Game of Thrones, Veep, and Silicon Valley are over. Preacher, Outlander, and The Mindy Project are ending soon. You’ve already binged Orange is the New Black. So what’s next for the intrepid TV fan? July has plenty in store, including new and returning HBO series, the premiere of the highly anticipated second season of Mr. Robot, and the third season of the Netflix comedy BoJack Horseman. Stay the course, friends.
July 10: Nasir and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Night
The HBO limited series The Night Of spends a tense, taut eight hours examining the fallout of one man’s very bad night. Nasir Khan (Riz Ahmed) is a 23-year-old Pakistani-American college student who lives with his parents in Queens. When he takes his father’s taxi into Manhattan to attend a classmate’s party, he inadvertently picks up a young woman who mistakes him for an on-duty driver. It’s a decision he’ll come to regret. A meaty police procedural that unfolds slowly and deliberately.
July 12: They’re the Worst
“When did comedies become thirty-minute dramas?” Billy ponders in the first episode of Difficult People’s second season, which premieres this month on Hulu. Starring New York comics Billy Eichner and Julie Klausner as New York comics Billy and Julie (think: a dirtier — and grumpier — Will and Grace), Difficult People is bursting with stinging one-liners and cameos from the city’s finest and funniest. The season premiere features Sandra Bernhard, John Mulaney, and Tina Fey as herself.
July 13: Mr. Robot Reboots
“Remember the night of the hack?” Uh, yeah, Mr. Robot Season 2 trailer, we remember! Last summer’s breakout hit is back for another round of paranoia-inducing episodes that will leave the voice of Rami Malek’s mentally unstable hacking genius Elliot Alderson ringing in your ears. The second season will premiere with two back-to-back episodes, aired with limited commercial interruption. Go ahead and pencil in the premiere date, but remember: Control is an illusion.
July 13: “A” for Affecting (Also, Autism)
TV is sorely lacking in good family dramas at the moment. The “A” Word — a British co-production airing on Sundance in the U.S. — is a refreshingly real-world drama centered on a couple whose five-year-old son is diagnosed with autism. It’s a serious treatment of the subject that avoids melodrama — sweet but not saccharine, shot through with humor, and full of affecting performances.
July 15: Netflix Gets Strange
Nothing much ever happens in the idyllic town of Hawkins, Indiana circa 1983. But a young boy’s sudden disappearance throws the town into disarray in the new Netflix series Stranger Things, which pays homage to supernatural thrillers of the 1980s. Winona Ryder stars as the missing boy’s mother, fresh off her role in last summer’s HBO miniseries Show Me a Hero. For fans of government conspiracy theories and ’80s nostalgia trips.
July 17: Another Kind of Veep
If the loss of the riotously deranged Eastbound and Down has left a Danny McBride-shaped hole in your heart, no fear: HBO’s Vice Principals is here, and it’s hilarious. McBride plays Neal Gamby — a softer version of Kenny Powers — a small-town North Carolina high-school teacher who wants desperately to become the next principal. But so does the hip-swinging Lee Russell, played by Walton Goggins. Eastbound and Down meets Veep, but with more heart.
July 17: Still Ballin’
Look, I’ll level with you: Ballers is not my thing. It’s Entourage with football, and its only saving grace is that it has Dwayne Johnson at its centre instead of Adrien Grenier (sorry, Vinnie). As an ethos, “Life is great, bro!” only gets you so far. But I have also yet to sit through a football game from start to finish, so what do I know. Try the second season this month.
July 22: More Horsin’ Around
If the first two seasons of BoJack Horseman dealt with the sting of failure, Season 3, which lands on Netflix this month, has the title horse grappling with his newfound success. Now that he’s a “bona-fide movie star,” on the cusp of being nominated for an Oscar, BoJack should feel great. So why can’t he stop himself from telling the press that their questions about his movie make him want to blow his brains out?
July 23: One Last Look
In the first episode of the relationship dramedy Looking, Patrick’s (Jonathan Groff) ex is about to be married. In Looking: The Movie — which caps off the two-season series this month on HBO — Patrick returns to San Francisco after living in Denver for a year to attend another wedding (no spoilers here!) and deal with the shit he left behind. The series is an appropriate send-off to a tender yet slight series that probably didn’t need another ten-episode season.
July 24: Keep on Surviving
This, not Ballers, is the sports comedy you seek. Survivor’s Remorse, which begins its third season on Starz at the end of the month, is loosely based on the early life of LeBron James, an executive producer on the show. The half-hour series follows Cam Calloway (Jessie T. Usher), a basketball player on the rise, but it doesn’t just indulge in the fantasy version of “making it.” Survivor’s Remorse is juicy and entertaining, but it also takes its subject seriously.