Summer 2020 TV Preview

The rest of 2020 is looking like a bit of a deserted wasteland for new network TV and even some popular streaming shows, since all shows had to suspend production in March. Many of our past summer favorites won't be around this year or are iffy:  

• Instinct was cancelled after its second season (a shame--if you missed it, you can still catch the first two seasons on CBS All Access).
• Ozark was already released in the spring (and we already finished season 3).
• Stranger Things has been postponed until 2021. 
• Younger (season 7) is still rumored to be coming this summer, though no date has been announced yet.

We are still watching and enjoying several shows that we started in the spring, including Blindspot, and a few that I mentioned in my Spring 2020 Preview (see trailers at the link): Quiz, The Good Fight, and Snowpiercer. We are also loving and continuing Better Call Saul, Dead to Me, and we're watching The Good Place and Star Trek: Discovery with our son. The Alienist is due back for a surprise second season, starting on July 26. Many of the others I just mentioned will be wrapping up soon, though.

So, our TV plan for summer 2020 is to try some new-to-us streaming shows! I'll mention a few of them here, with trailers, but if you have any other great shows for us to try, please leave a comment! (We have cable, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and CBS All Access.)

We watched the first episode of Tin Star last week, a thriller starring British actor Tim Roth as a police officer who moves his family to a small town in the Canadian Rockies, where an oil company begins to make trouble for him right from his first days on the job. Another favorite of ours, Christina Hendricks, stars as an oil company employee (i.e. bad guy). We are intrigued by the first episode and want to see more, but our son wants to watch it with us, so we're waiting for him to catch up (and the three of us have a few episodes left of Star Trek: Discovery to finish up first). It's available on Amazon and has two seasons so far.



On our son's advice, we also just started another show starring Tim Roth, Lie to Me. Here, he plays an FBI agent who specializes in knowing when people are lying. We loved the first episode--it has a kind of Mentalist vibe to it--and can't wait to watch more! It's a FOX show that ran for three seasons and is available on Amazon or free through IMDB (use the Amazon link to see the free option).



The Stranger is a new British show on Netflix about a stranger who comes to a town and stirs up trouble by revealing people's secrets. It looks like a good, suspenseful thriller, which we always enjoy, so we'll give it a try.



For a completely different tone, all four of us have been talking about wanting to try the much-publicized new Netflix show, Space Force starring Steve Carrell. This is a half-hour comedy (which is now incredibly ironic) that might be a bit too goofy for my husband and I, but we'll give it a try! The cast is top-notch.



We have been loving CBS All Access and are watching lots of great shows on it (including The Good Fight, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Discovery, and all our favorite NCIS shows). We were reluctant to sign up for another streaming service, but it's been well worth the $5 a month. Another show we'd like to try on the service is the reboot of The Twilight Zone, with Jordan Peale as the narrator/host. Its second season starts this Thursday. I've heard from reviews that it's a bit uneven but that some episodes are excellent, so that sounds worth a try, since we are both big fans of the original! I think it looks pretty good, with some great casting.



What are YOU watching this summer? And what streaming shows should we try?

(Besides the shows/links included here, check out the TV Reviews tab for lots of options to try!)