Dragons, light sabers and bears, oh my! 

Summer 2024 promises big things for TV. Sparks and swords will be flying on screen with the return of major epics like HBO’s “House of the Dragon” and Amazon’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power," plus a new “Star Wars” series and more murders in that deadly building. 

And that’s not all: Emily is back in Paris, a few superb under-the-radar shows are back after long years off and we all get to start saying “Yes, chef!” again.

So yes, you could go to the beach or on a hike, but you could also stay in your air-conditioned home and watch bleach-blonde Targaryens rip each other to pieces over a spiky throne. The choice is yours, but if you want to stay cool, we picked 10 series we can’t wait to watch this summer.

We Are Lady Parts (Peacock) 

May 30

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This British comedy about an all-female, all-Muslim punk rock band is like a warm blast of summer sun on your face just when you thought winter would never end. Deeply funny, especially sweet and always surprising, the series returns for a second season three years after the first without missing a step or joke. The new season sees the Lady Parts band struggling to make an album as a string of bad luck and a rival band threaten to doom their musical dreams. Of course, the songs remain oh-so-catchy and hilarious on top of the witty scripts and perfectly timed performances. There’s no better time to be had this summer. 

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‘The Acolyte’ (Disney+)

June 4, streaming Tuesdays

If your idea of a good “Star Wars” story is “all lightsabers all the time,” then “Acolyte” is tailor-made for you. Set about a hundred years before the 1999 prequel film “The Phantom Menace," “Acolyte” follows a rogue Jedi student (also known as a Padawan learner) played by Amandla Stenberg, and the chaos she causes for the Jedi order. Chasing her are “Squid Game” star Lee Jung-jae and Carrie Ann Moss, donning robes as they sense a disturbance in the Force. The teaser showed a masked person wielding a red lightsaber, in case you forgot what bad guys in the “Star Wars” universe look like.

‘Clipped’ (Hulu) 

June 4, streaming Tuesdays

It’s been a decade since the world heard the leaked audio of disgraced Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling spewing a racist rant that would lose him his team. That’s enough time for Hollywood to rip the story from the headlines so that Sterling will return to our collective consciousness, played by Ed O’Neil with a constant sneer. “Clipped” is less concerned with creating a detailed minute-by-minute rehash of the NBA’s great controversy than capturing the tone of a racially fraught sports league in crisis. It makes “Clipped”  a more engaging rehash of recent history than similar series. The stellar cast is rounded out by Laurence Fishburne as Doc Rivers and Jacki Weaver as Sterling’s wife, Shelly.

‘The Boys’ (Amazon)

June 13, streaming Thursdays 

Are you ready for it? Amazon’s bloody, rip-roaring, irreverent, take-no-prisoners superhero TV show returns for Season 4 in June. Season 3 wasn’t the series’ best work, with some repetitive and frustrating storylines. But here's hoping Season 4 gets a jolt of the Season 1 juice (whether it’s glowing and blue is optional) as our heroes and villains contend with a Supes-targeting virus (which you might recognize if you watched spinoff “Gen V”) and a major election. It’s like 2020 but with more blood spatter. A lot more.

‘House of the Dragon’ (HBO) 

June 16, Sundays, 9 EDT/PDT, and streaming on Max

We’re done with the hemming and hawing and the time jumps and withering old men. Now it’s war, and that should be exciting. HBO’s “Game of Thrones” spinoff, set a few hundred years before the original series, stumbled around in its 2022 first season that had to cover too much expositional ground (and years in the timeline) without enough action and characterization to keep things interesting. In previews, Season 2 promises more of that good old rage, blood and battles that were such a pivotal part of “Thrones.” It’s Team Black (Rhaenyra and Daemon) versus Team Green (Aegon and Alicent) in Season 2, and the winner gets the Iron Throne (it's their descendants who deal with all the stuff in “Thrones”).

‘The Bear’ (Hulu)

June 27

Yes, chef, I’ll take another order of “The Bear,” please. Everyone’s favorite frenetic restaurant dramedy returns for a third season after absolutely sweeping the Emmys and other major awards this winter. Will it buckle under all that hype? Probably not, considering it’s one of the best-written, best-acted series around. The third season picks up as the new restaurant opens after a bumpy preview at the end of Season 2 that left a screaming Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) stuck in a freezer. Hopefully, he's thawed out by now.

‘Industry’ (HBO) 

Aug. 11, Sundays, 9 EDT/PDT, and streaming on Max

Following a group of the young and hungry vying for wealth and power at a British investment bank, “Industry” may seem dry on the outside, but it’s a juicy meal of melodrama and spectacle on the inside. Season 3 makes money moves, adding Kit Harington ("Thrones") as the CEO of a green energy company and Sarah Goldberg ("Barry") as a portfolio manager at an “ethical” investment firm. 

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‘Emily in Paris’ (Netflix) 

August 15 (Part 1)

Whether you love to hate it, hate to love it, or somewhere in-between, get ready for more of Lily Collins’ clueless-American-in-Paris romcom. When we last saw Emily and friends (or her amies) it wasn’t exactly happily ever after under the Eiffel Tower. Camille (Camille Razat) left Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) at the altar and Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) unceremoniously dumped Emily (Collins). Oh, and Camille is pregnant. That’s plenty of drama, ridiculous and petty, to keep Emily occupied for a fourth season (the second part of which arrives Sept. 12).

‘Only Murders in the Building’ (Hulu)

Aug. 27, streaming Tuesdays 

With this death rate, someone’s got to check for asbestos in that building. Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez return for a fourth murder-mystery go-round in Hulu’s wildly popular comedy. The producers feel the need to up the star power year after year, so for Season 4 Meryl Streep is back, joined by Melissa McCarthy, Molly Shannon, Eva Longoria, Eugene Levy, Kumail Nanjiani, Richard Kind and Zach Galifianakis. Is there anyone left in Hollywood who hasn’t visited the Arconia yet?

‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ (Amazon)

Aug. 29, streaming Thursdays

Welcome to our Hot Sauron era. Season 1 of Amazon’s billion-dollar “Lord of the Rings” prequel ended with quite the reveal in fall 2022 when fans learned that unassuming and shipwrecked Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) was the dark lord Sauron in disguise (the handsome character was quickly dubbed “Hot Sauron” by the internet). With that reveal and the creation of Mount Doom, maybe there will be more fire (literal and figurative) to the new season, which was fun and pretty in Season 1 but never reached the glory or transcendence of Peter Jackson's films. 

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