Summer TV Preview 2024: 15 Shows You Won’t Want to Miss

Watch the very best of the crop, from the networks to Netflix

Tim Appelo,

AARP

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En español

Published April 09, 2024

Characters from various television shows such as The Bear, Clipped, Presumed Innocent, Hotel Cocaine and Queenie

(Clockwise from top left) Dionne Brown and Michelle Greenridge in "Queenie"; Jake Gyllenhaal in "Presumed Innocent"; Laura Gordon and Danny Pino in "Hotel Cocaine"; Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri in "The Bear"; Jacki Weaver, Ed O'Neill and Cleopatra Coleman in "Clipped."

Photo Collage: AARP; (Source clockwise from left: Latoya Okuneye/Lionsgate; Apple TV+; Carlos Rodriguez/MGM+; COURTESY FX; Kelsey McNeal/FX; Getty Images)

Remember when summer TV was all about reruns? With streaming giants in the mix, those doldrums are a thing of the past. Along with backyard cookouts and beach days, mark your calendar for these 15 top-flight premieres.

The Beach Boys (May 24, Disney+)

The big documentary on the band the Beatles wanted to beat features new interviews with bandmates Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, David Marks and Bruce Johnston, as well as Lindsey Buckingham, Janelle Monáe and Don Was, plus archival interviews with the late Carl and Dennis Wilson. The film’s soundtrack will be available to stream or download, their 1964 album Shut Down Volume 2 (with “Fun, Fun, Fun” and “Louie Louie”) was reissued March 29, and there’s a new book available, The Beach Boys by the Beach Boys.

Eric (May 30, Netflix)

In scary 1980s New York, a puppeteer with a TV show (Benedict Cumberbatch) freaks out when his 9-year-old disappears on the way to school, and gets obsessed with his son’s drawing of a blue monster puppet.

Mayor of Kingstown, Season 3 (June 2, Paramount+)

Jeremy Renner, 53, was nearly crushed to death by a snowplow in 2023, — but he’s back, portraying a convict-turned-civic leader in a town whose business is prisons. In the new season of this show from Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone), the Russian mob invades Kingstown, and a drug war erupts behind bars and outside.

Note: Paramount+ provides a discount to AARP members and pays AARP a royalty for the use of its intellectual property.

Fixer Upper: The Lakehouse (June 2, Magnolia Network, Max, Discovery+)

Chip and Joanna Gaines celebrate 10 years of their hit home improvement show with a tough challenge: a rather time-worn 1960s home that urgently requires their genius.

Clipped (June 4, FX/Hulu)

Ed O’Neill, 77, plays LA Clippers former owner Donald Sterling in a miniseries about his spectacular downfall, with Laurence Fishburne, 62, as the Clippers’ coach, Cleopatra Coleman as the mistress who brought him down, and Jacki Weaver, 76, as the wife who triumphed over the mistress.

The Acolyte (June 4, Disney+)

Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae, 51, learned English to play Jedi master Sol, investigating crime in this Star Wars spin-off, with Carrie-Anne Moss, 56, as martial arts Jedi master Indara — who’s so much like the character she played in The Matrix that she calls Indara “Trinity with a lightsaber.”

Queenie (June 7, Hulu)

Candice Carty-Williams’ 2019 bestseller, Queenie, became the first work by a Black author to be named Book of the Year by the British Book Awards. Now Dionne Brown (Criminal Record) stars as Queenie Jenkins, 25, a Jamaican British newspaperwoman in London, feeling caught between two cultures, looking for love in wrong places, but comforted by her raucous pals, who call themselves the Corgis.

Bridgerton, Season 3, Part 2 (June 13, Netflix)

The courtship of Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) — who’s secretly the notorious gossip Lady Whistledown — and hunky Colin (Luke Newton) continues on a bodice-ripping show so steamy that Coughlan’s contract provides for a PG version of Bridgerton that she can show her straitlaced parents (no joke!).

Presumed Innocent (June 14, Apple TV+)

If you liked Big Little Lies, try the latest twisty mystery miniseries from producer David E. Kelley, 68, about prosecutor Rusty Sabich (Jake Gyllenhaal), whose office is upended when one of its own is accused of a lurid murder. “The new Presumed Innocent will be just that — new,” Scott Turow, author of the 1986 bestseller that spawned a 1990 Harrison Ford film and now this show, tells AARP. Turow, who turns 75 on April 12, adds: “There are many thoughtful changes. DNA was not commonly used in the courtroom when I wrote the novel. These days, Rusty would have been slabbed by DNA testing. Kelley came up with a new approach that borders on genius — which is revealed in the first episode.”

The 77th Annual Tony Awards (June 16, CBS)

Ariana DeBose hosts the nation’s top theater awards. Will Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along beat Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret? Will Suffs, from Shaina Taub, beat Here Lies Love, from David Byrne, 71, and Fatboy Slim, 60? (The Gold Derby awards prediction pundits rank all as top contenders for nominations, which will be announced April 30.) Tune in and see.

Hotel Cocaine (June 16, MGM+)

The new series stars Law & Order: SVU’s Danny Pino, who’ll be 50 on April 15, as a Cuban who fought Castro at the Bay of Pigs, fled to Miami and managed the Mutiny Hotel, epicenter of the late ’70s to early ’80s cocaine epidemic. Michael Chiklis, 60 (the two-fisted, morally sketchy cop on Shields), plays Agent Zulio, who plans to crush the drug trade, even if innocent civilians suffer. Producer Chris Brancato, 61 (Narcos), calls it “Casablanca on cocaine.”

House of the Dragon, Season 2 (June 16, HBO, Max)

In the prequel set 200 years before Game of Thrones, a Targaryen civil war erupts — the Dance of the Dragons begins! Are you betting on Team Black, led by Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), or Team Green, led by dowager Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) and King Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney)?

Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution (June 18, PBS)

Remember when Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Kool & the Gang, “Night Fever” and Studio 54 rocked the boat of American culture? Disco was not only fun but also a serious musical and social movement, and this high-IQ BBC/PBS docuseries traces its origins in the era’s gay uprising and a recession that freed New York warehouses to become sweaty dance halls. The series chronicles and analyzes disco’s skyrocket ascent, as well as its crash amid “Disco Sucks” record-burning events.

The Bear, Season 3 (June 27, FX/Hulu)

After 10 Emmys and a debut that earned a perfect 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes critics’ rating while breaking all FX viewership records, the show about the restaurant run by insanely ambitious Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) and Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri) returns. They’re a sizzling couple on-screen, partly because (so far) their passion is for food, not each other. “I think it’s incredibly cool to have this dynamic on-screen that isn’t romantic, but that feels charged and sexy,” Edebiri told The Hollywood Reporter.

2024 Paris Olympics (July 26–Aug. 11, NBC/Peacock)

Peyton Manning and Kelly Clarkson host the world’s biggest sports event. If your TV (or your phone) is too small, you can also watch the Summer Games in over 150 IMAX theaters.

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Tim Appelo covers entertainment and is the film and TV critic for AARP. Previously, he was the entertainment editor at Amazon, video critic at Entertainment Weekly, and a critic and writer for The Hollywood Reporter, People, MTV, The Village Voice and LA Weekly.