Murder, intrigue and a few laughs along the way

As summer moves into full swing, the new shows keep on coming. 

Here are some picks you may want to check out this month.

• The Bridge – Premieres tonight at 11pm on FX

There’s been a critical buzz around this show being one of the best new dramas of the season, if not the year. The writing is said to be brilliant, the attention to authenticity remarkable and the cinematography top-notch. The premise: when a body turns up on the U.S.- Mexico border, half of it lying in each jurisdiction, two detectives, one from each country, take on the case, tracking a terrifying international serial killer. Oscar nominee Demián Bichir and “Inglorious Bastards” star Diane Kruger play the two lead cops. The series is base loosely on the Danish-Swedish TV series by the same name. 

• Ray Donovan — Sundays at 11pm on Showtime

Perhaps the most talked-about new show of the season, this series comes on the heels of Showtime’s very successful Homeland and House of Lies.  

Tony winner and Emmy and Golden Globe Award nominee, Liev Schreiber, plays Ray Donovan, a professional “fixer,” who does the dirty work for the rich, famous and powerful in Los Angeles. 

The drama unfolds when his father, played by Oscar winner Jon Voight, is unexpectedly released from prison, unleashing dramatic events that wreak havoc on the whole Donovan family.

• Whose Line Is It Anyway? — Premieres: Tuesday, July 16 at 9pm on The CW

This riotously funny mock game show of purely improvisational comedy had a successful history in the UK, then on Comedy Central, BBC America and ABC, and now CW is bringing it back. This time there’s a new host, Aisha Tyler, but the show sees the return of comic favourites Wayne Brady, Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie, who are so hilarious the show is bound to be just as good even without former host, Drew Carey. 

How they come up with their material on the spot is baffling, and reveals a talent that only the few – and the funniest — can display.

• Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Grove” – Premieres Sunday, July 20 at 9pm on Hallmark

This is Hallmark’s first-ever original scripted series, and it is based on the romance novel series by the same name from best-selling author Debbie Macomber, who is also executive producer of the show. 

In it, Andie MacDowell plays judge Olivia Lockhart, of the Cedar Cove, Washington (USA) Municipal Court, who faces complex challenges in her day-to-day life with family and friends in this small-town environment. The editor of the local paper, Jack Griffith (played by Dylan Neal), is her new friend and potential love interest. 

As the series opens, judge Lockhart is thrilled to learn that she may be appointed to a Federal judgeship in Seattle. 

She tries to keep the news a secret, but is plagued by a talkative mother who spills the beans to the newspaper editor, and the story becomes front-page news. How will the small town, and the rest of her family, react? 

• Broadchurch – Premieres August 7, at 11pm, on BBC America

David Tennant (aka. the tenth incarnation of Doctor Who) stars as a senior detective in this contemporary murder mystery series set in a seaside resort in Britain. 

The eight-episode series was a huge hit in the UK, drawing an average of nine million viewers. 

The story revolves around an investigation into the murder of a young boy killed on the beach in a small town whose residents rely on the tourism industry to survive. 

Paired up to work on the case are Tennant and his sidekick, played by Olivia Colman, who are caught up in a complex web between the media and the townspeople searching for answers.

Shavonne Jeffries is Customer Services Manager, Bermuda CableVision.