TV Premieres This Week: June 21–27 • New Shows

House of the Dragon returns for a third season. The series sits 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones and follows House Targaryen as the family pulls itself apart in a war over who should hold the throne. By this point the conflict has moved past politics and into open fighting between rival branches of the same bloodline, dragons included. The premiere picks the story back up with the war already underway. This is not a starting point for new viewers; the show assumes you know who is fighting whom and why. If you want the full backstory, our guide to the Game of Thrones and Westeros books in order lays out where it all comes from. New episodes air Sunday nights on HBO.

The Bear comes back for a fifth season. The show follows Carmy, a chef trained in fine dining who takes over his late brother’s Italian beef sandwich shop in Chicago and tries to turn it into something better while holding the kitchen crew together. That crew, loud and unpolished, has become the closest thing he has to family. The season opens with an episode called “Soda,” written and directed by series creator Christopher Storer, in which a storm hits. New episodes stream on Hulu.

The Agency: Central Intelligence returns for a second season. It centers on a CIA officer known by the code name Martian, who is pulled out of a long undercover assignment and sent back to the agency’s London Station. The complication is personal: someone he was involved with during his old life resurfaces, and the relationship starts up again while he is supposed to be focused on the job. The show runs on the tension between his cover, his real identity, and what he actually wants. The new season continues the story on Paramount+.

Netflix’s live-action take on Avatar: The Last Airbender returns for a second season. The story follows Aang, a young boy who is the Avatar, the one person able to control all four elements, as he learns to master them and tries to stop a long war from consuming the world. This season continues that arc. New episodes stream on Netflix.

This is a new comedy series built around America’s 250th anniversary. The setup, as the show tells it: the Obamas set out to mark the occasion with a fitting tribute to the nation’s history, and then Larry David got involved. The premiere is the first episode. It airs Friday night on HBO.

The American Experiment is a documentary series timed to the country’s 250th anniversary. It goes back to the founding and the question the revolution was built on: whether ordinary people can actually govern themselves. The series gathers a wide range of voices to work through it, including former vice presidents, members of Congress, a former Supreme Court justice, historians, tribal chiefs, and military experts. The first episode is out on Netflix.