Widow’s Bay 
Weird, funny, and chilling, the Apple TV series Widow’s Bay took the Emmys by storm in 2026, sweeping 14 awards — a record for a comedy series in a single year. This historic haul included Outstanding Comedy Series, along with major acting wins for Matthew Rhys (Lead Actor), Stephen Root (Supporting Actor), and Kate O’Flynn (Supporting Actress).

Off the coast of New England sits a struggling island town with no Wi-Fi, a dwindling population, and a curse that the locals won’t stop talking about. Mayor Tom Loftis (Rhys) would rather turn the sleepy town into a tourist destination, but strange supernatural happenings keep putting a wrench in his plans. Besides, he can’t even seem to keep his teenage son in check.

Widow’s Bay is stacked with eccentric small-town characters: Tom’s right-hand woman, Patricia (O’Flynn), who’s lonely and ostracised by the women she went to school with, and Wyck (Root), a fisherman whose warnings fall on deaf ears. When visitors start streaming in from a glowing newspaper review, it’s a fight to keep everyone alive. Created by Katie Dippold — who also wrote films such as The Heat and Haunted Mansion, as well as several Parks and Recreation episodes — Widow’s Bay is a true horror in comedy’s clothing. Just when you’re coaxed into a comfortable laugh, the next scare catches you off guard.

Palm Royale
What does it take to be accepted into the most exclusive social circles? 

Set in 1969, Palm Royale stars Kristen Wiig as Maxine Simmons, an ambitious outsider in Palm Beach, Florida, who is determined to climb the ranks of high society. With little more than boundless optimism, Maxine schemes her way into a world of old money, one full of lavish galas and carefully guarded secrets. But it’s not a walk in the park: she must deal with a cast of eccentric socialites who would rather see her fail than succeed. Inspired by Juliet McDaniel’s novel Mr. & Mrs. American Pie, the series is a colourful satire of wealth and exclusivity, and it asks an enduring question: How much of yourself are you willing to sacrifice to get what someone else has?

The Studio
Seth Rogen stars as Matt Remick, the newly appointed head of Continental Studios. Matt is a lifelong cinephile turned studio executive caught between his love of filmmaking and the relentless pressure to deliver box office hits. As movies fight to stay relevant in an ever-changing industry, Matt and his team wrestle with their own insecurities while trying to create films that are genuinely great. But can they resist Hollywood’s obsession with safe, formulaic blockbusters?

Packed with celebrity cameos — including appearances by Martin Scorsese, Charlize Theron, and Olivia Wilde — The Studio earned 23 Emmy nominations, winning 13, and was hailed by critics as Hollywood’s sharpest self-portrait in ages. Simultaneously a love letter to cinema and a sharp satire of showbiz, the series delivers plenty of hearty laughs and wild shenanigans, all while exploring the eternal question: Is it possible for art to co-exist with commerce?

Shrinking
Jimmy Laird (Jason Segel) is a therapist who’s had enough of playing by the rules. Still reeling from the loss of his wife, he finds himself irritable and exhausted from listening to clients without telling them what they really need to hear. So, he throws professional boundaries out the window and starts giving brutally honest advice. Questionable? Absolutely. Surprisingly effective? More often than you’d expect.

Also starring Harrison Ford as Jimmy’s cantankerous mentor, Paul, who’s dealing with struggles of his own, Shrinking was created by Bill Lawrence, Brett Goldstein, and Jason Segel. The series strikes a rare balance between heartfelt drama and laugh-out-loud comedy, tackling grief and mental health with warmth, honesty, and plenty of humour.

Pluribus
What if the worst thing to happen to humanity was universal happiness? 

In Pluribus, a strange extraterrestrial virus sweeps across Earth and transforms nearly everyone into a serene, hyper-connected hive mind. One of the few holdouts is Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), a bitter, creatively frustrated novelist. She is miraculously immune to the virus, though not for long: the hive mind is working to create a strain that can work for her DNA.

It insists it only wants peace and togetherness, and that trying to assimilate Carol into the collective consciousness is for her own good. Carol, however, believes that individuality, grief, desire — even humanity itself — are being erased, and makes it her mission to save mankind (or at least herself).

Pluribus, which scored six Emmys in 2026, is creator Vince Gilligan’s follow-up act to his beloved series Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. But it’s completely different in tone to those two shows, trading crime-thriller tension for existential terror (and comedy). Gilligan reportedly conceived the show after growing tired of writing antiheroes, and Pluribus feels like a direct response to modern anxieties about AI, conformity, and the seduction of frictionless living. His creative pivot has resulted in an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series in 2026.

At the centre of the show is Better Call Saul alum Seehorn, delivering a career-best performance as Carol: prickly, hilarious, deeply wounded, and impossible to look away from. Her work earned her Best Actress wins at both the Golden Globes and Emmy Awards, giving her the recognition she deserves.

Ted Lasso
The Emmy-winning comedy series, Ted Lasso, is the TV embodiment of a big, warm hug. It became a pop culture sensation when it premiered in 2020, winning hearts with its relentless optimism.

Jason Sudeikis plays Ted Lasso, a small-time college American football coach from Kansas hired to coach UK professional soccer team AFC Richmond, despite having no experience coaching soccer. With unwavering positivity, he takes on that challenge, but mentoring a motley crew of clashing personalities, including egotistical up-and-comer Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster) and the hot-headed veteran footballer Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), proves to be tricky.

And, unknown to him, there is a powerful force within the club that doesn’t want him to succeed: AFC Richmond’s new owner, Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham).

Still, there are no pure villains in the show. And it’s precisely Ted Lasso’s militant belief in the goodness of people — even ones who do nasty things — that feels like a balm for the weary soul. If you’re ever feeling down, Ted Lasso is just that ray of sunshine you need in your life.

Pachinko
Based on the New York Times bestselling novel of the same name, this epic drama chronicles the hopes and dreams of a Korean immigrant family across four generations as they leave their homeland in an indomitable quest to survive and thrive.

Epic in scope and intimate in tone, the story begins with a forbidden love and crescendos into a sweeping saga that journeys between Korea, Japan, and America to tell an unforgettable story of war and peace, love and loss, triumph, and reckoning.

Pachinko is told in three languages — Korean, Japanese, and English — to maintain a ring of authenticity. 

It uses something very specific — the migrant experience — to illuminate universal truths about being human: the need for a sense of belonging, the power of familial bonds, and the dreaming of a better future.

Featuring Academy Award-winning actress Youn Yuh-jung (Minari) and hotshot actor Lee Min-ho in its huge cast, Pachinko is a sprawling, moving drama that proves that when it comes to relating to art, language is indeed no barrier.

Foundation
Based on the award-winning novel series of the same name by Isaac Asimov, Foundation chronicles the lives of humans across the galaxy who are living under the rule of the Galactic Empire.

When the revolutionary Dr Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) predicts the impending fall of the Empire, he and a band of loyal followers venture to the far reaches of the galaxy to establish the Foundation in an attempt to rebuild and preserve the future of civilisation. Enraged by Hari’s claims, the ruling Cleons (Lee Pace, Terrence Mann, and Cassian Bilton) — a long line of emperor clones — fear their grasp on the galaxy may be weakening as they’re forced to reckon with the potential reality of losing their legacy forever.

This first-ever adaptation of Asimov’s groundbreaking series took over 50 years to materialise, and there’s a good reason why it took so long: the novels are famously massive in scope, and many consider them to be nigh unadaptable. The first instalment alone spans 200 years, while the series writ large transpires across 600 years. The book series is also more concerned with ideas than people; philosophical inquiry takes primacy over character development and emotions, making adaptation even more daunting.

That hasn’t stopped screenwriter David S. Goyer (Batman Begins, Man of Steel) from creating this adaptation. He has, however, taken creative license to make major changes to the books, such as gender-swapping and reimagining some characters. Salvor Hardin, portrayed as male and the mayor of Terminus (the capital planet of the Foundation), has been changed to be female and the warden — not mayor — of Terminus.

The series successfully captures the scale of the novels while injecting action and emotion into the show. Sci-fi with heart? Now that’s a winning combination.

Severance
When work-at-home arrangements became the norm, conversations about work-life balance naturally dominated social media. When your office space is also your living space, where does work end and life begin? Is it even possible to separate those two things?

In the award-winning high-concept thriller Severance, work-life balance is taken to the extreme — with frightening results. The biotechnology corporation Lumon Industries has developed a medical procedure called ‘severance’, which allows its employees to compartmentalise their memories based on whether they are at work or not.

When a ‘severed’ worker is at work, they are dubbed ‘innies’ and cannot remember anything of their lives or the world outside. When outside work, they are dubbed ‘outies’ and cannot remember their time at work. Due to this, innie and outie experience two different lives, with distinct personalities and agendas.

Sounds like a useful procedure? Not quite. This excessive separation of professional and personal hurts innies, who experience a lack of agency and a constant sense of despair.

Severance paints a bleak portrait of the excesses of corporatism, one that explores how the need to suppress personal baggage in pursuit of productivity can ultimately hurt people.

Slow Horses
Who says you need labyrinthine plots or gun-slinging to make an espionage thriller work? Forget about pyrotechnics or outrageous plot twists — Slow Horses proves that great acting and even greater writing are all you need to make an exciting spy drama.

Based on Mick Herron’s Slough House novel series, Slow Horses follows a dysfunctional team of British intelligence agents who serve in Slough House, a dumping-ground department of MI5, due to their career-ending mistakes. 

After River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), an up-and-coming MI5 agent, makes a life-altering mistake in a public training exercise, he is relegated to performing dead-end work at Slough House. He resents his new ramshackle workplace, which is populated by intelligence officers who have, like him, committed serious blunders. Making his life even tougher is his boss, the curmudgeonly Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), who’s the brilliant but irascible leader of Slough House.

Haunted by his past mistake and itching to redeem himself, he sticks his nose into an investigation of a far-right terrorist group despite not being assigned to it.

Despite its name, Slow Horses never feels sedate. While it eschews frenetic plotting, the show smuggles in plenty of twists and cliffhangers. The espionage dealings, while suspenseful at every turn, are grounded in a sense of authenticity. Tense but believable at all times, serious but also wickedly funny, the show is one of the best under-the-radar gems on TV right now.