Hard as it is to believe, we’re currently past the halfway point in 2026, with the current year closer to its end than it is to its start.
Over the past few months, numerous great shows have come and gone, earning the standout attention of viewers across the globe. As many fantastic TV series as we’ve seen since the start of 2026, however, most critics tend to agree that only a handful of shows have truly captured audiences’ imaginations.
More recently, Entertainment Weeklyshared their own list of the best TV shows of 2026 to date, circling some of the series they considered “the best of the best.”
Ranking their picks in alphabetical order, the outlet first looked to Netflix‘s Big Mistakes as one of the platform’s best recent offerings, followed by HBO Max’s award-winning comedy, Hacks.
Likewise, Entertainment Weekly shared an altogether positive review of HBO’s Industry and the network’s similarly well-received A Knight of the Seven Kingdom. (For the latter series, the publication wrote, “Who could’ve guessed that a modest, half-hour drama filled with poop gags and 10 inches of prosthetic man meat would be the show to revitalize the fandom’s faith in Game of Thrones?”)
Meanwhile, HBO’s new Steve Carrell-led comedy Rooster earned standout attention from EW, along with AMC’s glam rock-inspired The Vampire Lestat. Unsurprisingly, EW also highlighted the critically acclaimed continuations of Hulu’s Paradise, HBO Max’s The Pitt and Apple TV’s Shrinking.
Additionally, the publication gave the viral new Apple TV horror comedy series Widow’s Bay a glowing stamp of approval.
“Katie Dippold’s sublimely strange and surprisingly scaryWidow’s Bay was perfectly poised to fall victim to the Apple TV curse — competently made, intellectually engaging shows worth watching never finding audiences and one by one disappearing beneath the waves,” EW wrote. “But the horror comedy about a tight-knit New England island community besieged by an ancient curse was miraculously rescued by that vanishing phenomenon in the world of TV fandom: genuine word-of-mouth fervor.
This story was originally published by Parade on Jul 6, 2026, where it first appeared in the TV section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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