What to watch in July 2022: best TV shows on Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, NOW TV, BBC and Channel 4

New month, new television: with the start of July comes a whole host of new offerings to look out for.

Here’s your guide to what’s on TV across July 2022, with a look at all the highlights across both terrestrial channels and the major streaming networks.

We’ve selected our top picks and the best of the rest to give you an idea of what to watch this month.

BBC

Top Picks

The Control Room (BBC One) | July

Gabe (Iain De Caestecker) works as an emergency call handler for the Strathclyde Ambulance Service in Glasgow. His world is turned upside down when he receives a desperate life-and-death call from a distressed woman who appears to know him. With Gabe under pressure to work out who she is, he makes a decision that threatens to have devastating consequences.

Maryland (BBC Two) | Wednesday 20 July

Zawe Ashton (Wanderlust) and Hayley Squires (The Essex Serpent) star in this adaptation of Lucy Kirkwood’s (Chimerica) play about two women reporting a sexual assault.

Best of the Rest

My Life as a Rolling Stone (BBC Two) | Saturday 2 July

A new four-part documentary celebrating the 60^th anniversary of the Rolling Stones. Made up of extensive archive footage and personal interviews, each episode will focus on a different member of the band.

ITV

Top Picks

Sanditon series 2 | Friday 22 July

The cancelled-then-revived Jane Austen adaptation returns, with Series 2 now getting its ITV broadcast. Where the first series adapted Austen’s famously unfinished last novel, the second series picks up the baton and runs with it, throwing the characters into a wholly original new story of its own.

Channel 4

Top Picks

Ackley Bridge | Monday 11 July

The popular school-set comedy drama is returning this July for a new series of ten 30-minute episodes. Ashley Walters (Top Boy) is set to direct half, while Baga Chipz is going to make a guest appearance.

Channel 5

Top Picks

Kew Gardens: A Year in Bloom | Tuesday 12 July

Six-episode series charting a year in the life of the employees at Kew Gardens in London. It’s early spring in Kew Gardens and daffodils, crocuses and magnolia are bringing out the visitors in search of the first colour of the year. Also making a fresh start is Simon, the new head of living collections, and he’s got the massive job of evaluating nearly 17,000 different plant species in the gardens to decide what stays and what goes.

Dave

Top Picks

Big Zuu’s Big Eats (Season 3) | Monday 4 July

Musicians and school friends Big Zuu, Tubsey, and Hyder meet different celebrity guests and make them a special personalised meal. Guests this series include Katherine Ryan, Mel B, Joseph Marcell, Alex Brooker, and more.

Best of the Rest

Sneakerhead | Wednesday 13 July

New three-episode sitcom from the producers of People Just Do Nothing, set in a Sports Direct style shoe shop. Russell (Hugo Chegwin) is one of the many longsuffering employees of Sports Depot. He is a certified sneakerhead, working there for the love of the trainers - he certainly isn’t there for the money. Big Zuu, Alexa Davies (Dead Pixels) and Lucia Keskin (Big Boys) star.

Sky & NOW TV

Top Picks

The Baby | Thursday 7 July

The Baby is about a scary, violent, and manipulative child that suddenly appears in Natasha’s life. She wants nothing to do with it – but the baby doesn’t want to give her that choice. Horror comedy with Michelle de Swarte and Isy Suttie.

Best of the Rest

Breeders (Series 3) | Wednesday 13 July

Parenting sitcom created by Simon Blackwell (Back) and Chris Addison (The Thick of It) returns for its third series. Martin Freeman (The Office, Sherlock) and Daisy Haggard (Back to Life, Episodes) star, with Sally Phillips as a new addition to the cast this year.

Netflix

Top Picks

Better Call Saul (Season 6b) | Tuesday 12 July

The final conclusion of Jimmy McGill’s slow transformation into Saul Goodman, bringing Better Call Saul full circle with Breaking Bad.

Uncoupled | Friday 29 July

Michael thought his life was perfect until his husband blindsides him by walking out the door after 17 years. Overnight, Michael has to confront two nightmares — losing what he thought was his soulmate and suddenly finding himself a single gay man in his mid-forties in New York City. Neil Patrick Harris stars in this new comedy from the creator of Emily in Paris and Younger.

Best of the Rest

Stranger Things (Season 4: Volume II) | Friday 1 July

The feature-length two-part finale to season 4 arrives, and the battle with Vecna comes to its terrifying conclusion.

DB Cooper: Where are you?! | Wednesday 13 July

The identity of skyjacker D.B. Cooper remains one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century, and this four-part documentary looks at the 50-year quest to find the mysterious man who hijacked a Northwest Airlines passenger jet in November 1971 and escaped with $200,000, never to be seen again. Five decades. Few clues. Too many suspects.

Amazon Prime Video

Top Picks

Queer as Folk (2022) | Friday 1 July, via Starzplay

The 2022 reinterpretation of Russell T Davies’ debut series arrives on Starzplay (a premium channel available via Amazon Prime Video) at the start of the month. This new version of the story is set in the wake of a shooting at the Babylon nightclub, inspired by the 2016 Orlando shooting, and follows the characters as they pick up the pieces of their lives.

Paper Girls | Friday 29 July

A science-fiction/mystery about four newspaper delivery girls who get caught up in the conflict between warring factions of time travellers. Based on a comic by Brian K Vaughan (Saga, Y: The Last Man), Paper Girls looks set to be Prime Video’s answer to Stranger Things.

Best of the Rest

The Terminal List | Friday 1 July

Chris Pratt stars in this adaptation of Jack Carr’s novel. James Reece returns home to his family, injured after his platoon of Navy SEALS were ambushed on a covert mission. He has memories of the event and questions about his culpability. As new evidence comes to light, Reece discovers dark forces working against him, endangering not only his life but the lives of those he loves.

Disney+

Top Picks

Under the Banner of Heaven | Wednesday 27 July

True crime drama starring Andrew Garfield (The Social Network, The Amazing Spider-Man) and Daisy Edgar Jones (Normal People). The faith of police detective Jeb Pyre is shaken when investigating the murder of a Mormon mother and her baby daughter that seems to involve the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Written by Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black.

Apple TV+

Top Picks

Surface | Friday 29 July

Gugu Mbatha-Raw (The Girl Before, The Morning Show) stars in this psychological thriller about memory loss after a suicide attempt gone wrong. Sophie embarks on a quest to put the pieces of her life back together with the help of her husband and friends. Soon, though, she begins to question whether or not the truth she is told is in fact the truth she has lived: what if you woke up one day and didn’t know your own secrets? From creator Veronica West (High Fidelity).

Best of the Rest

Black Bird | Friday 8 July

Psychological thriller inspired by a true story. Prisoner Jimmy Keene (Taron Egerton) is given a choice: befriend and elicit a confession from suspected serial killer Larry Hall, or stay where he is and serve his full sentence with no possibility of parole. Paul Walter Hauser (Richard Jewell) and Ray Liotta (Field of Dreams, Goodfellas) also star.

Trying (Series 3) | Friday 22 July

Adoption comedy with Esther Smith (Uncle, Cuckoo) and Rafe Spall (Black Mirror, Life of Pi). After a lengthy adoption process, Nikki and Jason wake up as new parents to two children they are still getting to know. Thrown straight into the parental deep end, Nikki and Jason’s relationships with each other and with their nearest and dearest are tested as they desperately try to navigate the ups and downs of parenting.

And keep an eye out for...

Vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows is returning for its fourth season in the US on Tuesday 12 June, though it doesn’t yet have a UK release date. It’s also not entirely clear where the new series will end up - though it has previously been available on BBC iPlayer, the Disney/Fox buyout seems likely to complicate that (as it did with Donald Glover’s Atlanta, another FX show previously available on iPlayer which has now moved to Disney+).