Five Shows To Try This Summer

by Linda Holmes

To the degree there's still a regular television season, it's basically over now. And yes, if your favorite shows are ending, you can use that time for gardening or going to the movies or sitting in a hammock with your feet up; seeing the sun is important.

Furthermore, pop-culture-wise, spring belongs to television finales and summer belongs to big movies, and that shift will happen with or without you, or me, or any of us.

But there are also people who use the summer to become viewers of the good things they've been missing, and it's easier than ever. It used to be that you had to hope for well-timed reruns to catch up, but now you can rent or buy DVDs, use Amazon or iTunes, watch online from free network sites, or try a variety of other methods if you want to upgrade the quality of what you watch.

So here, in particular order, are a few things you might try between now and the start of the fall season, during the time when even deciding you don't want to see the sun doesn't mean you should watch I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! just because that's what's on.

The shows, after the jump...

1. Chuck or Friday Night Lights. I'm grouping these together, because they're the two most-nagged shows, having taken over from The Wire once it went off the air. (If you've never watched The Wire, you could try that, too -- it works best, I think, on DVD, where you can watch several episodes in a row so the threads will all hang together.)

Yes, you're probably sick of hearing about them, but that doesn't mean they're not good. You've got plenty of time with both, since the NBC schedule suggests that Chuck isn't returning until spring and FNL may not be on NBC again until next summer -- summer 2010. You don't need any more explanations of why these shows are worth trying, but now that you know they'll both be back, you don't have to worry that you'll try them and then they'll vanish.

2. Mad Men. This AMC drama is another one that works very well when you can grab it on DVD and watch it in long, meditative stretches, so that the '60s-tinged music and tone settle in your bones. It's hard to go back and forth between this show and the rest of television; I prefer it in longer chunks myself. Season 1 is already out on DVD; if you start now, you can be ready when Season 2 comes out on July 14.

3. The Paper. We talked about this show when it first showed up online, but if you're looking for something that (1) is very addictive; (2) makes a great topic of conversation for yourself and any friends you can rope into watching it with you; and (3) doesn't require much of an investment of time (there are only eight episodes that aren't much more than 20 minutes long; you could watch the whole thing in an evening without breaking a sweat), try The Paper. If nothing else, the story of the people involved in the production of a respected high-school paper will make you happy you don't have to be in high school anymore.

4. Party Down. This R-rated comedy about a catering company staffed by wannabe actors airs on Starz, which is pay cable, so you may not have seen it yet. (More about it here.) But some episodes are available on Starz.com, it should be out on DVD at some point, and if you're a Netflix subscriber, you can stream episodes there. They're trying pretty hard to make it possible for nonsubscribers to see it, so give it a shot if you aren't put off by the TV-MA rating.

5. NewsRadio or Arrested Development. The first four seasons of NewsRadio and the entire run of Arrested Development are available on Hulu.com (with the exception of the very first episode of NewsRadio, which is missing for some reason). Sure, this isn't quite the same as catching up on something that will one day come back. And sure, maybe you've watched these, or some of these.

But as strong of an era as we're in for drama, it's a tough one for comedy, and the new fall schedules don't make it look like it's going to get better soon. If you missed them the first time, or even if you didn't, you could do worse than revisiting something funny as you crank up the air conditioner.