A Salute to Summer TV

As TV viewers know, it is now common to have year-round programming both on the major and cable networks. I would imagine just as many viewers recall a time when summer programming was nothing short of a wasteland where the networks aired repeats or burned off TV shows they deemed weren’t suitable for the regular TV season.

I remember so many summers of waiting with bated breath for the new TV season to start simply because there were so few choices from June through mid-September. Granted, most viewers still wait with baited breath for the fall TV season to start because of the numerous cliffhangers, leaving our favorite characters in some sort of jeopardy; but now the months of waiting move at a quicker pace thanks to all the programming options airing during the summer months.

With that thought in mind, I wanted to take a look at just a few of the highlights of the upcoming summer programming (one for each month of the summer). Your tastes, of course, may or may not reflect mine.

Here goes:

The Last Ship (TNT) – This series was actually supposed to return this past Sunday, but due to the tragic events in Orlando, Florida, the network decided to postpone the show’s third season two-hour premiere. Once the post-apocalyptic series does finally get to return, we will see what happened to Dr. Scott, who was shot in the hallway of a hotel in St. Louis; and we’ll get to see how things have changed for most of the lead characters on the Nathan James.

Killjoys and Dark Matter (Syfy) – Both space-themed dramas will be back right before the Fourth of July, and both will assuredly have intense returns because Killjoys left one of the characters in jeopardy while nearly all of the characters on Dark Matter were in deep trouble too.

Chesapeake Shores (Hallmark Channel) – The family friendly network is bringing yet another series of books (this time written by prolific author Sherryl Woods) to the small screen. The show will follow Abby O’Brien (Meghan Ory from Once Upon a Time and Intelligence), a high-powered career woman, divorcee and mother of twin daughters, who makes a trip from New York City to her hometown, bringing her face to face with her past, which includes her high school sweetheart (Jesse Metcalfe from Desperate Housewives and Dallas), her uncompromising father (Treat Williams from Everwood) and her esteemed grandmother (Diane Ladd).

Please check out our June calendar for the programming options still to air this month and be on the look-out for our July and August calendars for even more programming options.