Summer TV Roundup, Week 3


 We’re into June, and with the Emmy window closed, we’re seeing a steady but smaller group of new series. It’s a bit of a June swoon, which might coincide with you having a little extra time to watch shows. So, what of these new shows is worth your time to check out? Let this weekly post be your guide as I review the pilot and second episode of new series. Don’t see a new show listed below? Check previous weeks.

Thursdays:
Surviving Earth, Thursdays at 8 p.m. on NBC (Premiered June 11)
About: Do you like documentaries? If you do, this new summer series might be for you. It takes the action back to the age of the dinosaurs and looks at life on Earth before things were wiped out. The series is eight episodes, each an hour, airing weekly this summer on NBC Thursdays. It takes the bent that it was an environmental crisis and the Earth learned to survive once, the lesson being that they could survive again. The recreations looked solid, and it was entertaining enough for summer, especially if it’s your kind of show.
Pilot Grade: C+

Fridays:
The Listeners, Streaming Fridays on Starz (Premiered June 12)
About: This is a BBC original limited series that aired in the United Kingdom in 2024. Now, it’s making its American debut. Turns out, we might have been good without it. It’s a four-part series from Jordan Tannahill, based on his novel. It finds Rebecca Hall as a teacher who begins to be plagued by a low hum that won’t go away. She tries to discover the cause before it ruins her life but is finding precious few answers. When one of her students (Ollie West) has the same affliction, she may have found an unlikely partner in finding answers. The pilot was shot well enough, clocking in at about 44 minutes. But it was very dull. It’s hard to imagine how this concept is stretched to four episodes, but I guess we’ll see next week. It drew middling reviews overseas for obvious reasons and isn’t one you need to make a point to catch.
Pilot Grade: C

Streaming Series:
Year After Year, Now Streaming on Prime Video (Premiered June 10)
About: This eight-part series is based on the book from Carley Fortune. It follows Percy (Sadie Soverall), who returns to her hometown for the funeral of a former flame’s mother. Said former flame, Sam (Matt Cornett), was also her best friend. But they had a painful split that neither has gotten over, even 10 years later. Through flashbacks, we see how they met and the depth of their relationship. In the present, they are coming to grips with who they are now and their painful past. This is the right kind of material to appeal to younger viewers and to work for a series like this. But this iteration of it was painfully dull. The first two episodes felt like they dragged, which makes it tough to consider the whole series, even at a binge-friendly eight streaming episodes. Die-hard fans of the book or the genre will get something here, but this isn’t one worth making a special effort to seek out.
Pilot Grade: C
Second Episode: C

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