This one is for the ladies. Maybe it’s a matter of coincidence. Maybe I’m more biased toward my own gender than usual. But for whatever reason, five of the six new shows I enjoyed most in July 2025 are conspicuously concerned with, ostensibly intended for the entertainment of, and in most cases created by women. There’s a rom-com whose heroine is “too much,” a British detective show with a unique female lead, a wife soap set in MAGA territory, a period crime drama that unfolds among women living in the margins of post-World War I London, and a Spanish black comedy whose theme is female rage. Like a variety pack of popsicles on a scorching summer day, these series come in different flavors but are all equally refreshing. (As for the sixth, well, it’s very different but inarguably worthwhile—a scrupulously reported docuseries about Hurricane Katrina.) [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Code of Silence (BritBox)In this UK drama, police tracking a criminal organization that meets in locations that can’t be bugged recruit a deaf canteen employee, Alison Brooks (Rose Ayling-Ellis), to read suspects’ lips in surveillance videos. So, yes, Code of Silence is another British detective show. But don’t start snoozing yet—this is no cookie-cutter procedural. With Alison at its center, it’s filtered through the perspective of a more fascinating, nuanced deaf character than pop culture typically represents. Chronically underestimated but not defined by her difference, she’s a closet thrill seeker tempted by curiosity, boredom, and brokeness to defy her new boss, Charlotte Ritchie’s DS Ashleigh Francis, and do some undercover digging on her own time. Alison’s world outside work—one dominated by other distinctive deaf characters, from the mother she lives with and supports (Fifi Garfield) to the milquetoast ex-boyfriend (Rolf Choutan)—is rendered in thoughtful detail. And the show effectively uses onscreen text to simulate the way she decodes speech she can’t hear. It’s a character study wrapped in a crime thriller, generating more suspense from the question of what Alison will do next than of whether the cops will catch the crooks. Dope Girls (Hulu)Julianne Nicholson is having quite the year. Always a reliable supporting player, she has come to the fore in this spring’s fourth season of Hacks, which cast her as a social media star gone wild, and as a Musk-like tech billionaire in Paradise; both performances earned Emmy nods. Now you can watch her shine in a well-deserved lead role in the British import Dope Girls, a gritty historical drama set among the women of London’s post-World War I criminal underworld.Suddenly widowed, unemployed, and homeless, at a time when male veterans are reclaiming control on the homefront, Nicholson’s Kate takes her sheltered teenage daughter Evie (Eilidh Fisher) and moves in with a mixed-race nightclub dancer, Billie (Umi Myers)—without revealing to Evie that Billie is the girl’s half-sister. Meanwhile, a woman named Violet (Sharp Objects’ Eliza Scanlen, all grown up) schemes her way into a job as one of England’s first female police officers. These storylines soon collide, as ambition and desperation lead the characters into a dangerous demimonde of organized crime, drugs, sex work, and murder. Dope Girls, created by Polly Stenham and Alex Warren, is sure to be compared with Peaky Blinders; the shows share a country, an era, and a milieu. But in its irreverence as well as its predominantly female cast, it reminded me more of Hulu’s delightful, brothel-set 18th century soap Harlots.The Hunting Wives (Netflix)The diabolical minds behind summer TV have managed to dream up what might be the wildest, silliest, and soapiest wife show ever made—which, I know, is saying a lot. Adapted from May Cobb’s novel, Netflix’s The Hunting Wives has it all: kidnapped teens, age-gap affairs, buried secrets, crooked clergy, swinging politicians, shadowy stalkers, ravenous bisexuals, substances galore, a murder. And that’s just in the three episodes provided for review. It’s also about the Trump-era culture wars. Even if you cringe a bit at its crassness (as I did), you kind of have to admire it (as I also do) for always doing the most. Wife-show junkies, meet your new addiction. [Read the full review.]Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time (Nat Geo)August marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a natural disaster of generational proportions—and one exacerbated by a combination of poverty, racism, and governmental incompetence—that has since inspired an outpouring of powerful art, from Jesmyn Ward’s novel Salvage the Bones to Spike Lee’s four-part documentary When the Levees Broke to David Simon’s HBO drama Treme. It was also one of the first such events to take place after the launch of YouTube, in early 2005, helped democratize the making and sharing of video. Less lyrical but more thorough than its predecessors, Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time draws heavily on that trove of harrowing citizen reportage. Backed by a team of executive producers that includes Ryan Coogler, director Traci A. Curry spends five episodes recounting the storm and its immediate aftermath in hour-by-hour detail, as the failure of New Orleans’ levee system devastated some of its poorest areas. Curry interviews a remarkable number of relevant authorities: scientists, first responders, community organizers, journalists who rushed into the city to report as evacuees streamed out, government officials both local and national. But the most indelible images, stories, and insights come from the people behind all those deeply personal home videos—regular residents of the hardest-hit wards who documented their efforts to save themselves and their neighbors for a nation that might’ve preferred to look away. Rage (HBO)Once you’ve inhaled The Hunting Wives, consider pouring yourself a tall glass of Spanish creator and director Félix Sabroso’s study in female anger as a chaser. Each of eight episodes, which run a fleet 35-ish minutes apiece, follows a woman (usually a woman of a certain age) as she is pushed to the point of incandescent fury (usually by a man, or at least by the indignities that come with living in a patriarchal society). In the opening vignette, Marga (Carmen Marchi), an heiress-slash-artist with hair dyed the color of egg yolks and a passion for riflery, learns her husband (Alberto San Juan) has impregnated their housekeeper, Tina (Claudia Salas). Rage is not quite an anthology; the lives of its protagonists, from Marga’s favorite shop assistant (Candela Peña) to Tina’s mom (Nathalie Poza), overlap in ways that build tension as the season progresses. My favorite episode stars Marga’s pal Vera (Pilar Castro), a celebrity chef ruined by a vicious critic. But, anchored by great Spanish actresses, many of whom will look familiar to fans of Pedro Almodóvar, they’re all cathartic fun. Almodóvar-heads are also sure to appreciate the show’s colorful production design and mix of dark comedy and self-aware melodrama.Too Much (Netflix)According to the digital clock on Jessica’s bedside table, it’s just after 9:07 p.m. on a weekday evening when she issues a warning to Felix: “I can’t stay up late tonight.” Jess (Megan Stalter) has an important meeting at 8:30 the next morning. And the new couple, whose romance is chronicled in the Netflix series Too Much, has gotten into the habit of lingering together through the wee hours, to the extent that her new boss (Richard E. Grant) has noticed her struggling at work. But the first flush of love is a potent force. In the third—and, in my estimation, best—episode of the season, we watch it overpower our heroine’s more prudent impulses.A genre-savvy, meta romantic comedy in the tradition of Emily Henry’s novels and the best of Nora Ephron, Too Much, from co-creators Lena Dunham and Luis Felber, visualizes Jess’ Wuthering Heights fantasies and features a scene in which her family dissects Alan Rickman’s sex appeal in Sense and Sensibility. Each episode’s title is a spin on the name of a classic silver-screen romance. [Read more about the standout third episode of Too Much,]