Everything British Worth Streaming in July 2024

Happy July, everyone! Summer has officially rolled in, and with it, the most dramatic of weekends: July 4th. No, I'm not talking about hot dogs, fireworks, beaches, and Independence Day concerts on the National Mall broadcast by your local PBS stations. I'm talking about The Election. No, not that election; that's not until November, and I refuse to think or talk about it until such time as it becomes utterly unavoidable. 

I'm talking about the one where I will personally get to experience as an adult with my own eyes and heart what my father got to see in 1997: A complete rout of the Tory party after watching it tear apart the U.K. for nearly two decades. Get in the back of the van and pack a few bottles of Pimms to go with those hot dogs; we're watching Rishi Sunak get clobbered.with

To be clear, no one is really covering this in America other than BBC World, if you happen to still get that cable channel. CNN and MSNBC will report on it, of course, in between pants-wetting over our own election before breaking away to show fireworks and festive concerts (on the National Mall or otherwise). The PBS News Hour will air at its usual time, and whichever poor anchor drew the short straw will most likely devote a segment to What A Tory Loss Means before concluding with the yearly Mall-held concert. 

So how do those of us who are ready to scream at the TV get to watch as, one by one, those who were going to rip up the BBC charter, sell Channel 4, and destroy everything left that was good in the world of England go down in flames? The best place to watch the election returns will be on YouTube, where the BBC will live stream the results starting at 10 p.m. BT when the polls close, which is 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT. By midnight in the U.K., 7 p.m. ET, we should be good and hammered and happy to see Labour win by straight default, which are, as Homer Simpson once said, the two sweetest words in the English language. Listen, if it gets us all another 100-year BBC charter untouchable by any of Nigel Farage's goons, I'll take it.

Here's what else is going down in the up of July 2024.

Mammals

Twenty years after Life of Mammals, Sir David Attenborough revisits his groundbreaking 2004 award winner to check back in with this extraordinary group of animals in a major new series: Mammals. The hope is to give viewers a new perspective on this remarkable group of animals and highlight how many face extinction in today’s rapidly changing world, viewing each set via their environment: Dark, Cold, Heat, Water, Forest, and the Human-made “New Wild.” The series premiere is Saturday, July 13, at 9 p.m. ET on BBC America and AMC+, which air and stream one episode a week in tandem through August.

Signora Volpe Season 2

The brightly lit Italian-set cozy crime series Signora Volpe returns for a second season on Acorn TV in July, with Emilia Fox starring as the former British spy Sylvia Fox, who quit the force and ran to the Italian countryside to live with her younger sister’s family in hopes of finding a peaceful, murder-free life. Unfortunately, wherever you go there, you are. Season 2 will see Fox solving three brand-new feature-length mysteries with the very hot local Carabinieri Captain Giovanni Riva (Giovanni Cirfiera) by her side. The series premieres on Acorn TV only on Monday, July 29, 2024, and streams one episode a week through August 12.

Time Bandits Season 1

Apple TV+ hasn't released the trailer for its Time Bandits TV series remake that will be out later this month, but honestly, all you need to know about the remake of the Terry Gilliam cult classic film is that Taika Waititi (of the late, lamented Our Flag Means Death) is behind it, and it contains precisely zero actors or characters with dwarfism. The latter fact means that a certain kind of (white, male) fan has taken massive offense to the show's existence, and if that's not reason enough to check out at least the first two installments of the 10-episode series, I don't know what is. Time Bandits Season 1 will premiere with two episodes on Apple TV+ on Wednesday, July 24, 2024, with one episode a week to follow on Wednesdays into September.

Grace Season 4

John Simm returns as tenacious Detective Superintendant Roy Grace in Grace Season 4, one of BritBox’s lesser-known police procedurals that, by rights, should get more eyeballs than it does. (This show would totally be a hit on PBS, is what I’m saying.) Based on Peter James’ bestselling novels, Grace and his team will solve four new feature-length cases, from going undercover with the mafia to exploring the world of antiques. Season 4 premieres Tuesday, July 2, 2024, with one episode a week streaming every Tuesday through the end of the month.

The Responder Season 2

BritBox’s big marketing push will be for Season 2 of The Responder, which is understandable. Season 1 of the series was a surprise smash hit for the BBC in 2021, and rightly so, a Martin Freeman tour-de-force as a crooked cop on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Season 2 will bring back Freeman as DS Carson, still fighting his demons and confronting one of the biggest monsters of his childhood, his father, played by the late Bernard Hill in his last on-screen role. The six-episode series premieres with two episodes on Thursday, July 11, with two episodes a week to follow on Thursdays through the end of the month.

Silent Witness Season 27

There are long-running police procedurals, and then there’s Silent Witness. The crime drama took the record from The Bill as the U.K.’s longest-running police procedural when it debuted Season 27 overseas (The Bill ran 26 seasons). It shows no sign of slowing down with five more gripping stories for the scientists to solve, led by Emilia Fox as pathologist Dr Nikki Alexander and David Caves as forensic scientist Jack Hodgson. The ten-episode season will debut with two episodes on Wednesday, July 24, with two episodes a week to follow on Wednesdays through August.

Vikings: Valhalla Season 3

The follow-up series to the History Channel's Vikings, Vikings: Valhalla, which never made the splash Netflix was hoping for, the British cast-filled series returns for its final season with a seven-year time jump to take the action up to Harald Sigurdsson (Leo Suter) acting on his aspirations to become King of Norway while Leif Erikson sets sail for the Golden Land and Freydis (the only character worth caring about) seeks a happy life for her people. The series' final eight episodes will all drop at once on Thursday, July 11, 2024.

The Decameron

Greenlit in the heady days after Bridgerton's massive success proved no fluke, The Decameron is legit "What if period piece sex romp for women based on a book, but Italian 14th-century outfits and hats and a plague?" The best part is that the titular book it's based on is actually a 13th-century contemporaneously written piece, considered A Great Work because it is one of the major sources of first-hand knowledge about the Black Plague. Oh, and the sex isn't added in either; the original Decameron was banned by the Church several times because it's so juicy. This is going to be one to watch, y'all. All episodes drop on Thursday, July 25, 2024.

Those About to Die

In what might be Peacock's first intelligent move, it had decided to drop a Gladiator-style Sword-and-Sandal series, Those About to Die, focused on the Roman games in the Coliseum all of a week before the 2024 Olympic Games arrive on its service. The hope is that those already keyed up from watching the Olympic trials and hours of lead-up programming will be happy to press play on anything with lots of crowds and daring feats of athletics. All ten episodes drop on Thursday, July 18, 2024.

Paris Olympics 2024

Technically, it is more of a Global celebration of human ability than a U.K. or a U.S. one; anyone immune to the Olympic Games' emotion and pageantry has never tried to watch them or has a stone where their heart is supposed to be. Even if you cannot stand sport, the sheer feat of editing those packages together to hit your tear ducts just right is worth watching. The British consistently score high in that category, too. The Opening Ceremony streams from Paris, France, live on Friday, July 26, 2024.

The Serpent Queen Season 2

It feels like it's been ages since we had Starz on this list, but the return of The Serpent Queen for Season 2 was always going to be a 2024 highlight for the struggling network that was recently cut loose by parent company Lionsgate and is now looking for a protector/buyer. Samantha Morton returns as the titular ruler, Catherine DiMedici, and this season, she's got a new frenemy who will be coming to town to visit: Queen Elizabeth I, played by Minnie Driver. Historically accurate? No. Delicious? I mean, have you seen the trailer? Season 2 debuts on Friday, July 12, 2024, on Starz streaming and the Starz network and will air/stream one episode a week through the end of August.