Entertainment

Summer series: where we left off

The shows you didn’t watch last season are giving you another chance this summer. Where they left off:

“Continuum” (Friday, June 7, 10 p.m., Syfy) Considering this time-travelling cop series has lasted longer than the better, but similarly themed ABC drama “Life on Mars,” the Syfy show must have done something right. Give credit to the fast-paced action, which doesn’t allow for a lot of pondering how cop-from-the-future Kiera (Rachel Nichols) may be stuck in a time loop, but if she can, in fact, alter history enough, she might fall for her partner back here in 2012, and would that mean she wasn’t driven to get back to her son and hubby back in 2077, so how … see? Better to just enjoy the ride and blindly accept that future Alec planned the whole thing.

“Major Crimes” (Monday, June 10, 9 p.m., TNT) The latest series to break out in a rash of stunt casting is this “Closer” spinoff. The producers have managed to haul in one-time movie star Tom Berenger, who was one of the best things about last summer’s “Hatfields & McCoys,” for a handful of episodes as Captain Raydor’s (Mary McDonnell) estranged hubby of 25 years. The by-the-books chief has enough to deal with as a the new guardian to Rusty (Graham Patrick Martin), who became a ward of the state in the season finale following the squad’s fight to get the kid away from his abusive parents, which spanned two series.

“Magic City” (Friday, June 14, 9 p.m., Starz) If the mobbed-up Miami beach drama wasn’t particularly original, with its “Goodfellas” knockoffs spouting some bad dialogue, the series found redemption in the stellar cast carrying the story. From lead Jeffrey Dean Morgan, whose Ike was last seen in a jail cell after Judi Silver (Elena Satine) fingered him as Jimmy Shoes’ killer, and Dominik Garcia-Lorido, whose maid-turned-lover, Mercedes, seems destined for a shotgun wedding to good son Danny (Christian Cooke), the cast has shone through some pretty hokey material.

“Copper” (Sunday, June 23, 10 p.m., BBC America) Leaping ahead one year, the Civil War-era detective series will introduce plenty of familiar faces — both the actors and their historical characters — to 1865 New York City. Donal Logue, looking every bit like he and his beard were born to live in this era, arrives as a conniving, brutish brigadier general who’s just back from the front lines. Eamonn Walker (“Chicago Fire”) will play abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass, and Alfre Woodard is coming to town as a freed slave. Although there were a load of reveals in last season’s finale — not limited to discovering lovely Elizabeth (Anastasia Griffith) was indeed a Confederate traitor, Corcoran’s (Tom Weston-Jones) wife is alive, and his daughter still isn’t — there’s plenty of real-life drama that we know (if you ever went to history class) is yet to come.

“Perception” (Tuesday, June 25, 10 p.m., TNT) In the sophomore season for the crime-solving schizophrenic professor, CCH Pounder (“The Shield”) will play a doctor to Eric McCormack’s Pierce, who discovered his girlfriend and their entire history was actually just another hallucination in the two-part season ender that finally forced Pierce back onto his meds. Scott Wolf joins as a recurring guest star as Kate’s (Rachael Leigh Cook) soon-to-be ex-husband in this “House” lite series.

“Dexter” (Sunday, June 30, 9 p.m., Showtime) The eighth and final season — the promise — for our favorite serial killer begins six months after last season’s finale, when Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) murdered LaGuerta (Lauren Velez) after the captain figured out Dexter’s (Michael C. Hall) foster sister had been covering for him. It’s now down to two women vying for the love of the guy who regularly chops up people: his icky sis and psycho true love Hannah (Yvonne Strahovski). Look for a mystery woman with the keys to Dexter’s past this season.