season 2 will consist of 10 episodes on FX.

read more about Pose Season 2 here

Claws

Release Date: June 9

Claws enters Season 3 as one of three shows in the top 40 cable dramas to grow year over year in total viewers for 2018. Following the rise of five budding criminal manicurists working at the Nail Artisans of Manatee County salon, Season 3 of the TNT series will find the ladies acclimating themselves to the casino business after Desna (Niecy Nash) inherits a casino and takes a gamble by aligning herself with a sinister couple, Mac (guest star Michael Horse) and Melba (guest star Rebecca Creskoff). Expect plenty of sexy, wild, funny, and scary adventures for these ladies this summer.

read more about Claws Season 3 here

Big Little Lies

Release Date: June 9

Initially conceived as a standalone series basedon the novel of the same name by Liane Moriarty, award show dominance assured that HBO couldn’t let this show go quietly. Season 2 will find director Andrea Arnold (Transparent) taking over directorial duties for Jean-Marc Vallée and the incomparable Meryl Streep joining an insane cast that already includes Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and Zoe Kravitz.

Krypton

Release Date: June 12

Krypton left us with one hell of a cliffhanger in the season one finale, with Seg-El, aka Superman‘s granddad, sacrificing himself to save his planet from the machinations of Brainiac. The superhero show with some seriously epic visuals returns for a second season on June 12th, and, from the looks of the trailer, nothing has been solved during the hiatus.

Krypton Season 2 will show us “a changed Kandor, locked in a battle over its freedom and its future.” Yikes! What does this mean? General Dru-Zod is in control of the city, hell bent on his mission to rebuild Krypton according to his own ideals, which, yes, involve conquering the universe. Will Seg-El and co. be able to stop him? We’ll find out because, if the first season proved anything it’s that: if you think you know where this prequel story is going, then you are so very wrong.

Los Espookys

Release Date: June 14

Executive produced by Fred Armisen and Lorne Michaels, Los Espookys is set in a surreal Latin American country where eeriness, or “spookiness” are just part of everyday life and followsa group of friends who create a strange business using their love for horror to provide scares to those who need it. Los Espookys stars Ana Fabrega and Julio Torres, along with Cassandra Ciangherotti and Bernardo Velasco as The Espookys, with José Pablo Minor and recurring guest star Armisen. The first season will consist of 6-episodes.

City on a Hill

Release Date: June 16

Backed by executive producer Ben Affleck and star Kevin Bacon, this Boston-based true crime saga on Showtime is set in the 1990s, when the city was being rocked by organized crime, corruption, and racial tensions. Based on an original idea by Affleck, the series centers on a reimagined, fictional telling of “the Boston Miracles,” a civic cleanup of the community, when District Attorney Decourcy Ward (Aldis Hodge), a non-native from Brooklyn, targets corruption and crime in all its varieties.

Ward’s mission finds him attempting to recruit the help of a reluctant and corrupt FBI agent named Jackie Rhodes (Bacon), a man described as being “deeply invested in the status quo.” Tom Fontana (Homicide: Life on the Street) will serve as showrunner and the first season will consist of 10 episodes.

read more about City on a Hill here

Yellowstone

Release Date: June 19

The Paramount Network’s first scripted success, Yellowstone, the most watched new series of 2018, is returning this summer for another 10-episode ride. Yellowstone, set in rural Montana near Yellowstone National Park, is a Dallas-like Stetson-strewn family drama and a modern take on old frontier Western stories. The story centers on wealthy cattle ranch-owning patriarch John Dutton (Kevin Costner) and his business-involved offspring, Beth (Kelly Reilly), Jamie (Wes Bentley) and Kayce (Luke Grimes).

The drama takes shape through local land issues, with the Duttons frequently butting heads with lawyers, politicians and the local indigenous tribe. New this season is Neal McDonough (Arrow) as Malcolm Beck, “a wealthy business mogul who runs an area casino with his brother, Teal. They are power players, down and dirty fighters who know how to work the system to get what they want.” Saddle up!

Legion

Release Date: June 24

The third and final season of Noah Hawley’s kind of X-Men series Legion premieres this summer on FX. According to the show’s creator and trippy first trailer, Legion Season 3 will make do on the previous season’s promise to turn our beloved hero, David Haller into our beloved villain David Haller.

David is the “Magic Man” now, magical leader of a psychedelic cult hanging on his every word. The folks David left behind at Summerland must learn how to contend with the newly independent friend who has the powers of a god and has been prophecized to destroy the world.

Summer 2019 TV Preview What Just Happened

What Just Happened??! With Fred Savage (Fox)

Release Date: June 30

This is the sort of high-concept comedy that only Fox would bring to network television. Spoofing the recent TV-trend of aftershows where some unlikable nerd (cough cough Chris Hardwick cough cough) recaps the show you just finished watching, What Just Happened??! With Fred Savage stars Savage as himself hosting an aftershow for the fictional drama series “The Flare,” which is based on fictional author T.J. Whitford’s fictional sci-fi book series “The Moon Is the Sun at Night.”

The fake show and books center on “a solar event and its effects on Earth — specifically, the small, blue-collar town of Milford, IL — and slowly unfolds into a post-apocalyptic battle for human survival.” Savage plays a fan of the books who volunteers to handle duties as the host of the aftershow. The real series will consist of nine episodes and features “authentic sit-down celebrity interviews,” visits to the fictional set of The Flare, discussions with fans, and interviews with the Flare “cast,” though cast information has yet to be released.

The Rook

Release Date: June 30

Starz had decent success with literary adaptation American Gods so for their next hopeful summer hit, the network is hitting the books again. The Rook is based on a novel of the same name by Daniel O’Malley. It follows the curiously-named Myfanwy Thomas (Emma Greenwell) as she one day wakes up missing her memories and finds herself pursued by shadowy adversaries.

The Rook comes with a built in mythology surrounding people with mutant-like abilities and could be a franchiseable for Staz if everything goes according to plan. Worth noting though that Twilight writer Stephenie Meyer left the project early on, despite shepherding it to television.

Stranger Things

Release Date: July 4

Summer has come to Hawkins, Indiana and school’s out in Stranger Things 3. That means it’ll be a season full of relaxation, fun in the sun, trips to the town’s new mall, multiple theater trips to see Back to the Future again and again, and all around smalltown wholesomeness. Right?

Wrong. Eleven and her friends might be a year older and have two town-saving adventures under their belts but that doesn’t mean they’re free from the monsters waiting for them in the Upside Down. We’re not quite sure what’s in store when the show returns, but we know it’ll be wicked fun!

The Boys

Release Date: July 26

From Supernatural and Timeless creator Eric Kripke comes The Boys, a gritty take on the superhero genre that sees a band of vigilantes known as “the boys” facing off against a group of corrupt superheroes known as The Seven.

Based on a comic book of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson (and from the looks of the trailer), The Boys seems to be having a lot of fun playing off of and subverting mainstream comic books tropes. The series is set in a world in which superheroes embrace the darker side of the celebrity and fame that comes with superheroism, so don’t be surprised if this show has some things to say about celebrity culture, either.

The eight-episode Amazon series, which drops on July 26th, has a killer cast, too, including Karl Urban as The Boys’ leader Billy Butcher, Simon Pegg, Erin Moriarty as Starlight, Chace Crawford as The Deep, Antony Starr as Homelander, Dominique McElligott as Queen Maeve, and Jessie T. Usher as A-Train.

read more about The Boys here

Orange Is the New Black

Release Date: July 26

All good things must come to an end and that’s exactly what Netflix’s Orange is the New Black is set to do in Season 7. Orange is the New Black was one of Netflix’s first premier originals and debuted during a time in which Netflix as a television-producing powerhouse wasn’t an inevitability.

There’s no word yet on what the final season of Orange is the New Black could entail as every season likes to switch things up quite a bit. Season 6 found our central characters scattered about a new prison and thrust into a generational conflict between two elder stateswomen inmates. We just hope that it’s a fitting end for Piper, Taystee, Red, Gloria, Pennsatucky, Flaca, Alex, Nicky, Maria, and everyone else. Yes, even Caputo.

Veronica Mars

Release Date: July 26

Almost five years following the release of a partially-crowdfunded feature film and more than 12 years following the final episode of Season 3, film noir darling Veronica Mars is back for a Season 4 on Hulu. The plot? It’s spring break in Neptune and someone is bombing the city’s hotels, seemingly in an attempt to sabotage the city’s reputation as a premiere vacation spot for Spring Breakers.

The Veronica Mars revival will reunite Kristen Bell as Veronica, Enrico Colantoni as Keith Mars, Jason Dohring as Logan, and Percy Daggs III as Wallace, among others. Season 4 has been pitched as a more adult version of the teen show we all fell in love with. Given that the cases teenaged Veronica Mars took on included crimes such as murder, rape, and drug trafficking, it’s hard to imagine this show getting much darker, but it will be interesting to see how these characters have matured.

Pennyworth

Release Date: July 28

Ever wonder what Alfred Pennyworth got up to before becoming the Waynes’ butler? Well, Pennyworth, a new series starring Jack Bannon as a younger Alfred, will show DC fans an unexpected era in the comic book legend’s life.

A former British special forces operative, Alfred has started his own security company in ’60s London and been hired by Gotham City billionaire Thomas Wayne. We assume a series of hijinks involving Alfred’s surprising martial arts skills will form a bond between both men that will eventually bring the Englishman to Gotham to look after the thing Mr. Wayne loves most: the little boy who will one day become Batman.

read more about Pennyworth here

Preacher

Release Date: August 4

Preacher Season 4 will be the show’s final go-around and honestly it’s pretty amazing it’s lasted this long. Not because the show isn’t quality because it (usually) is but rather the subject matter is just wild for anything outside of the pay cable or streaming TV worlds. Based on the comic series of the same name by Garth Ennis, Preacher has followed Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy as they seek to find God and make him answer for his many crimes against humanity.

That search for God will presumably come to an end one way or another in season 4. Also on the docket, however, is the resolution to storylines involving a severely inbred Messiah, The Saint of Killers, poor Eugene a.k.a. Arseface, and of course, Adolf Hitler.

The Terror

Release Date: August 12

The Terror season 1 may be the scariest show AMC has ever produced, as the doomed Franklin Expedition found horrors unimaginable in the waters and ice of the North Atlantic. Season 2 leaves His Majesty’s Royal Navy behind for a slightly more contemporary setting.

Subtitled The Terror: Infamy, the second season stars Derek Mio and George Takei in a story that takes place during World War II, at a time of turmoil not only in the United States but specifically for the Japanese-American community in and out of internment camps. The season is billed as a ghost story that kicks off with a series of bizarre deaths that rock on such camp.

Lodge 49

Release Date: August 12

Lodge 49 premiered on AMC last fall with Better Call Saul as a lead-in. Now Lodge 49 Season 2 is airing in the summer, which is probably where this sun-soaked Lebowski-esque series has always belonged. And it’s going to give it a go with the use of a Better Call Saul safety net.

Lodge 49 is more than up to the task though as one of scripted TV’s most unique creations. Season 2 will continue the story of “Dud,” a down-on-his-luck SoCal surfer looking to find meaning through the titular Lodge 49 of the Ancient and Benevolent Order of the Lynx. Dud, Ernie, and the rest of the Lodge will try to survive the collapsing of their small town and seek some mythical scrolls.

The Righteous Gemstones

Release Date: August

Danny McBride and Jody Hill, the creative team behind Eastbound and Down and the underrated and short-lived Vice Principals, reunite for their third HBO joint this summer with a new comedy that follows a family of world-famous televangelists. Yes, the trailer is as good as the logline.

McBride won’t have to shoulder the entire load in this series; his co-stars include John Goodman as the family patriarch, and supporting roles from Vice Principals’ Edi Patterson, Cassidy Freeman (Smallville), and Adam Devine (Workaholics). A summer spent watching three generations of Gemstone family rivalries–where greed, deception, and charity work intertwine–sounds purely divine.

Succession

Release Date: August

HBO‘s critically-acclaimed drama is back for a Season 2. Succession follows the Roy family as they struggle to retain control of media conglomerate empire. Brian Cox stars as the patriarch as the family reluctant to relinquish any power, with Jeremy Strong (Masters of Sex), Kieran Culkin (Fargo), Alan Ruck (The Exorcist) and Sarah Snook (Black Mirror) starring as the four children battling for their pieces of the pie (or, you know, the whole pie).

Holly Hunter wil be joining the cast in Season 2 in the recurring role of Rhea Jarrell, the politically-savvy CEO of a rival media conglomerate. With creator Jesse Armstrong (Peep Show) returning to helm Season 2, we can expect more expertly-wrought corporate dynasty chaos.

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