New Summer TV Shows: Some A-List Actors and Directors Are Attached to These Projects
Gone are the days of summer TV re-runs. Now summer TV shows are being debuted, and some of these shows have A-list actors, actresses, and directors attached to these projects.
There are at least 62 TV shows debuting this summer, from reality shows and game shows, to dramatic ones. Here is our guide to the short list of TV shows that have big screen stars attached to the small screen programs.
The director and producer of the "Transformers" films and "Armageddon" Michael Bay is executive producer for TNT's "The Last Ship," which focuses on a Navy destroyer carrying survivors with a potential cure to a pandemic that has wiped out a majority of the world's population. It sounds like a modern take on the 1980s' film "Day of Resurrection." "The Last Ship" will be out on June 22.
Then there is "Matador," on Robert Rodriguez's co-founded network El Rey. "Matador" series creators and producers touts Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, from "Star Trek" and Fox's "Sleepy Hollow." The series stars Gabriel Luna and Alfred Molina; Luna plays a CIA operative who works under the guise of a pro-soccer player. "Matador" will premiere on El Rey July 15.
John Malkovich appeared this week in NBC's "Crossbones," a pirate story set in 1712 about Blackbeard, the most infamous pirate. Although Malkovich sports a white goatee in the TV series, his character controls a pirate colony in the Bahamas, he covets a chronometer that holds a key to British sea power, and he might be mad because he has scary visions and headaches.
Even Maggie Gyllenhaal and Justin Theroux are getting in on the act of TV. Theroux stars in HBO's "The Leftovers" out June 29. In "The Leftovers," 2 percent of the Earth's population disappears, and people are forced to pick up the pieces. The story follows police chief and father of two Theroux's Kevin Garvey, Amy Brenneman's Laurie, a member of a white-robed cult, and Liv Tyler's Meg. It is executive produced by Tom Perrotta, the author of "The Leftovers" which this series is based on; and it is also produced by Damon Lindelof of Lost.
Gyllenhaal stars in the SundanceTV eight-part mini-series "The Honorable Woman," out July 31. She plays the daughter of an assassinated arms dealer who inherits his business; she then transforms the company by laying cable between Israel and the West Bank, but it lands her at the center of an international squabble.
No stranger to TV mini-series, Clive Owen returns to the small screen in "The Knick," out Aug. 8 on Cinemax. Steven Soderbergh, the director of the Liberace biopic "Behind the Candelabra," directed this 10-episode TV series. Set in 1900 New York, Owen plays a doctor who tries to change surgery from a gory trial-and-error practice into a science.
Time lords of Doctor Who fame, David Tennant and Peter Capaldi both appear in separate TV projects. Tennant plays a Scottish barrister/lawyer who finds that he needs a defense attorney, in "Masterpiece Mystery: The Escape Artist" on PBS out June 19. While Capaldi plays Cardinal Richelieu in BBC America's "The Musketeers," alongside the French four, out June 22.
One reunion some longtime fans are hoping for is "Girl Meets World," a spin-off series of the 1990s hit "Boy Meets World." This Disney Channel show, out June 27, focuses on the preteen daughter of characters and old friends Cory and Topanga, played by Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel respectively.
To find a list of the newest summer TV shows, please check your local listings.
Enjoy your summer.
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