13 must-watch TV series for summer 2016: from Orange is the New Black and Mr Robot, to Brief Encounters

There’s a veritable feast of new seasons to binge in the coming weeks
Binge: Orange is the New Black is back with a brand new season
Netflix
Ellen E. Jones24 June 2016

Pity the poor TV viewer in summer. The schedules are full of sport and Glasto — both of which, to be honest, are best appreciated in person — and it’s a long wait until autumn, when the good shows start again. Or so it once was.

In summer 2016 bold scheduling experiments mean there’s more to watch and more ways to watch it than ever.

Even the staid Beeb has begun debuting sexy psychodramas such as The Living and The Dead on iPlayer before, not after, their primetime broadcast slots.

Sky Atlantic is allowing UK viewers to see US shows at the same time as America (GMT, be damned, it’s our GoT that matters) and new funding models at Netflix and Amazon Prime mean a boundary-pushing concept is no bar to a series commission (thank you, Orange is the New Black, thank you Transparent).

So rejoice, telly addicts, and draw your curtains against the glaring sun, the EU referendum clouds have finally cleared and there are a host of great new series just over the horizon.

Orange is the New Black
Season 4, available now, Netflix

Best one yet? If the relative merit of an OITNB series is judged according to the screen time of annoying Piper (less is best), then Season 4 should be a corker. The ongoing privatisation of Litchfield Penetentiary tests new warden Caputo’s integrity to breaking point while the arrival of disgraced TV chef Judy King (Blair Brown) ruffles feathers among the overcrowded inmates. And will poor Alex (Laura Prepon) survive her encounter with a contract killer? Last one to finish their 13-episode binge gets the bottom bunk.

Orange is the New Black - Season 4, Netflix

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The Bureau
Available now, Amazon Prime

Think of this as France’s answer to BBC hit The Night Manager. Dashing French film actor Matthieu Kassovitz (Amélie, Munich) stars as a secret service agent who struggles to leave behind his false identity and his Syrian girlfriend when a six-year mission in Damascus comes to an end. The bad news is that it’s so addictive you won’t see sunlight until September. The good news is that if you whizz through all 10 episodes of Season 1, you’ll only have to wait until August 26 for Season 2.

The Living and The Dead
Available now, BBC iPlayer

You remember Northern Irish actor Colin Morgan? He played DS Tom Anderson, the age-inappropriate love interest of Gillian Anderson’s superintendent in the second series of The Fall, a role he’ll reprise later this year. Before that he’s starring in the BBC’s spooky new costume drama as pioneering psychologist Nathan Appleby. After moving back to his childhood home in superstitious Somerset, Appleby takes on a case of apparent demonic possession and soon becomes obsessed with proving the existence of an afterlife.

Brief Encounters
July 4, ITV

It won’t be ground-breaking television by any means but there’s a lot to like about ITV’s new series set in the knicker-selling business of the early Eighties. First there’s a cast comprising loveable stalwart Sophie Rundle, My Mad Fat Diary’s Sharon Rooney, too-good-for-Corrie Angela Griffin and stand-up comedian Doc Brown. Then there’s the prospect of witnessing what the trailer describes as “the sexual awakening of Sheffield”. The mind boggles.

Mr Robot
Season 2, July 14, Amazon Prime; Season 1, Universal, July 21

If you’re more likely to get a tan from the warm glow of a laptop screen than any actual sunshine, this one’s for you. Mr Robot makes us all believe that the most important world events take place on an algorithmic level. Rami Malek stars as Elliot Alderson, cybersecurity engineer by day and vigilante hacktivist by night, whose struggles with anxiety have been externalised by Sam Esmail’s innovative script. And if that doesn’t appeal, the pacey thriller plotline and support from Eighties heart-throb Christian Slater should.

Stranger Things
July 15, Netflix

After an eye-catching supporting turn in last year’s Sky Atlantic drama Show Me a Hero, Winona Ryder’s small-screen comeback continues apace. In this unsettling tribute to cult classics including Twin Peaks and Nightmare on Elm Street she plays Joyce, the mother of a young boy who vanishes without trace in Eighties Indiana. Those with fond memories of Nineties kids’ show Eerie, Indiana may also want to keep an eye out for this one — it’s got slow-burn hit written all over it.

Vice Principals
July 19, Sky Atlantic

Walton Goggins is one of those brilliant but largely anonymous character actors who improves every show he appears in (The Shield, Justified, Sons of Anarchy). Get ready to remember his name as he makes his comedy debut alongside Danny McBride, a foul-mouthed favourite best known for Eastbound and Down and a series of Judd Apatow films. The pair play rival teachers locked into an epic power struggle and end up behaving much, much more badly than the students they’re meant to be disciplining.

Gomorrah
Season 2, Tomorrow, DVD and Blu-ray

So the neighbours have swanned off to Tuscany for two weeks? So what? You know the real Italy thanks to the second series of this gritty gangster thriller set in a Naples council estate. If your interest in Italian organised crime is piqued, there’s lots more to look forward to besides. Suburra, a feature film by Gomorrah director Stefano Sollima, is out on June 24 followed by the Helen Mirren-narrated documentary A Very Sicilian Justice on Al Jazeera English (July 7, 9pm).

The Neighbours
TBC, More4 and Walter Presents

This Dutch series will either confirm your most xenophobic suspicions about what those continentals get up to behind closed doors or persuade you to go online and book that Amsterdam getaway before the end of the first ad break. It tells the story of a couple who move to the suburbs and make friends with the swingers next door before getting embroiled in a nightmare of sexual obsession and murder. Even more intriguing is this trivia titbit: the actors playing the two couples are also couples in real life.

The Get Down
Season 1, TBC, Netflix

Glee, Nashville, Empire: TV musicals are no longer a scheduling anomaly, they’re sure-fire hits with cross-generational appeal. If you were turned off by Vinyl’s debauched depiction of Seeventies New York (as well as its scenes of copious cocaine consumption) this series should make it all better again. Hopeful signs include the casting of Will Smith’s gender-fluid middle son Jaden as a “psychedelically talented” graffiti artist and the involvement of Romeo & Juliet director Baz Luhrmann.

The Night Of
TBC, Sky Atlantic

Co-written by US crime fiction royalty Richard Price (Clockers, The Wire) and based on 2008 BBC drama Criminal Justice, The Night Of has good pedigree. Like Nordic noir classics The Killing and The Bridge it follows the investigation and trial of a single crime, the murder of a young woman in New York. John Turturro is lawyer Jack Stone (a role meant for the late James Gandolfini) and London actor Riz Ahmed plays the prime suspect.

Him
TBC, ITV

Current unknown Fionn Whitehead is about to be a massive star. Christopher Nolan has cast him alongside Tom Hardy and Mark Rylance in his Second World War drama Dunkirk. Catch him in this three-part domestic horror and you can say you recognised that first spark of star power from the very beginning. He plays a 17-year-old known only as “Him” whose usual teen struggles with a broken home and a blended family are compounded by his dangerous supernatural powers.

Best TV dramas 2016

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National Treasure
TBC, Channel 4

It’s always worth catching up with what writer Jack Thorne (Skins, This is England ’90, The Last Panthers) is up to. His latest project is this sure-to-be-controversial series on the investigation of a much-loved public figure, Paul Finchley (Robbie Coltrane), for historic sexual offences. You’ll need little prompting to recall the real-life sources for Finchley’s character but National Treasure will also explore the impact on those around him. The excellent cast also includes Julie Walters as Paul’s wife of 40 years, Marie, and Andrea Riseborough as Dee, his recovering addict daughter.

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