The 10 Best New TV Shows to Watch This Fall 2026

Summer 2026 offered plenty of reasons to get out of the house, from the surprisingly fantastic Minions & Monsters to two Earth-shattering blockbusters in The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Even August had its highlights with the very fun The End of Oak Street and the long-anticipated—and incredibly funny—Coyote vs. ACME.

That is all over now, and attention turns from the big screen to the small screen. The fall season is jam-packed with new TV shows like VisionQuest and Crystal Lake, as well as returning favorites like Scrubs and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Here are the 10 most anticipated shows of the fall with a focus on sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and animation. More shows and scoops can be found in our 2026 Fall Preview.

Scrubs

The early 2000s hospital comedy about quirky doctors returned last year for its first season since 2010 (or 2009 if you correctly don’t count the ninth season). While skepticism surrounded whether the reboot could recapture the charming voice of the original, pretty much everyone agreed it did. The revival began with Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) appointing his former protégé J.D. (Zach Braff) as the new Chief of Medicine at Sacred Heart Hospital, a position which, surprisingly, didn’t rob the character of how fun he had been in the original series. The revival also managed to bring a fair amount of heart, particularly with the reveal of Dr. Cox’s medical condition.

Season 11 of Scrubs will premiere on ABC on Sept. 30.

Dig

Not to be mistaken with Tom Cruise’s upcoming comedy Digger, Dig is a new sitcom starring Amy Poehler. Not much is known about the series except that Poehler is playing an archaeologist who, along with a few other archaeologists, uncovers a big secret on a dig in Greece. Despite the scant details, there is good reason to be excited. Amy Poehler is returning to television with executive producer Mike Schur, one of the co-creators of Poehler’s beloved sitcom Parks and Recreation. With Schur and Poehler onboard, the show seems very promising.

Dig will premiere on Peacock on Nov. 23.

Crystal Lake

Few horror franchises are as iconic or successful as the Friday the 13th films, but it has been 17 long years since Jason Voorhees appeared onscreen due to various legal rights issues. Thankfully, that drought is finally over—sort of. Crystal Lake from Callum Vinson (It: Welcome to Derry) is bringing the franchise back to the beginning—actually, before the beginning.

In the original 1980 film Friday the 13th, the iconic hockey-mask-wearing Jason was not yet the villain of the franchise. In that first movie, it is Jason’s mom who does the killing around Camp Crystal Lake summer camp as she seeks vengeance for the death of her son. Crystal Lake will tell the story before the events of the first film, starring Linda Cardellini as Jason’s mother, Pamela Voorhees.

The eight-episode first season of Crystal Lake will drop all of its episodes on Peacock on Oct. 15.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

Nobody wanted HBO Max’s new Harry Potter show. The celebrated series of movies starring Daniel Radcliffe is still very fresh in people’s minds, and re-adapting the saga right now hardly seems necessary, especially while Harry Potter creator J. K. Rowling remains an unrepentant transphobic bigot. Still, the sheer volume of talent involved with the upcoming Harry Potter series attracts attention.

Nick Frost is an extraordinarily good casting choice for Hagrid, and Paapa Essiedu is an intriguing pick for Severus Snape. John Lithgow as Dumbledore is the casting highlight. It will be interesting to see how much more from the books the series includes, as the movies necessarily cut a lot out. Perhaps the series will end up being as pointless as everyone originally thought, but so far, it is not looking that way.

The eight-episode first season premieres on HBO Max on Dec. 25.

South Park season 29

For much of its run, South Park stayed out of politics, with creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker generally choosing to lampoon popular culture instead. However, for seasons 27 and 28, which aired back-to-back last year, the show about four vulgar young boys in Colorado went all-in on bashing President Donald Trump. Frequently depicting him entirely naked, the show portrayed Trump as a petulant, evil narcissist with a small—well, it is South Park, so you can probably figure out what part of Trump’s anatomy they repeatedly portrayed as being too small.

The weekly swipes at Trump were so relentless that they made headlines each week and even got some direct attention from Trump himself. While some fans—likely Trump supporters who cannot take a joke—rankled at the political turn, many found it hilarious, and it gave South Park the most relevance it has had in years.

The show will return on Sept. 16 for its 29th season, with semi-weekly releases after that. The release schedule may change mid-season, just like it did last year. Regardless of how quickly the episodes come out, Stone and Parker will likely double down on what they did last season, which is often what they do when people tell them not to do something.

Blade Runner 2099

Denis Villeneuve’s 2017 sequel Blade Runner 2049 may have been liked by critics, but the movie failed to be the massive blockbuster it needed to be to make back its budget. Still, for those who turned out for the movie, the Blade Runner franchise proved it still had good stories to tell in its neon-lit dystopia populated with replicants (bio-engineered slave laborers).

Executive producer Ridley Scott (who directed the original 1982 film) has teamed up with Shining Girls creator Silka Luisa for the Prime Video series Blade Runner 2099, an eight-episode miniseries with an intriguing twist. Instead of replicants being second-class citizens, they have taken over the city of Los Angeles, and humans are the ones who are oppressed.

All episodes of Blade Runner 2099 will drop on Nov. 25.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 3

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is set thousands of years before the Lord of the Rings movies and tells the story of Middle-earth’s Second Age (as opposed to the Third Age covered by Peter Jackson’s films). In the course of the series, Sauron’s Rings of Power are forged as part of a plot to sneakily conquer all of Middle-earth and subjugate its inhabitants. Season 3, which premieres on Nov. 11 on Prime Video, will see Sauron forge the One Ring, a powerful weapon that will help him defeat his enemies.

Response to the series has been mixed thus far, perhaps because, unlike the more faithful films directly based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels, The Rings of Power extrapolates much more, building its own mythology based loosely on the appendices of the original books. Some do not see it as canon for this reason, but The Rings of Power captures the scale and scope of The Lord of the Rings, even as a television series rather than a theatrical film. Because of the sheer size of the production and some interesting story choices, it is worth checking out.

Four episodes will drop on Nov. 11. After that, the season’s remaining four episodes will drop soon after, with two episodes on Nov. 18 and another two on Nov. 25.

Carrie

Stephen King’s 1974 novel Carrie, and its 1976 adaptation directed by Brian De Palma, remain enduring classics. The supernatural thriller story about a telekinetic teenager who lashes out at her bullying classmates at prom has spawned a number of remakes, and now a TV miniseries is in the works with the prolific Mike Flanagan at the helm. Flanagan is the showrunner behind Netflix horror series like The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, and The Fall of the House of Usher. He also directed the Stephen King film adaptations Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep. While yet another Carrie adaptation hardly seems necessary, in Flanagan’s hands, it automatically becomes one of the fall’s most anticipated shows. Flanagan’s choice to set the series in modern times where school shootings and cyber-bullying have sadly become the norm also puts a clever twist on the iconic tale.

The six-episode series will drop all at once on Prime Video on Oct. 7.

VisionQuest

Most Marvel Cinematic Universe shows have been forgettable, but both WandaVision and Agatha All Along were fun stories that did not drag in the middle. With that, VisionQuest, marketed as the conclusion to the WandaVision trilogy, aims to match those two. Paul Bettany’s work as Vision in various Marvel movies and TV shows has always been intriguing and entertaining. He is a strong lead, so assuming the writing is on point, VisionQuest looks promising.

The story follows Vision rediscovering who he is after coming back online in WandaVision. While the now-white-colored android has his memories back, he still has to restore his personality and humanity. The show tackles this in a trippy, experimental way, with the inclusion of a human version of Ultron (James Spader) residing in Vision’s programming.

Whether this serves as an interesting link leading to Avengers: Doomsday or merely a conclusion for Vision’s journey, it should prove interesting to watch.

The eight-episode series VisionQuest will have a weekly rollout and debut on Disney Plus on Oct. 14.

Avatar: Seven Havens

Avatar: The Last Airbender was one of the greatest animated series of all time. In a world where tribes of “benders” manipulate the elements of water, earth, fire, or air, a young boy named Aang is the last airbender and the current “Avatar,” the only person who can bend all four elements. Over three seasons, the show told a complete story, which led some to fear that its 2012 sequel series, The Legend of Korra, would not measure up. Fortunately, The Legend of Korra, which followed Aang’s Avatar successor, Korra, matched the original.

Hopefully the third series, which follows the new Avatar named Pavi, can replicate the success of its two predecessors.

The new series will premiere on Oct. 9 on Paramount Plus with a 13-episode first season. A second season with another 13 episodes will follow in the future.

Source: Polygon