Halfway through 2026, it\u2019s a good time to hit pause on the non-stop torrent of new TV to take stock of what\u2019s streamed past our small screens so far. What\u2019s truly stood out this year?<\/p>\n
While there hasn\u2019t yet been a consensus critical darling \u2013 not like 2025\u2019s The Pitt or Adolescence \u2013 here are 10 new shows, in no particular order, that represent the best of What to Watch to date.<\/p>\n
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Crave<\/p>\n
After all the sturm und dragon of the end of Game of Thrones and the even more sombre prequel House of the Dragon, some welcome (relative) comic relief finally came to Westeros. Created by Canadian Ira Parker, the first six-episode season of this HBO series simply follows a tall not-quite-knight Dunk (Peter Claffey) setting out to win a tournament with the help of a pipsqueak squire named Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell); brutal moments are leavened by boisterous humour.<\/p>\n
Half Man, Crave<\/p>\n
Scottish screenwriter\/actor Richard Gadd didn\u2019t pull any punches in his follow-up to his Netflix breakthrough Baby Reindeer. This dark and twisted miniseries from HBO and BBC about two step-brothers stuck in cycles of shame and abuse is full of gutting scenes and unexpected shifts in sympathy. Jamie Bell gives a particularly uncompromising performance as a gay Glaswegian sinking in self-loathing.<\/p>\n
DTF St. Louis, Crave<\/p>\n
This surprise of an HBO miniseries about midlife misery in Missouri centres on the bond between a weatherman (Jason Bateman) and his sign-language interpreter (David Harbour). What initially appears to be a salacious murder mystery (told with a side of absurdist Tim Robinson-style humour) turns into a tonally unique exploration of, as The Globe and Mail\u2019s Johanna Schneller put it, \u201cthe saving grace of male friendship, amid the bruised disappointment of ordinary life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dog Park, STACKTV<\/p>\n
Australia is on a string of canine-centred TV success. First came the cartoon Bluey, then rom-com Colin from Accounts, and now Dog Park. The humane half-hour Australian Broadcasting Corp. dramedy is about a hangdog professor (series co-creator Leon Ford) whose wife semi-separates from him by taking a new job in America. He\u2019s left caring for a poodle cross he never cared for. But the open-hearted quirky crew at the dog park helps him to gradually bring his misanthropic tendencies to heel.<\/p>\n
Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, Apple TV<\/p>\n
Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black), our small-screen queen from Regina, has found a plum TV role once again in Paula \u2013 a mother going through a messy custody battle who escapes her troubles with the help of a cam boy, the first in a series of very bad choices. Apple TV shows are known for slow-burn storytelling \u2013 but this twisty thriller puts the mom back into momentum and ends each episode with click-to-watch-next cliffhangers. <\/p>\n
Hate the Player: The Ben Johnson Story, Paramount+<\/p>\n
The best new Canadian show of the year so far has been this wild and wacky six-part mockumentary\/sketch-comedy hybrid about sprinter Ben Johnson and the steroids-in-sports scandal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. The miniseries sees the one-time fastest man in the world (a deliciously deadpan Shamier Anderson) play fast and loose with the facts while telling his side of the story and is smart about race, racing and Canada\u2019s often unhealthy competitive streak with the U.S.<\/p>\n
Riot Women, BritBox<\/p>\n
This BBC series from Sally Wainwright (Happy Valley) begins bleakly, with teacher Beth (Joanna Scanlan) suicidal and on the cusp of 60, feeling exhausted and invisible. But she comes roaring back to life by forming a punk band with other West Yorkshire women of a certain age. The first spine-tinging moment comes when ferocious front-woman Kitty, played by musical theatre star Rosalie Craig, howls the Hole song Violet.<\/p>\n
The Other Bennet Sister, BritBox<\/p>\n
Jane Austen turned 250 years old in December \u2013 and semi-quincentennial small-screen celebrations have included this 10-part retelling of\/sequel to Pride and Prejudice. This impeccably British period drama gives pride of place to the perspective of supposedly plain and pedantic middle child Mary Bennet, brought to life in a delightful performance by Ella Bruccoleri. There\u2019s romance \u2013 but the beating heart of the well-told story turns out to be in Mary\u2019s relationship with her mother, Mrs. Bennet (Ruth Jones).<\/p>\n
Off Campus, Prime Video<\/p>\n
Based on Canadian Elle Kennedy\u2019s novels about college hockey-playing men and the women who love them, this is young-adult romance executed just right. It\u2019s harder than it might seem to make a soapy, sex-positive show, in which bros talk about how to make a girl feel safe while scoring, into a genuine sensation. <\/p>\n
And while it may not be Shane and Ilya level, the chemistry between main characters Hannah Wells (Ella Bright) and Garrett Graham (Belmont Cameli) is a strong second line. <\/p>\n
Bait, Prime Video<\/p>\n
In a very strong six months for showbiz satire (see The Comeback\u2019s comeback season; Wonder Man; and the farewell to Hacks), Bait is still a stand-out. This is a snappy, stylized dramedy about a British actor named Shah Latif (played by series creator Riz Ahmed) up for the role of James Bond, whose inner insecurities about his west London Pakistani Muslim identity are voiced by a pig\u2019s head (who is voiced by Patrick Stewart). Guz Khan is a riot as his scheming cousin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Halfway through 2026, it\u2019s a good time to hit pause on the non-stop torrent of new TV to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[4278,49,48,75,2922,348],"class_list":["post-760146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-5towatch","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-noastack","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}