While June looks to be relatively tame in the film department, it’s bringing back some of television’s better binges in just one month. Meryl Streep will remind everyone why she’s so beloved in season two of “Big Little Lies,” “Pose” will encourage people to enjoy television communally as a show best experienced with others and there’s even room for the oddities such as “Baskets.”
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The time of Peak TV means that there’s no strict timeline of when shows premiere and/or return, making for a wider, more interesting television template, offering up something for everyone at all times of the year. Series that weren’t included below that still deserve notice include the final season of “Fear the Walking Dead,” the series premieres of “Grand Hotel” and “Years and Years” and the return of Netflix series “Dark.”
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“Black Mirror”
What You Need to Know: What to make of “Black Mirror” following its last entry, the bizarre, choose-your-own-adventure experiment “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch?” While season four had its merits, after “San Junipero” stunned in season three, the bar has been set terribly high moving forward. The Charlie Brooker series–always terrified and perplexed by technology–has come a long way from its more humble beginnings (better then than now, some may say) but the abbreviated season five has its own excitements. Everyone from Anthony Mackie to Topher Grace to Miley Cyrus of all people will be allowed a chance to shine in this alternative version of near dystopia but, as “Fleabag” still has us all abuzz with how amazing it is, maybe we’re most eager to see Internet Boyfriend Hot Priest (Andrew Scott) show up.
Release Date: Season 5 premiers on June 5th on Netflix.
“The Handmaid’s Tale”
What You Need to Know: First of a few shows on this list that perhaps might’ve worked better over time had they remained a one season mini-series, “The Handmaids Tale,” adapted from the famous Margaret Atwood novel, has severely extended its lifespan when the natural ending came seasons ago. Now, the writers are forced to commit to telling a story that is worn thin, with iconography that works to greater effect as a modern-day symbol of protest than narratively. Regardless, it’s still an Elisabeth Moss-driven series which certainly helps. And while I could never get around to watching something seemingly so gratuitously horrific (we live in dire enough times, folks) our critic watched season two, calling it “brilliant” and “challenging.”
Release Date: Season 3 premiers on June 5th on Hulu.
“Tales of the City”
What You Need to Know: The latest adaptation of the novel by Armistead Maupin, the Netflix update looks to further modernize the story of one woman hitting a midlife crisis and retreating back to San Francisco after 20 years away. Starring Laura Linney, Olympia Dukakis, and Ellen Page along with a host of other up and comers, “Tales of the City” looks to offer up a feel good, almost classical atmosphere for this mini-series. With LGBTQ culture taking a prominent place in all the teasers thus far, hopefully, the show will commit to that vessel of storytelling, along with Linney’s more standard, mid-life misplacement beat. Regardless, it looks like easy viewing.
Release Date: Season one premiers on June 7th on Netflix.