The 10 Best TV Shows to Watch This Summer 2026

Summer 2026 is shaping up to be one of the most stacked TV seasons in recent memory, and honestly, it’s hard to pick a show to start. Fantasy lovers are already counting down the days until Westeros returns, and sci-fi fans are ready to descend back into Silo. And for someone hunting for a new obsession among TV shows, the streaming gods have answered.

The new arrivals include HBO’s highly anticipated DC adaptation, Lanterns, and the gritty Marvel debut of Spider-Noir. We also have the delightfully unhinged TBBT spinoff, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, coming to HBO Max. There are enough shows for you to genre-hop every evening from the end of May through August.

We’ve sifted through the release calendars of various networks & streamers, weighed the hype, and narrowed it down to the 10 shows most worth your time. Here are the 10 TV shows that could be your next summer binge.

1 Spider-Noir

Where to stream: MGM+, Prime Video

Release Schedule: The show will premiere on MGM+ on May 25, 2026 (Monday). All eight episodes will be released on Prime Video on May 27, 2026 (Wednesday).

One of the most anticipated shows of the year arrives on MGM+ and Prime Video this May. Nicolas Cage stars as Ben Reilly, also known as The Spider, in Spider-Noir. This Marvel character is a film noir–inspired reinterpretation of Spider-Man, set in New York during the Great Depression within the Marvel Noir universe. The series is similarly set in an alternate reality within Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU).

Sony has partnered with Amazon MGM Studios to bring this fan-favorite character to the small screen. In keeping with its tone and setting, Spider-Noir will be released in both black-and-white and color versions. The series, which marks Cage’s first leading role in a TV show, is expected to appeal not only to superhero fans but also to those who enjoy investigative thrillers.

2 Elle

Where to stream: Prime Video

Release Schedule: Premiere on July 1, 2026 (Wednesday).

Elle has already received a strong vote of confidence from Prime Video after it was renewed for a second season ahead of its first. Instead of returning to another Legally Blonde movie, Reese Witherspoon decided to create a prequel based on Elle Woods’ high school years in the ’90s. The actress was inspired by Netflix’s Wednesday and cast the energetic Lexi Minetree in the iconic role.

June Diane Raphael and Chandler Kinney also appear in the series, alongside the late James Van Der Beek, who plays a district superintendent with mayoral aspirations. It has all the elements to make us feel nostalgic with its ’90s Bel-Air setting. The premiere date coincides with the 25th anniversary of the first movie’s release.

3 The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4

Where to stream: Prime Video

Release Schedule: Three-episode premiere on June 3, 2026 (Wednesday). It will be followed by three-episode weekly rollouts.

The animated adaptation of Critical Role’s live-play Dungeons & Dragons campaign maintains a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score across all three seasons, raising the expectation levels from this fourth season. The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4 takes a darker turn as it introduces the Whispered One, a long-slumbering evil that forces the separated team to reunite after Season 3‘s Chroma Conclave and save Exandria.

Wayne Brady joins the voice cast as Taryon Darrington (replacing Sam Riegel from the campaign), a confident artificer who’s expected to shake up the group dynamic with both comedy and tension. The series received an early renewal for a fifth and final season in 2025, making this penultimate chapter a crucial bridge toward the story’s conclusion. Fans of the original Critical Role campaign know exactly how high the emotional stakes are about to get.

4 The Boroughs

Where to stream: Netflix

Release Schedule: All eight episodes will be released on May 21, 2026 (Thursday).

A sci-fi TV show starring veterans Bill Pullman, Geena Davis, Clarke Peters, Alfred Molina, and Denis O’Hare. And it is being produced by the Duffer Brothers. We are in for it! The unlikely heroes hail from a retirement community, and they band together to stop an alien threat.

Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews serve as the creators, showrunners, and executive producers of the show. Even with their reputation being hit after the Stranger Things finale, fans can’t help but get excited for the involvement of Matt and Ross Duffer in this project.

And the Duffers are making a promise. They told Tudum, “This wouldn’t treat aging as a punchline. Instead, it would treat its characters as real people facing real challenges … along with a few supernatural ones. It was exactly the show we’d been dreaming of.”

5 A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder Season 2

Where to stream: Netflix (globally), BBC Three and BBC iPlayer (U.K. and Ireland), ZDFneo (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), and Stan (Australia)

Release Schedule: All six episodes will be released on May 27, 2026 (Wednesday).

Emma Myers returns as Pippa Fitz-Amobi in this new season, which will adapt Holly Jackson’s second book in the series, Good Girl, Bad Blood. And Jackson is helping write the show with Poppy Cogan. In this season, Pip is determined to stay away from investigations after the last season’s events. She ends up straying even further from her ‘good girl’ image when she gets pulled back into a case, where a key witness in Max Hastings’ trial goes missing.

The first season debuted at number one on Netflix’s Global Top 10 TV list (English) and had 700 million minutes of watch time in its first week. The expectations for this follow-up are sky-high among the fans.

6 Stuart Fails to Save the Universe

Where to stream: HBO Max

Release Schedule: July 2026 (Exact release date to be announced)

Jim Parsons’ recent comment, about a reboot of The Big Bang Theory not happening any time soon, may have hurt many fans. But you can certainly find solace in this new spinoff of the CBS sitcom, which features Kevin Sussman’s awkward comic book store owner Stuart in the lead role. The show will see John Ross Bowie, Brian Posehn, and Lauren Lapkus reprising the roles of Barry Kripke, Bert, and Denise from the original.

Described as a sci-fi adventure comedy, it is reportedly a departure from its original’s format. According to the premise, Stuart accidentally triggers a multiversal event when he breaks Sheldon and Leonard’s scientific invention. It sends him, along with the other three, to alternate realities where they encounter alternate versions of familiar characters. The premise sounds exciting, especially if you found Stuart to be a very underrated character in TBBT.

7 Silo Season 3

Where to stream: AppleTV

Release Schedule: Premiere on July 3, 2026. The subsequent nine episodes will be released weekly on Fridays until September 4.

Rebecca Ferguson is back in her starring role as Juliette Nichols in AppleTV’s one of the most popular shows, Silo. The third season announcement itself saw a resurgence in its popularity, with the show climbing back to AppleTV’s top 10 chart. For the first time, the series will jump between the present-day storyline and an origin story set centuries earlier in the Before Times. It would probably reveal how and why the silos were built.

Viewers should know that a fourth and final season was filmed simultaneously with this third season. It means that all our questions about this underground society are about to be answered in some time. In this penultimate season, Jessica Henwick, Jessica Brown Findlay, Colin Hanks, and several other new stars will join Ferguson, Common, Harriet Walter, Chinaza Uche, and other regulars.

8 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4

Where to stream: Paramount+

Release Schedule: Premiere on July 23, 2026. The subsequent nine episodes will be released weekly on Thursdays until September 24.

Captain Christopher Pike and his Enterprise crew’s adventures are closing in on the events of The Original Series. After a full-length run of Strange New Worlds this summer, it will return for a six-episode fifth and final season. While fans were divided over the third season, the new season tries to address the criticism with its seemingly more serious tone. The trailer even suggests that some of the main characters may not survive past the fourth season.

Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, and Rebecca Romijn lead the star cast of the show, with many actors playing younger versions of the characters from the original show (a forever handsome Paul Wesley plays the younger version of Captain James T. Kirk). The fourth season continues with its inventive experiments, as one of the episodes is a puppet episode with puppet work by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.

9 Lanterns

Where to stream: HBO

Release Schedule: August 2026 (Exact release date to be announced)

Ozark showrunner Chris Mundy, Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, and comic book author Tom King are joining forces to bring us the DCU show, Lanterns. Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler lead the cast as Green Lanterns John Stewart and Hal Jordan in this show, described as “very much in the vein of True Detective.” The two of them launch an Earth-based investigation into an ancient horror.

Pierre’s breakout role in Netflix’s Rebel Ridge helped him cement a leading hero status. Chandler brings his Friday Night Lights gravitas to the role and will probably serve as a mentor to Pierre’s character. The show has yet to receive a release date, and the recently released promotional materials were quietly pulled, raising some concerns among fans (via r/DCU_). Pierre is also expected to return to his role in next year’s Superman sequel, Man of Tomorrow.

10 House of the Dragon Season 3

Where to stream: HBO

Release Schedule: Premiere on June 21, 2026. The subsequent seven episodes will be released weekly on Sundays until August 9.

The trailer for the third season of this Game of Thrones spinoff heavily teases the Battle of the Gullet from the books. The series has been renewed for a fourth and final season, which means that this third season is the beginning of the end for the Greens and the Blacks. The stakes have never been higher as the trailer promises the most explosive season of the series yet.

In a few series of clips, we see the intensity of the battle. Daemon promises an “empire unassailable” to Rhaenyra, Ser Criston Cole looks battle-ready on a horse, Queen Alicent is apparently in Rhaenyra’s custody, a broken Aegon plans to kill his cruel brother Aemond, and we see a lot of fire-breathing dragons. We are ready to be thrown into Westeros this summer, where all the bloody chaos takes place.

No	TV Shows	Release Date	Platform
1	Spider-Noir	May 25, 2026 (Monday)	MGM+, Prime Video
2	Elle	July 1, 2026 (Wednesday)	Prime Video
3	The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4	June 3, 2026 (Wednesday)	Prime Video
4	The Boroughs	May 21, 2026 (Thursday)	Netflix
5	A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder Season 2	May 27, 2026 (Wednesday)	Netflix
6	Stuart Fails to Save the Universe	July 2026	HBO Max
7	Silo Season 3	July 3, 2026 (Friday)	AppleTV
8	Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4	July 23, 2026 (Thursday)	Paramount+
9	Lanterns	August 2026	HBO
10	House of the Dragon Season 3	June 21, 2026 (Sunday)	HBO

Still have questions? Here are the answers to a few of them.

Are you excited about the TV slate for this summer? Let us know in the comments below!