From Peaky Blinders to Stranger Things: the best TV to look forward to in summer 2019
Traditionally a television graveyard, this summer promises at least a few exciting small-screen prospects. Before the schools resume, we'll see the return of Strangers Things, Orange is the New Black, Poldark and Peaky Blinders, while promising new drama comes in the form of BBC One's Dark Mon￡y and The Capture. Here is what we'll be keeping an eye out for during the warmer months.
Stranger Things
After casting one cult Eighties actor – The Goonies’s Sean Astin – in season two, this retro supernatural series has drafted in another for season three: The Princess Brides’ Cary Elwes. We return to Hawkins, Indiana to find the group of teenagers a little older, but still threatened by mysterious forces from the Upside Down.
Netflix, July 4
Dark Mon￡y
Damilola, Our Loved Boy was the heartbreaking drama based on the murder of Damilola Taylor. Now its writer Levi David Addai has tackled a different child-based crime. Babou Ceesay and Jill Halfpenny star as the fictional working class parents of a child actor who is sexually abused by a powerful Hollywood filmmaker.
BBC One, 8 July
Poldark
Bad news for Ross and Demelza fans: this fifth series will be the last visit to windswept Cornwall. It will, however, be the first series not drawn from Winston Graham’s novels. Writer Debbie Horsfield has decided not to adapt his final novel, which jumped the story forward by a decade, but to create a new story set in the 10-year gap between the last two books.
BBC One, 14 July TBC
Orange is the New Black
The hugely popular prison drama returns for its seventh, and final, season. With Piper (Taylor Schilling) now a free woman, she is separated from her incarcerated wife Alex (Laura Prepon), who remains in maximum security with the rest of the former Litchfield inmates.
Netflix, 26 July
A Confession
The latest fact-based drama from writer Jeff Pope (Hatton Garden, Little Boy Blue and The Moorside) takes its inspiration from the real-life Detective Superintendent Steve Fulcher (played here by Martin Freeman), who deliberately broke police procedure in the hunt for a missing 22-year-old woman.
ITV, TBC
Deep Water
Adapted from Paula Daly’s Windermere novel series, this emotional thriller follows the lives of three complex women (Anna Friel, Sinead Keenan and Rosalind Eleazar), connected by their interactions at the gate of their children’s Lake District school, who are struggling to support their families.
ITV, TBC
Peaky Blinders
Steven Knight’s gritty period drama returns for a fifth series, with Tommy Shelby a newly elected MP for Birmingham South. But there’s trouble ahead, as the story heads towards the 1929 financial crash.
BBC One, TBC
Keeping Faith
The first series of this dual-language missing-person thriller became such a big word-of-mouth hit last year that the BBC promoted it from its home on BBC Wales to a prime-time slot on BBC One. The second series is already available to watch in the Welsh language on the BBC iPlayer, with the English language version set to arrive on BBC One soon. The story picks up 18 months after Faith’s (Eve Myles) missing husband Evan (Bradley Freegard) suddenly reappeared.
BBC One, TBC
The Capture
Holliday Grainger (Patrick Melrose) and Callum Turner (War & Peace) star in this new thriller that examines the impact of fake news on criminal trials. Turner stars as a man whose murder conviction is overturned due to flawed video evidence. But he is forced to fight for his freedom again when damning CCTV footage from a night out is revealed.
BBC One, TBC
Fosse/Verdon
This slick American biopic tells the story of the tumultuous romantic and creative partnership of director-choreographer Bob Fosse (Sam Rockwell) – the man behind Cabaret and Chicago – and the hugely respected Broadway actress and dancer Gwen Verdon (Michelle Williams).
BBC Two, August TBC
This Way Up
Aisling Bea is best known as the Irish stand-up who regularly appears on the panel show circuit. But she’s appeared in serious BBC dramas too, such as Hard Sun and The Fall. Here Bea’s written her own sitcom, in which she also stars, about a young woman who’s trying to pull her life back together after a "teeny little nervous breakdown".
Channel 4, August TBC
Brassic
Created by Joe Gilgun and Daniel Brocklehurst, this new comedy drama based on the theme of its title: being skint. Gilgun stars as a Lancashire lad with bipolar disorder, who's otherwise solid, familiar life is shaken when his best mate, Dylan (Damien Molony) is forced to choose between his mate and his girlfriend (Michelle Keegan).
Sky One, August TBC
Succession
The first season of Jesse Armstrong’s family saga – about a Rupert Murdoch-esque media baron Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and his squabbling adult children – was well received. Now it returns for a second run, to find Roy in the midst of a takeover battle.
Sky Atlantic, August TBC
Dad’s Army: The Lost Episodes
As is the case for many Sixties TV shows, a handful of episodes of Dad's Army are missing from the BBC archive, the tapes having been discarded or reused as a cost-saving measure. The scripts, however, survive and here GOLD has recreated three of those episodes with a new cast. In place of Arthur Lowe, Kevin McNally plays the role of Captain Mainwaring, alongside Robert Bathurst as Sergeant Wilson and Bernard Cribbins as Private Godfrey.
GOLD, August bank holiday weekend
Mae and George
Alongside Pure and The Bisexual, which were both released in the last year, Channel 4 seems to be carving out a new niche in comedy based on sexuality and mental health. This new series, written by Mae Martin and Joe Hampson, stars Martin as a version of herself, a comedian and recovering addict who is trying to control her sexual impulses. The show also boasts Friends star Lisa Kudrow in a cast list that includes Call the Midwife's Charlotte Ritchie and Ophelia Lovibond.
E4, August TBC
The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance
The 1982 Jim Henson film – the one that starred only puppets and was rather darker than his other cult movie hit Labyrinth – became a fantasy cult classic. Now it’s been revived for a TV prequel, as we follow three Gelflings – Rian, Brea and Deet – who inspire a rebellion against the evil Skeksis. For those who want to see the puppets up close, to mark the release there will also be an accompanying exhibition at London's BFI Southbank.
Netflix, 30 August
Carnival Row
This Victorian-era fantasy brings together Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevigne as human detective Rycroft Philostrate and faerie Vignette Stonemoss. It’s a human world filled with mythological immigrant creatures, who’ve sought sanctuary from their threatened homelands. But the two groups are struggling to co-exist.
Amazon, 30 August