As long as there’s a PBS, summertime viewers won’t be confined to reruns, reality and game shows.
The network will have new mystery episodes on Sundays this summer, including “Grantchester,” the final season of “Endeavour” (shown heere) and two new arrivals. It will also have an opera, a symphony, a Little Richard profile and the annual 4th-of-July mega-concert.
Viewers looking for new, scripted shows in the summer often turn to cable or streaming networks, or to CW, which will have new “Nancy Drew” and “Riverdale” episodes through Aug. 23.
But the bigger broadcast networks have resisted. For instance:
— ABC will have new episodes of four reality shows (including “The Bachelorette”) and five game shows (including “Celebrity Family Feud”), plus the pro basketball playoffs. Its only new, scripted show set for summer is the second season of the “Wonder Years” reboot.
— Fox will have baseball and wresting, plus new seasons of five game or reality shows, three of them food-related. It hasn’t announced any scripted shows, but has new “Housebroken” episodes available.
By comparison, PBS will – as usual – have lots of everything. Here are details, subject to change by individual stations, which will add much more during their August pledge drives:
MYSTERIES
— June 18: “Endeavour” starts its final season at 9 p.m. It’s preceded at 8 by “Ridley,” with Adrian Dunbar (“Line of Duty”) as a detective inspector who retired early after a nervous breakdown, but was called back for a complex case.
— July 9: “Grantchester” returns, with the crimesolving vicar now married to Bonnie, a sweet-spirited atheist. It’s followed at 10 by “D.I. Ray,” with a British-Asian detective tackling her first murder case.
MUSIC:
— June 2: “American Masters” profiles Little Richard, 9 p.m.
— July 4: The annual “Capital Fourth,” 8 and 9:30 p.m., mixes pop, country and more, with a fireworks finale.
— Also: Two classical events – the Metropolitan Opera performing “Medea” at 9 p.m. June 16 and the Chicago Symphony performing Leonard Bernstein’s third symphony at 9 p.m. Aug. 21.
LIFESTYLE, etc.
— June 19: “Great American Recipe,” a home-chef competition, starts its second season at 9 p.m.
— July 5: “Human Footprint” is a six-part series at 9 p.m., meeting people who take fresh approaches to reducing carbon footprints.
— July 12: “Iconic America” returns at 10 p.m., for episodes pondering the Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate Bridge, Stone Mountain and the bald eagle.
— July 18: “America Outdoors” starts its second season at 9 p.m., ranging from mountain bikers in the Ozarks to an ice climber in Utah. That’s followed at 10 by the three-part “Southern Storytellers,” with authors, poets and songwriters, some widely known (Lyle Lovett, Billy Bob Thornton) and some not.
TOUGHER SUBJECTS
Yes, PBS is still the network of “Newshour” and “Frontline” and more. Documentaries will view the Buffalo Soldiers (10 p.m., June 12), women’s health-care disparity (10 p.m., June 21), the Gullah culture (10 p.m., June 26), a 1950s refuge for transgender women and cross-dressing men (8 p.m.., June 27) and a current refuge for Ukraine children separated from their parents (10 p.m., July 17).