10 TV shows we’ll be watching this summer

OBI-WAN KENOBI Yet another chapter in the “Star Wars” franchise arrives, this time with Ewan McGregor returning to the title role. The six-episode series is set on Tatooine a decade after “Revenge of the Sith,” and Kenobi is looking after a young Luke Skywalker. Returning actors include Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader, and Joel Edgerton and Bonnie Piesse as Owen and Beru, along with newcomers Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, and Maya Erskine (from “PEN15″). (Disney +, May 27)

PISTOL This six-parter, directed by Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire,” “Trainspotting”), is based on the memoir “Lonely Boy” by Steve Jones. The miniseries will focus on Jones’s three years as the founding guitarist for the Sex Pistols, with Toby Wallace as Jones, Anson Boon as John Lydon (Johnny Rotten), Louis Partridge as Sid Vicious, Sydney Chandler as Chrissie Hynde, Maisie Williams as Jordan Mooney, Emma Appleton as Nancy Spungen, and Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Malcolm McLaren. “Pistol” will feature the band’s music, even though Mr. Lydon has publicly slammed the project as a “middle-class fantasy” made without his involvement. (Hulu, May 31)

IRMA VEP That title? It’s an anagram for vampire. Director Olivier Assayas adapts his own 1996 movie into a limited series. Alicia Vikander stars this time as an American actress who, just out of a relationship, goes to Paris to star in a remake of the French silent film “Les Vampires.” Whoops — she starts to lose the boundary between herself and her character. The cast includes Tom Sturridge, Byron Bowers, Carrie Brownstein, Adria Arjona, and Fala Chen, as well as an appearance by Kristen Stewart. (HBO, June 6)

QUEER AS FOLK This is a reboot of the 2000 American reboot of the groundbreaking 1999 British drama series. It’s from writer-director Stephen Dunn (with original series creator Russell T. Davies on board as an executive producer) and it moves the setting from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. The regular cast includes Devin Way, Fin Argus, Ryan O’Connell, Johnny Sibilly, and Jesse James Keitel, and recurring guests will include Kim Cattrall, Juliette Lewis, Ed Begley Jr., and Lukas Gage. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Dunn said the series picks up after an incident similar to the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. (Peacock, June 9)

THE OLD MAN Jeff Bridges stars in this seven-episode adaptation of the 2017 Thomas Perry novel of the same name. He plays a former CIA agent who is the target of a failed assassination attempt and must go on the run. Just when he thought he was out, etc. etc. John Lithgow, Alia Shawkat, Gbenga Akinnagbe, and Amy Brenneman also star. The production — which had to stop and start twice, due to the pandemic and then Bridges’s lymphoma diagnosis — comes from “Black Sails” creators Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine. (FX and Hulu, June 16)

HOTEL PORTOFINO Welcome to the Hotel Portofino (there’s an earworm for you). This period drama, from Matt Baker of “Before We Die,” stars Natascha McElhone in the story of an elite but dysfunctional British family that opens a hotel (primarily for Brits) on the Italian Riviera during the 1920s. It sounds a bit “The Durrells in Corfu”-ish. PBS promises us “an exhilarating cocktail of romance, glamour and mystery,” and photos from the show (which has already been released on Britbox) are gorgeous. (GBH 2, June 19)

Paul Walter Hauser (left) and Taron Egerton in Apple TV+'s “Black Bird,” premiering July 8.Apple TV+

BLACK BIRD Dennis Lehane (“Mystic River”) adapts the prison memoir “In With the Devil” by James Keene and Hillel Levin into a six-episode psychological thriller. Taron Egerton stars as Keene, a cop’s son who is given an unusual option to avoid a 10-year prison sentence for drug dealing: He can enter a maximum-security prison for the criminally insane, befriend a serial killer (Paul Walter Hauser), and try to get a confession out of him. Greg Kinnear, Sepideh Moafi, and Ray Liotta also star. (Apple TV+, July 8)

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON Long before winter arrives, the first “Game of Thrones” spinoff will premiere to take the sting off the end of summer. It’s a prequel set in Westeros two centuries before “GoT,” and it chronicles the fall of House Targaryen as different factions battle over the Iron Throne. Co-created by George R.R. Martin (adapted from his 2018 novel “Fire & Blood”) and Ryan Condal, the 10-episode first season stars Paddy Considine, Emma D’Arcy, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Rhys Ifans, Eve Best, and Fabien Frankel. (HBO, Aug. 21)

THE PATIENT From “The Americans” creators Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, the thriller stars Steve Carell as a psychotherapist whose wife recently died and who gets held captive by one of his patients. The patient, a serial killer played by Domhnall Gleeson, demands to be cured of his homicidal urges. Good luck, doc. Hope you fare better than Dr. Melfi. Also in the 10 episodes: David Alan Grier, Linda Emond, Andrew Leeds, and Laura Niemi. (Hulu, Aug. 30)

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER This is an expensive TV series, with a budget reportedly twice that for the entire “Lord of the Rings” film trilogy. Set thousands of years before “Lord of the Rings,” it’s based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s history of Middle-earth’s Second Age. The cast includes Robert Aramayo, who played the young version of Ned Stark on “Game of Thrones,” and Maxim Baldry from “Years and Years.” (Amazon, Sept. 2)

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at matthew.gilbert@globe.com. Follow him @MatthewGilbert.