MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's official - summer is here. OK, it will be official in a couple of days. But now that you've hopefully got some time on your hands, let's talk about what you might want to watch on TV. We wanted to know what to catch and what to skip, so we called NPR TV critic Eric Deggans at his post in St. Petersburg, Fla. Hi, Eric.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: Hey.
MARTIN: So first of all, could you set the table? I thought it used to be the case that the TV business slowed down in the summer. Some people actually looked forward to the reruns so they could catch up on what they missed. But you have been telling us...
DEGGANS: (Laughter) Reruns, that's so quaint.
MARTIN: Right? But you're telling us there's actually a huge number of new and returning shows. How many are there and why is that?
DEGGANS: Well, we keep a running tally at NPR's art central here. And we have counted at least a hundred new and returning shows this summer from June 1 till the end of August. And there's all kinds of trends kind of colliding at once, right? You know, you've got streamers that are picking up the slack. Netflix, for example, has a major series debut every Friday in June.
Networks are getting more aggressive with their summer programming because they're realizing that cable and streaming is not slowing down. But they can't put their best shows on in summer because their key time is still the fall and the regular TV season.
And then you have cable channels, for example, like TNT, that seem to be tweaking their image and trying to revamp what they stand for by trying some experimental new stuff. So there's a show called "Claws," for example, that's set at a Florida nail salon that also happens to be a front for organized crime.
MARTIN: That is something I would not have thought of, a nail salon that's a front for organized crime - sure.
DEGGANS: Unless you live in Florida, and then it makes all kinds of sense.
MARTIN: So let's talk about some of your recommendations. You wrote a story early in the week with some of them. One of them was this Netflix show about the creation of a female wrestling league called "GLOW." And I'll play a clip from that. This is comic Marc Maron, who plays a B-movie director who's trying to organize the league.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GLOW")
MARC MARON: (As Sam Sylvia) This is GLOW.
ALISON BRIE: (As Ruth) Sorry, what's GLOW?
MARON: (As Sam Sylvia) Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. This is a wrestling television show just like the big guys but girls, get it? What?
BRIE: (As Ruth) So like Hulk Hogan?
MARON: (As Sam Sylvia) If one of you turns out to be Hulk Hogan, I've hit the jackpot.
MARTIN: OK, Eric, so why did this make your list?
DEGGANS: This is a really funny story about lovable losers and this sort of desperate kind of mediocre level of show business where this really bizarre league got sort of burst.
MARTIN: OK, Eric, but with more than a hundred shows coming, how should people sort all that out? How are they going to figure out what they want to watch?
DEGGANS: It's whatever you like. I mean, that's the great thing about this. It's like a smorgasbord, right? So if you like a smart slightly soapy family drama that has some diversity in it, then OWN, Oprah's channel, was bringing back "Queen Sugar" for a second season, Ava DuVernay's series. And it continues at the same level that it was at last season, which was pretty good. If you'd like British cop dramas, there's a show "Broadchurch" on BBC America that features David Tennant and Olivia Colman. I think they're one of the best cop duos on television.
And I'm a nut for B-movies. Spike TV has this show called "The Mist" which is a version of a kind of a B-movie that was a version of a novella that Stephen King did. It hits all those buttons for me. It's a fun, you know, sort of summer viewing.
And finally, if you love great cooking shows, PBS is going to have "The Great British Baking Show." And it's the last season before they revamp the show because in Britain, the show is moving to a different channel, so it's going to have different hosts and slightly different judges. So if you want to see the classic format of the show one last time, you can see it here in America on PBS over the summer.
MARTIN: Bingo. That's mine.
DEGGANS: I knew I would hit one that you'd like at some point (laughter).
MARTIN: You got me. That was Eric Deggans speaking with us from St. Petersburg, Fla. Eric, thank you.
DEGGANS: Always a pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF SOFT RIDE'S "THE SUN IN HER EYES")
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