Summer TV Preview: 30 Most Exciting Series, From ‘The Bear’ to ‘And Just Like That’

Sep 07, 2023

WHAT TO WATCH

Hello, lover: Carrie Bradshaw will be back this summer (and Samantha, too!), as well as favorites like "The Bear." Here's our list of the season's most exciting series.

The TV overlords are going to have to do a lot this summer to replace Succession, Barry, Ted Lasso, and Yellowjackets, which all aired the last episodes of their seasons (and, in some cases, ever) this past week. Please, TV gods! Bless us with some blend of dramatic, hilarious, romantic, and fulfilling television to watch while we stay in the cool air conditioning this summer!

Good news: This year's lineup of summer television is looking pretty stacked. Some fun shows—like The Bear, And Just Like That, and Only Murders In the Building—will return for new installments in their serial storylines. Brand new shows like The Crowded Room and Painkiller will attempt to win us over. And anthologies like Black Mirror and Cruel Summer will convince us to stay watching, even with new characters.

As Vanderpump Rules also comes to an end, spicy new reality shows will have to step up to fill the void that Scandoval will leave behind. Will it be the 20th season of The Bachelorette? Or will Bravo keep the drama coming with The Real Housewives of Orange County and Luann & Sonia: Welcome to Crappie Lake? Even William Shatner is trying his hand at a space-themed reality show.

Don't waste any more time assembling your summer TV schedule—The Daily Beast's Obsessed has all the returning shows, featuring so many genres, in one spot to help you keep an eye on TV this summer.

Nickelodeon's tween hit was ahead of its time, back during its initial mid-2000s run. Maybe that's why this reboot manages to be even better, now that Carly's influencer aspirations are far more relatable. While her webseries and online presence continue to be questionable—I have no idea why this girl is so popular on social media or what her schtick even is—all of Carly's offline hijinks remain slapstick-y and fun. And if you’re not already tuned in because of your fond memories of watching Carly, Freddie, and Spencer goof off, come for the fantastic new characters: Carly's roommate/bestie Harper (played by the podcast queen Laci Mosley) and Freddie's conniving preteen step-daughter Millicent, one of the funniest characters on TV right now. —Allegra Frank

If you’re nostalgic for network television programming new, wild reality competition shows for their summer seasons, but exhausted by the last 43 seasons of America's Got Talent, then look no further than Queen of the Universe. Here, drag performers from around the world battle it out for their title, and there's no traditional drag lip syncing option. That means that each of the queens must dig deep into their diaphragm to belt it out and impress judges Vanessa Williams, Trixie Mattel, Michelle Visage, and Mel B. And if the idea of another singing competition is yawn-inducing, you’ll be swallowing that sleepiness as soon as you see the production value on these performances. This is still drag, after all: Bigger always means better. —Coleman Spilde

For as much as has been said by both critics and faceless Twitter users who haven't even seen the show, you’d think that The Idol would be outright smut. In some ways, it is. Chatter surrounding Euphoria creator Sam Levinson's controversial new series came to a peak at Cannes, where the first two episodes screened last month; early reviews described a salacious, lascivious, and purely nasty piece of work. But what's left to figure out is if the show—about a pop star (Lily-Rose Depp) who falls prey to an enigmatic but abusive Los Angeles power player (The Weeknd, aka Abel Tesfaye)—will end up spinning divisiveness into an interesting commentary on celebrity. One thing's for sure: It’ll be the talk of picnics, Slack chats, and watercoolers all season. —CS

Everyone stay calm: The stars have safely made it to Mars. Or, at least, a hyperrealistic Mars simulation in the middle of nowhere, complete with accompanying space station. Stars on Mars gathers some celebrities of a pretty impressive caliber—cyclist Lance Armstrong, Superbowl champ Marshawn Lynch, perennially underrated songstress Tinashe, and McLovin’ himself—to complete team missions, with one "Celebronaut" being jettisoned back to Earth each week. It's sort of like Celebrity Mole meets The Traitors. Despite being just another entry into wild, celeb-starring reality competitions, Stars on Mars promises to be pretty damn unique. After the last couple months, I think many viewers will be excited to see Tom Schwartz shuttled off to the red planet. —CS

The second season of Freefrom's biggest-ever hit solidifies this anthology series as the perfect summertime TV junk food. Maintaining Season 1's dark tone and unique storytelling structure, if not its excellent cast, the Y2K-set Season 2 follows three teens with many juicy secrets to tell. When their love triangle ends with one of the three dead, the remaining teens become suspects—and their alibis are rocky. In unraveling the mystery behind the murder, each episode bounces between three different days in a yearlong period: always one in July 1999, another in December 1999, and a third in July 2000. This leaves viewers to fill in the gaps between each time frame, to puzzle out how such blissfully ignorant, horny kids ended up in such dire, possibly criminal straits. —AF

What more can you give the woman or gay man in your life who has everything? Vicki Gunvalson, that's what. After 17 seasons, RHOC is still going strong, and gearing up for what looks to be its most entertaining season in a few years. We’ll have Tamra Judge and Taylor Armstrong to thank for that, with the latter of those two returning Housewives making the drive up from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills to a new franchise. She might be "Armstrong," but can she handle the headstrong women of Orange County, particularly when Hurricane Gunvalson returns as a friend-of? We’re so close to finding out, I can practically taste the citrus. —CS

Senior year has come for Netflix's sweetest, smartest teen comedy. After three stellar seasons, Never Have I Ever gears up for one last go-around. We pick up with a much more self-confident Devi and pals—a giant step up from the traumatized, awkward, hopelessly horny girls they were in Season 1. And most importantly, Devi's having sex now! Except in Never Have I Ever, as in life, nothing is that simple, especially not where senior year is concerned. The fourth and final season promises hard goodbyes and even harder college applications. This is a season not to be missed from a show that will be missed greatly. —AF

The Crowded Room is sure to draw in the Marvel crowd with star Tom Holland's first television role since becoming Spider-Man, but mystery fans will find themselves equally enthralled despite its lead actor. The limited series follows a young man, arrested for a horrible crime he claims that he didn't commit, being questioned by a professor specializing in violent crime (Amanda Seyfried). Together, the two have to work together to slowly unravel the circumstances that brought them together, to save the lives of others before it's too late. And while that may sound like standard limited series fare these days, The Crowded Room's talented cast is enough to set it apart from the rest. —CS

Our collective anxiety for the future will return in just a few short weeks—if it hasn't already been plaguing us, thanks to increased talks of ChatGPT taking over every human job on planet earth. Black Mirror is back for Season 6, providing more reason to fret that the world is turning into a terrifying dystopia. While the series has only released a handful of plot details, the reputation of the show should be enticing enough—along with the fact that Michael Cera is joining the cast. —Fletcher Peters

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which has been the big entry into the Star Trek Universe for Paramount+, is coming back for its sophomore season. Anson Mount returns as Captain Christopher Pike, serving on the U.S.S. Enterprise alongside Spock (Ethan Peck) and the rest of the new crew. The team will continue to explore new territory in Season 2, which sees them in the next steps of voyaging through the galaxy in their five-year quest to find untouched land. —FP

The first new Marvel show on Disney+ in several months looks promising. Samuel L. Jackson stars in this miniseries that focuses on former members of SHIELD, the government agency that recruited and supports the Avengers. Nick Fury (Jackson) has long abandoned SHIELD, retiring from public life—well-deservedly so! But an alien invasion beckons Fury to join with his former coworkers once more; now, he's tasked with protecting Earth from the shape-shifting Skrulls that the ex-SHIELDster had spent years working with in space. —AF

COUSIN! The Bear is frying up something new this month, changing lanes from the fast casual The Original Beef joint and suiting up into something a little more fancy: "The Bear." Yes, the title of the show is finally the name of the restaurant. Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) are teaming up to reinvent the Berzatto family restaurant, giving it a face lift into something fancier. Whatever happens, we know we’ll love whatever new food they’re serving up. And we’ll all be saying "Yes, chef!" this summer once again. —FP

Hello, lover! Carrie Bradshaw has returned from the pandemic slump she found herself languishing inside of for the first season of HBO's Sex and the City spinoff, coming back brighter and buoyant. While Season 1 was a hit, it often felt confused as to what it wanted to be. From its teaser trailer alone, it looks like And Just Like That… has finally found its high-heeled footing. Miranda has red hair again! Carrie's wearing fun hats! The side characters are actual people now! Let's just hope Che Diaz's in-universe pilot has been delayed indefinitely. —CS

This wild series hails from Boots Riley, the director of the wild Sorry to Bother You. The high-concept comedy follows the life of Cootie (amazing), who is not only a teenager but also 13 feet tall. Cootie tires of living a sheltered private life, yearning to explore what it's like to roam among the much shorter population—but going outside is a lot harder when you’re more than twice as tall as the average man. The show, which screened in March at SXSW, should be a viewing experience unlike any other this summer, if nothing else. —AF

As the Writers’ Guild strike rages through Hollywood, there's really only one genre of television left for networks to air: reality TV, baby. The Bachelorette returns for more cheesy goodness in late June, featuring Charity Lawson as the titular Bachelorette. Now, I haven't watched more than a few seasons, but I think "Charity Lawson" might be the most realtor-sounding contestant to ever play this romantic game. Props to her. Cheers to Charity, who (hopefully) will find the love of her life in just a few short weeks. —FP

The first half of Henry Cavill's final season of the Netflix fantasy hit reunites us with Rivia's sexiest white-haired warrior, as he slays baddies and juggles thirst, both ours and his own. War is coming to the Continent, with Geralt (Cavill) reluctant to pick a side. But when his found family gets tangled up in the driving political drama, Geralt's ability to stay out of it becomes harder to keep up. All we really want from this season, though, is for Netflix to give us another scene featuring Geralt in a bathtub, a la the meme drawn from The Witcher video game. —AF

Is It Cake, Too?

Friday, June 30 on Netflix

Is It Cake? has already outdone itself with Season 2. In fact, don't call it Season 2. The show has called itself Is It Cake, Too? for the second installment, which is a sequel name as good as 2 Fast 2 Furious. Mikey Day returns as host in this competition show, which sees professional bakers illustrating real objects with the world's most bizarre canvas: a cake. Why etch in sketchbooks or paint murals on walls when the best way to express yourself is through cake? —FP

Whatever sick genius at Bravo thought of Luann & Sonja: Welcome to Crappie Lake deserves a fat raise. The crossover between people who loved The Simple Life and those who adore the Real Housewives of New York is a circle. In this spinoff of sorts, the two RHONY alums are carted off to Benton, Illinois, to bring a touch of glamor to the small town. That, of course, means that Luann and Sonja will be doing odd jobs: putting up a variety show at the local theater, trying to fund a new playground, and generally just sprinkling their delightful mania on everything they touch. Crappie Lake looks anything but crappy, even if these two are going to bring nothing but mayhem to town. —CS

Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) and his squadron of trusty vampires return in the middle of this summer, where they will encourage us all to stay inside, close our blinds, and feed off the cold darkness as everyone has fun in the thick summer heat outdoors. Thanks, guys—I’m glad I’m not alone! What's going on with baby Colin Robinson? Will Guillermo finally be turned into a vampire? Seeing as this fifth season hasn't been announced as the final season (thank goodness), it's safe to say the Familiar will have another batch of episodes trying and failing to become a blood-sucking monster. Poor guy. —FP

If you’re looking for a reason to have FOMO this summer, tune into Jenny Han's The Summer I Turned Pretty. I wish I had a big beach house with limitless snacks! I wish my mom was as cool as the two maternal figures in the show! And, most of all, I wish there were two hunks pining after me when I was an awkward 16-year-old! None of these are actually possible in real life, so we have to live vicariously through The Summer I Turned Pretty, which includes all of the above. It's the show that’ll make everyone throw a huge summer beach house on their vision boards—we need it. —FP

If you caught the unfortunate end of Real Housewives of New York's days in the sun before the series was shut down and retooled entirely, you know how critical the success of Bravo's revitalized franchise is to the network. Real Housewives without RHONY? Banish the thought! Luckily, it looks like the entirely new cast is ready to bring the heat, with juuuuust the right amount of petty fights and personal drama to harken back to RHONY's best years. —CS

Justified returns, eight years after its final episode aired. In this limited series, the story picks up 15 years later. While hardcore fans of the Western crime drama will be happy to reunite with Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) no matter what, City Primeval makes some surprising changes over the original series. The limited series moves Raylan from Kentucky to Detroit, Michigan. How Justified will maintain its familiar Old West vibe amid Detroit's more metropolitan setting should be an interesting challenge to watch play out. —AF

Futurama must hold a record for the TV show revived the most times. First, Matt Groening's 22nd-century comedy was canceled by Fox after four low-rated (but highly beloved) seasons. Then, thanks to successful, endless reruns on Adult Swim, Comedy Central picked it up for four straight-to-DVD movies. Those movies turned into TV episodes, which led to more episodes; by the end of its Comedy Central run, Futurama had run for either seven or 10 seasons, depending on how you want to count it. (It's confusing, and let's not fixate on it.) Ten years later, this phoenix of a TV show rises again from the ashes for an eighth season, this time on Hulu. Futurama admittedly became a series of diminishing returns once Comedy Central rebooted it. But those who still repeatedly rewatch all 140 episodes will surely be happy to have another set. —AF

The people who, for whatever reason, played the PlayStation video game franchise Twisted Metal and told themselves it would make a good TV show have gotten their wish. An adaptation of the over-the-top action game hits Peacock, bringing some blockbuster-style mayhem to the small screen. The video games offer players a demolition derby to mess around in, in which they must blow up other drivers on the road, as they speed to the finish line in a race for survival. Peacock has reworked this dystopian, if threadbare, premise for the TV comedy: Instead of destroying other massive vehicles mostly for the hell of it, the protagonist (Anthony Mackie as a man known only as John Doe) is trying to outrun the drivers that are racing after him. Not to worry for dedicated Twist Metal game-heads, though: The franchise's heinously creepy mascot Sweet Tooth, a murderous clown, will appear in the show too. —AF

Rose Byrne has been doing Emmy-level work on Physical for the last two years, to unfortunately little fanfare. It's not so shocking, then, that the third season of this show—about a housewife who funnels her obsessive personality and disordered eating into a ruthless exercise empire—will be its last. But considering that its first two seasons have been building to an explosive final set of episodes, the third season of Physical will no doubt be worth catching up to watch. And if speeding through all these aerobics gives you a side pang, just keep breathing, you can do it! —CS

The Rez Dogs are back in action in Season 3 of Hulu's hit show, which follows four Indigenous teenagers as they continue to prevent (and, at times, cause) crime in Oklahoma. After breaking up and getting back together, Elora (Devery Jacobs), Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Cheese (Lane Factor), and Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) now have to figure their way back from California—that is, if they’re coming back at all. —FP

This summer, fandoms have reason to celebrate when Heartstopper returns for Season 2. Have we ever shipped two characters faster than we did Nick (Kit Connor) and Charlie (Joe Locke) when Season 1 came out last spring? Inarguably, the answer is no. Those two will return alongside supportive mama bear Olivia Colman, who was the real winner of the first season. If you’re itching for more episodes already, the series is adapted from a web comic—maybe start by reading the originals first. —FP

Hulu's Only Murders in the Building has become a major hit. Surprising, given that it's about as "mom and dad's favorite show" as you can get this side of an NCIS rerun. But with a chilling set of mysteries percolating under its proverbial floorboards, and a charming set of new guest stars (including the one and only Meryl Streep), Season 3 of Only Murders in the Building looks like it still has plenty of surprises up its wool cardigan sleeves. —CS

No, we’re not talking about the drink. Painkiller is a far more serious show than the fruity cocktail, and follows a series of fictional origins of the opioid crisis in the United States. Yeesh. That's pretty dark. The six-episode series will follow the same storyline as Patrick Radden Keefe's New Yorker article titled "The Family That Built an Empire of Pain," as well as Barry Meier's book Pain Killer. Uzo Aduba, Matthew Broderick, and Sam Anderson are set to star. —FP

Ahsoka follows The Mandalorian's third season, a somewhat disappointing installment of Star Wars’ otherwise fun episodic drama. The spotlight turns here to Ahsoka Tano, a Jedi who once trained under Anakin Skywalker—better known as Darth Vader. With the Jedis farflung now, Tano entered the story back in Season 2 to retrieve Grogu, a.k.a. Baby Yoda, who is the first being to possess the Force in sometime. Unfortunately, Grogu is a Mandalorian now, like his papa, so Ahsoka has to track down other Force-sensitive warriors to help her combat a new galactic threat. This Jedi adventure will also bring back Hayden Christensen in flashbacks as Anakin, which is giving us Obi-Wan Kenobi vibes all over again. —AF

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