Nine of the best TV shows to watch this July

From Lena Dunham's new Netflix rom-com, set in London, to the return of Michael C Hall's murderous Dexter and a stunning new wildlife series.

Long-running series don't often die; they just give us spinoffs. Seven seasons of Bosch, with Titus Welliver as a Los Angeles police detective, led to three seasons of a sequel series, Bosch: Legacy, and now Ballard. Action star Maggie Q plays Detective Renée Ballard, who was introduced as a homicide detective in the final episode of Legacy. In her own series, which like Bosch is based on a series of popular novels by Michael Connelly, she has been reassigned to lead the LAPD's cold case unit – housed, as most cold case units on television are, in a dingy basement. Her ragtag staff is made up of reserve police and volunteers, but they soon have to tackle serious old crimes as they search for a serial killer and investigate the death of a John Doe. Welliver's Harry Bosch turns up regularly to consult on the cases, which, true to the detective genre, often put Ballard in danger.

Ballard premieres 9 July on Prime Video internationally

Lena Dunham has always been best when mining her own life for material, as she did directly in her first feature, Tiny Furniture (2010), loosely in the series Girls (2012-2017), which became a cultural touchstone – and now in this brash, funny new series, co-written with her husband, British musician Luis Felber, and inspired by their relationship. Megan Salter (Kayla in Hacks) is the ideal Dunham alter ago as Jessica, a New York television producer whose long relationship has ended. She flees to London, hoping to have the kind of romance that only exists in Richard Curtis movies. Will Sharpe (from the Sicily season of The White Lotus) plays Felix, an indie musician who turns out to be the unexpected man of her dreams. Much of the humour comes from their well-played British-American cultural differences. Dunham directed the show, and plays Jessica's depressed sister, with Rita Wilson as their mother and Rhea Perlman as their grandmother. Richard E Grant plays her British boss among a dream list of guest stars, including Andrew Scott, Naomi Watts and Rita Ora.

Too Much premieres 10 July on Netflix internationally

The title of this family-friendly musical series is the name of a fictional pop group that became the world's biggest band, despite its cringey name. The story goes back to when the three girls in the group, named Posey, Jade and Tulip, met in middle school, and it traces their rise to fame. Their popularity comes as a thrilling surprise to them. The more surprising thing for us is that the theme song and the music for the pilot episode were written by Diane Warren, a regular Oscar nominee with 16 Best Song nominations and no wins yet. Her music doesn't exactly suggest a YA demographic, but that is the likely audience for this Disney show, which is the earnest flipside to recent, irreverent girl-band series like Girls5eva and We Are Lady Parts.

Electric Bloom premieres 10 July on Disney Channel and 17 September on Disney+ internationally

Nature shows are perennial favourites with viewers, and the wrinkle in this series is that a trio of explorers heads into remote areas around the world to find endangered species, capturing them on film to help scientists study and preserve them. In Malaysia they look for the rare and beautiful Malaysian tiger, in Indonesia the Javan rhino, and in Mongolia the Gobi bear. The three men are chatty, pleasant company on screen as they narrate their adventures. Vianet is the cinematographer, Declan the photographer who sets their cameras in small tricky spots, and Aldo a former Royal Marines commando who leads them up rivers and into jungles. Most often they leave the cameras to film and then return later to view animals that have wandered into view, but in one episode Vianet is right there in Gabon watching a father gorilla and his son. Throughout, the aerial and close-up photography is stunning.

The Wild Ones premieres 11 July on Apple TV+ internationally

If you need more proof that old shows rarely die – see Ballard, above – here comes Dexter: Resurrection. It's the fourth series, if you count last year's prequel, Dexter: Original Sin, to feature Dexter Morgan (Michael C Hall). When the original show  premiered 19 years ago, Dexter was a forensic analyst in Miami, moonlighting as a vigilante who killed murderers to bring them to justice. In Resurrection he heads to New York to try to repair his relationship with his grown son, Harrison (Jack Alcott). Two high-profile actors join the series. Peter Dinklage plays a billionaire who likes to hire killers, and Uma Thurman is his head of security. Among the guest stars, John Lithgow returns as the ghost of the Trinity Killer. And this isn't even the end. Clyde Phillips, the longtime Dexter producer who created Resurrection, told Vanity Fair: "We've got the strongest franchise in Showtime's history, and we plan to do this for years."

Dexter: Resurrection premieres 11 July on Paramount+ with Showtime in the US and UK

In this horror series, based on Stephen King's 2019 novel, a teenage genius named Luke Ellis is kidnapped and finds himself in a facility with other abducted young people who have promising telekinetic powers. It sounds like a sinister version of Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters in the X-Men movies. Mary-Louise Parker plays Ms Sigsby, the institute's director, who is determined to teach the students to harness their powers so she and her cohorts can use them. Joe Freeman, who plays Luke, has little professional experience but has acting in his genes; his parents are Martin Freeman and Amanda Abbington. Ben Barnes (Shadow and Bone) plays a former policeman who tries to help Luke and his friends plot an escape. Barnes has said the show is less pure horror than "a slow simmering sort of horrifying thriller" which sounds very true to Stephen King.

The Institute premieres 13 July on MGM+ internationally

Eric Bana has excelled in thrillers, from Steven Spielberg’s Munich (2005) to the more recent, underrated Australian film The Dry (2020), in which he investigates some suspicious deaths in a small town. He is well-cast here as Kyle Turner, an agent of the National Parks Service, who is investigating a brutal murder in Yellowstone National Park, committed by someone who seems to know the park inside out. According to Netflix's description of the mystery plot: "The dark secrets lurking in both Kyle and the park's past may be just as dangerous as the murderer." In a great bonus of casting, Sam Neill plays Paul Souter, the longtime chief park ranger and Kyle's friend. Rosemarie DeWitt plays Kyle's ex-wife. And every crime story needs a rookie investigator who has to learn the ropes. Here she is a young ranger named Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago).

Untamed premieres 17 July on Netflix internationally

Sterling K Brown is the major lure, but not the main character, in this adaptation of the acclaimed, 2018 Booker-shortlisted novel by Esi Edugyan. In the early 19th Century, George Washington Black is an 11-year-old enslaved boy on a sugar plantation in Barbados, and also an artist and scientific prodigy. Titch (Tom Ellis of the series Lucifer) helps Wash, as he's known, escape in a balloon. His adventure eventually takes him to Nova Scotia, where the town leader, Medwin Harris (Brown), becomes his mentor. The story goes back and forth in time, with Eddie Karanja playing Wash as a boy. As a young man (Ernest Kingsley Jr) he falls in love with Tessa (Iola Evans), whose father wants her to hide the fact that she is bi-racial. Most of the show was shot in 2022, with some scenes shot last year, which is not a great sign. But the cast, the adventure story and the themes of racial identity are likely to shine through.

Washington Black premieres 23 July on Hulu in the US and Disney+ internationally

Leanne Morgan isn't a household name, despite her hit Netflix stand-up special, Leanne Morgan: I'm Every Woman (2023). But her fictional counterpart's name is the title of this sitcom, which Morgan co-created with Chuck Lorre, who has an almost infallible record of successful shows (The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon, Two and a Half Men) and Susan McMartin, a veteran producer of Lorre's series. Here Morgan plays a woman whose husband leaves her after 33 years, and who finds herself dating again. Unlike the character, Morgan is still married, but the Southern family and the show's tone echo her autobiographical stand-up. Kristen Johnson plays her sister and Celia Weston is their mother, known as Mama Margaret. Talking about her later-in-life breakthrough Morgan has said, "I'm a grandmama from Tennessee and now I have a TV show!" Unlike most streaming shows, this series will have a whopping 16 episodes.

Leanne premieres 31 July on Netflix internationally

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