No list of summer TV shows 2023 can truly capture everything. Even years after the network TV concept of “summer hiatus” went away, summer is still a time for experimenting on television and when an unlikely reality smash or dark comedy can suddenly take off. Maybe that’s why this year’s summer TV shows lineup feels especially intriguing, with prestige dramas, beloved comedies, reality revamps, and a strong handful of rom-coms all competing to be the indoor kid equivalent of a beach read. When you‘re not headed to the theater to catch one of the summer movies we can’t wait to see, there’s plenty to watch back at home. 

Ahead we've collected a list of 26 shows we’re excited to spend our summers with, including plenty of old favorites and, hopefully, a few new ones. Pick your shows for the summer now, no SPF required.

The Idol

Some people love creator Sam Levinson’s dark and artsy (darksy?) teen drama Euphoria; others do not. We can probably expect a similar polarized reaction to his new series, The Idol, which will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 22 ahead of its debut on HBO. Lily-Rose Depp plays a rising pop star who falls under the spell a Svengali played by Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd. With a cool supporting cast—Dan Levy, Jane Adams, Hari Nef, and Troye Sivan, among others—and a small heap of prerelease controversy (thanks to a Rolling Stone exposé),The Idol is set to be one of the buzziest shows of the season. Is it exploitative trash? A gimlet-eyed satire of fame? Maybe it’s both! In that case, the show could be the TV equivalent of a tawdry beach read. —Richard Lawson

Cruel Summer season two

In addition to a Taylor Swift song that should’ve retroactively been released as a single, Cruel Summer is the title of a pulpy anthology series that centers on mysterious teens who are up to no good. While season one took place in small-town Texas, the second installment has shifted to a waterfront area in the Pacific Northwest where “ride-or-die” friends Megan (The Goldbergs’ Sadie Stanley) and Isabella (Little Fires Everywhere’s Lexi Underwood) are torn apart by both a love triangle and a local tragedy that leads Isabella to proclaim, “We have to get our story straight.” —Savannah Walsh

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia season 16

With the last season of the show ending in 2021, fans of this cult classic—which is now the longest-running live-action comedy series in TV history—have had to wait extra long for the 16th season. While the end of the previous season saw Charlie (Charlie Day) venturing out on his own, this season should, hopefully, see the gang (starring Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, and Danny DeVito) back together for what they do best—be together. —Rebecca Ford

Never Have I Ever season four

Ben (Jaren Lewison) and Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) finally hooked up…. So, now what? It may seem like a simplistic cliff-hanger to lead us into the final season of Netflix’s beloved teen comedy, but with everything from graduation to looming college plans on the horizon, the stage is set for a gloriously messy finish—with a hot new guy (Michael Cimino) around to potentially wreak some havoc along the way. —D.C.

The Crowded Room

Apple has become the place where Tom Holland sheds his superhero skin. Two years after his dark drama, Cherry, Holland is back as the star and executive producer of this limited series, playing a man meeting with an investigator (Amanda Seyfried) who suspects he’s connected to a shooting in New York City in the late ’70s. Holland has already opened up about the project’s toll on him, and creator Akiva Goldsman promises it will show a side of Holland audiences have never seen before: “He’s so compassionate and compelling, and his conviction in the role is extraordinary. I’m excited for him because I don’t think people have seen him this way.” —Katey Rich

What We Do in the Shadows season five

Renewed last year for a fifth and sixth season, the vampire comedy returns with a major vote of confidence from its network, and a major cliff-hanger to wrap up: At the end of the last season, human familiar Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) had asked to be turned into a vampire. The season ended with several other resets, like Baby Colin’s (Mark Proksch) reversion back to regular adult Colin and the end of Nadja’s (Natasia Demetriou) nightclub dream. But, for vampire characters who have been alive for hundreds of years, there’s clearly time for many more adventures. —K.R.

The Full Monty

The 1997 hit British film about a group of unlikely strippers already inspired a musical and a play, and now comes this eight-episode limited series, which will reunite the story’s colorful characters 25 years later. Original cast members Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, and Lesley Sharp are all returning, as their characters grapple with new challenges, along with children and grandchildren. —R.F.

Outlander season seven

The Fraser clan is back after a shortened sixth season, and Starz is promising fireworks. That’s because the time-travel epic’s supersized 16-episode season will take place at the start of the American Revolution. Heroine Claire (Caitríona Balfe) will start the season in prison, but would anyone really be surprised if she eventually finds her way back into the arms of husband Jamie (Sam Heughan)? Several new characters—including a grown-up William (Charles Vandervaart) and Quakers Rachel (Izzy Meikle-Small) and Denzell (Joey Phillips)—promise to keep things fresh on the streamy book adaptation. —Natalie Jarvey

The Righteous Gemstones season three

God love ‘em, the Gemstones’ prayers have finally been answered. Season three of The Righteous Gemstones returns to HBO on June 18, and, in a page straight out of Succession, Jesse (Danny McBride), Judy (Edi Patterson), and Kelvin (Adam DeVine) Gemstone finally have control of the family’s televangelist church made world-famous by their father, Dr. Eli Gemstone (John Goodman). But, running a megachurch is not as easy as it seems, and, from the looks of it, the Gemstone children may not be cut out for the gig. Pray for them. —Chris Murphy

The Walking Dead: Dead City

The universe of The Walking Dead expands once again with this sequel series, which picks up two years after the end of The Walking Dead and finds former enemies Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan) traveling in a postapocalyptic Manhattan. It’s the fourth spin-off from the smash-hit AMC series, which wrapped its 11th and final season in November 2022. None of the follow-up series have become as huge as the original, but AMC clearly remains very much in the zombie business. —K.R.

Secret Invasion

“We don’t know who’s a friend, who’s the enemy,” Samuel L. Jackson told Anthony Breznican for Vanity Fair’s first look at his upcoming Marvel series, which follows Jackson’s former S.H.I.E.L.D. director, Nick Fury, as he uncovers a conspiracy to quietly install double agents into positions of power around the world. He’s joined by Emilia Clarke as an alien radical named G’iah, Olivia Colman as a British intelligence agent who has a past with Fury, and a few familiar faces from the MCU, namely Martin Freeman (as CIA agent Everett K. Ross) and Cobie Smulders (as Fury’s steadfast ally, Maria Hill). Maybe it’s not a new Avengers movie, but Secret Invasion seems just as starry. —H.B.

The Bear

Order up. The Bear—the high-octane kitchen series that premiered on FX last summer and quickly became the network’s most-watched half-hour show of all time—serves up a new 10-episode season two on June 22. After shutting down his restaurant, The Beef, Jeremy Allen White’s chef Carmy and his kitchen crew consisting of his “cousin” Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), sous-chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce), and veteran line cook Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) are preparing to open Carmy’s new restaurant, The Bear. Along with the new restaurant, there are a few new faces, with Better Call Saul’s Bob Odenkirk and Booksmart’s Molly Gordon both joining The Bear for season two. “It’s not a reopening, it’s a rebirth,” reads the caption on a teaser trailer for The Bear’s second season. Yes, chef. —C.M.

The Bachelorette

While many of us are still feeling the hangover of a particularly brutal season of The Bachelor, a new season for love is here with Charity Lawson, a 27-year-old Georgia native who was sent packing after hometowns by Zach Shallcross, calling the shots. She becomes only the fifth Black lead in franchise history, following in the footsteps of Matt James, Rachel Lindsay, Tayshia Adams, and Michelle Young—a welcome addition after yet another season where a contestant’s racist past was exposed. Here’s hoping that the exit of controversial longtime creator Mike Fleiss, and Lawson’s career as a child and family therapist bring fresh life to a wilting rose. —S.W.

The Witcher season three

Geralt (Henry Cavill) and Ciri (Freya Allan) are going into hiding as the new season of Netflix’s fantasy epic begins, a journey that promises equal parts discovery and treachery—and lands them in a position of putting everything on the line. Robbie Amell and Meng’er Zhang join the cast as an elven fighter and a human huntress, respectively. —D.C.

And Just Like That… Season Two

Now that the death of Big and a realignment of friend groups has been taken care of, maybe the second season of Max’s Sex and the City continuation can relax and have fun. Maybe we might even get a more episodic format, with each installment centered on a particular theme—you know, like SATC used to be. Though creator Michael Patrick King and producer/star Sarah Jessica Parker have been careful to note that AJLT is not trying to directly mimic the style of their previous hit, this is a different set of shoes altogether. So, perhaps that will be the real narrative of this sophomore run of episodes: audiences learning to embrace what’s different about the series, while its creative team finds a way to make it all fit. —R.L.

The Horror of Dolores Roach

From play to podcast to TV series: That’s the unlikely journey of The Horror of Dolores Roach, which began its life as a one-woman show starring Daphne Rubin-Vega, who reprised the role for the Gimlet Media podcast version. The play and podcast’s creator Aaron Mark will serve as co-showrunner for the series, which stars One Day at a Time alum Justina Machado as a woman returning to her Washington Heights neighborhood after being released from prison. As the description for the podcast went, it’s “a macabre urban legend of love, betrayal, weed, gentrification, cannibalism, and survival of the fittest.” —K.R.

The Real Housewives of New York City

RHONY has gotten a rebrand. After 13 seasons, Bravo has done away with original Real Housewives of New York cast members like Luann de Lesepps, Sonja Morgan, and Ramona Singer in favor of a fresh crop of ladies ready to take on the Big Apple. Bravo’s updated RHONY cast includes Sai De Silva, Ubah Hassan, Jessel Taank, Brynn Whitfield, Erin Dana Lichy, and former J.Crew president and creative director Jenna Lyons. Season 14 of Real Housewives of New York will premiere on Bravo on July 16 because, after all, there’s nothing like summer in the city. Until then, we’ll have to wait and see whether the new cast will fill the RHONY OGs’ big and fabulous shoes. —C.M.

The Afterparty

The only thing juicier than an afterparty is what mischief happens next. Even more murder is afoot in season two of this comedic whodunnit, which deliciously recounts the same crime from a different character’s perspective in each episode. The sophomore installment reunites returning cast members Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, and Zoë Chao with a—ahem—murderers’ row of new performers including John Cho, Paul Walter Hauser, Anna Konkle, Ken Jeong, Poppy Liu, Zach Woods, Vivian Wu, and Elizabeth Perkins as an unlucky set of soon-to-be interrogated wedding guests. Let the theorizing begin! —S.W.

Praise Petey

Annie Murphy as an It girl whose glamorous life comes crashing down? Sounds a lot like Schitt’s Creek, only, this time, Murphy is voicing the animated Petey, who decides to lean into modernizing her dad’s small-town cult. From former Saturday Night Live head writer Anna Drezen, Praise Petey promises comedy for the Gen Z set. John Cho, Kiersey Clemons, and Christine Baranski also star. —N.J.

They Cloned Tyrone

Is it a comedy, a conspiracy thriller, a stylish sci-fi-action-mystery-Blaxploitation-throwback? Juel Taylor’s directorial debut looks like all of the above. “Blaxploitation films always represented movies that let us express ourselves, and we could just look snazzy and do cool shit,” star John Boyega recently told EW of the high-concept project. ”It didn’t matter if we knew kung fu. It just all made sense with the music, with the vibes. I’m just proud to, at least, be a part of something that pays homage to that.” Trust his costars Teyonah Parris and Jamie Foxx to nail the vibe too. —H.B.

Minx season two

Axed from HBO Max in dramatic fashion last year, the 1970s workplace comedy has found a new life on Starz, with Ophelia Lovibond and Jake Johnson returning as Joyce and Doug, the pair of unlikely collaborators behind a feminist porn magazine. In season two, the magazine Minx has become a hit, which, for our heroes, “brings more money, fame, and temptation than either of them know how to handle,” per Starz. With the recent Party Down revival, Starz is hopefully well-positioned to promote another smart comedy and treat Minx better than its first home did. —K.R.

Twisted Metal

Did you spend the winter of 1995 watching your brother shoot napalm-laced ice cream cones at a souped-up Corvette driven by a ghost? If so, you too may find yourself intrigued by Peacock’s adaptation of the classic Playstation game, which casts Anthony Mackie as an everyman (he’s literally named John Doe) on a quest that, if the original is any blueprint, will mostly serve as an excuse for stylized vehicular mayhem. Yes, the clown who drives a killer ice cream truck is there too—and, this time, he’s voiced by Will Arnett. —H.B.

Breeders season four

The fourth season of FX’s dark comedy series follows a tense finale in which Ava (Eve Prenelle) finally stood up to her father, while our weary married antiheroes Paul (Martin Freeman) and Ally (Daisy Haggard) don’t split up, exactly, but plan to move forward with a dynamic that may not be fixable, and a lot of pain in the rearview. How will they all pick up the pieces? Hopefully, the premiere lays out the road map. —D.C.

Reservation Dogs season two

At the end of season two, the titular Dogs—Indigenous teens Elora Danan (Devery Jacobs), Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis), and Cheese (Lane Factor)—have made their long-awaited sojourn to California, a dream they often discussed while living on the Muscogee Nation Reservation in Oklahoma. But, while the last season ended with a sense of resolution, showrunner Sterlin Harjo has teased “some darkness coming” in season three for the group, whose bond was cemented after the tragic loss of their fifth friend just before the show’s start. —S.W.

Heartstopper season two

Get ready for a summer of love. Netflix’s hit queer coming-of-age romance Heartstopper returns to the streaming platform on August 3. Based on the New York Times best-selling graphic novel series by Alice Oseman, Heartstopper follows Charlie (Joe Locke) a recently out teen at a British all-boys school, Nick (Kit Connor) a closeted rugby player coming to terms with his sexuality, and their budding romance. With a 100% average Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes, there’s clearly many Heartstopper fans interested in seeing what the next step is in Charlie and Nick’s romantic journey. —C.M.

Red, White & Royal Blue

Speaking of Heartstopper, The Royal We meets Netflix’s hit queer romance in Matthew Lopez’s adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s Young Adult bestseller, a sweetly silly rom-com that pairs America’s First Son with the heir to the British crown. Sure, the premise is implausible, but McQuiston’s charming banter was enough to sell it in novel form. Presumably, young cuties Taylor Zakhar Pérez and Nicholas Galitzine will be able to do the same on the small screen. Plus: Uma Thurman as the first female POTUS! —H.B.

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