The shows and long-awaited movie sequels we’ve been saving the remote for in 2026.
When Covid and streaming collided in 2020, I found myself enjoying television more than I thought possible. It was so nice to become absorbed in a television series or newly released movie. Home streaming made the Covid shutdown somewhat easier to deal with. Over the past six years I am still loving a good new series and experiencing movies from my couch. I have lamented the end of many of my favorites and have hoped for continuation with sequels. I am delighted that quite a few shows and movies have been renewed, and are either just streaming or are coming in 2026. I thought I’d share the list, as long as you understand that you are limited to my quite narrow viewing parameters. You will not find anything that is hideously gory or terrifying, or anything that will leave you sobbing long after the show has ended. Life offers me up too much of that already. Call me a lightweight, but I watch television and movies to be entertained. Here we go…
Television Series:
Shrinking Season 3 will premiere on Apple TV+ on January 28, 2026, not a moment too soon as far as I’m concerned. Series 3 will be an 11-episode season with returning cast members Jason Segal and Harrison Ford, and new additions like Jeff Daniels and Michael J. Fox.
It is delightfully funny, poignant, and sad all at the same time. Jason Segal plays a grieving therapist who decides to abandon the rules and ethics of therapy and tell his clients exactly what he thinks of them. This has major and unexpected results for his clients as well as himself.
The weekly episode will drop on Wednesdays, ending on April 8th, 2026.
Will Trent is a popular network TV crime drama. Season 4 will premiere on January 6th, 2026, on ABC or Hulu.
It is based a book series by Karin Slaughter about a GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigation) Special Agent with a difficult past in the Atlanta foster care system. He is excellent at his job, has a complex personality and relationship with a co-worker. I am partial to crime fiction, so many of these shows will be in that genre.
Shetland is one of many excellent British crime shows. The Shetland Islands are the location, and the cinematography is gorgeous and the plots are engrossing. The series began in 2013 featuring DI Jimmy Perez, an absolute dreamboat if you ask me. In Season 7, Jimmy Perez resigns from the force and is replaced by DI Ruth Calder assisted by Tosh. Season 10 will have a January 1, 2026, premiere in the U.S. with DI Calder and Tosh still in charge of the unit. The stories mostly take place on the archipelago, with some on the mainland. These are close knit communities, but they provide a dark side to their beauty. We love this show. Subtitles will be needed to decipher the accents. It is on BritBox.
A 4th season of Ted Lasso has been confirmed by Apple TV+ and is in production. Many of the key characters are returning – Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis), Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), and Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) and others. The new season will have Ted coaching a women’s football team in a lower division. The show is wildly popular, not only because it is very funny and has a wonderful feel-goodness about it. It also has won praise for dealing with important mental health issue with appropriate sensitivity. The show swept the Emmys in 2021, the year it first aired. Season 4 is expected to drop in 2026, but while June has been mentioned, there is no exact date yet.
Only Murders in the Building Season 5 dropped one episode a week last September and October 2025, so it is bingeable if you like doing that.
If you’ve never seen this series, three strangers who live in the same Manhattan apartment building get together to solve a murder. After the first murder, each season has featured the three now best friends solving another murder in their building. The three are played by Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez, with different guest stars in each season. I find it delightful and fun, sometimes a little silly. It rates a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. It can be watched on Disney+ or Hulu.
The Lincoln Lawyer Season 4 on Netflix will premiere on February 5, 2026. This is a great legal drama! The series is based on Michael Connelly’s novel The Law of Innocence. Mickey Haller will be defending himself in a murder trial with a new prosecutor. The murder victim is a former client of Mickey’s. Mickey Haller is played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo.
The premise of the novels is that lawyer Mickey Haller works in the back of his Lincoln Navigator as he takes on cases in Los Angeles. The new season will have 10 episodes.
Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials (Netflix) — Jan. 15, 2026. This will be a 3-part series about a country house party prank that turns deadly. It is set in 1925. Lady Eileen “Bundle” Brent investigates. It stars Mia McKenna-Bruce, Helena Bonham Carter, and Martin Freeman.
Bridgerton Season 4 (Netflix) — Part 1 Jan. 29 and Part 2 Feb. 26, 2026. There will be a total of 8 episodes that follow the clan’s second-eldest sibling, Benedict Bridgerton, as he finds love, albeit not easily.
The Pitt Season 2 (HBO Max) — January 8th, 2026.
Who would’ve thought The Pitt would end up as one of the most celebrated drama series of 2025 when it premiered back in January, ‘25? After an impressive 15-episode first season that saw its popularity spread word of mouth, the Noah Wyle-led medical show picked up five Emmy awards — including outstanding drama series.
RFDS, also known as Royal Flying Doctor Service, is an Australian drama television series which centers around the lives of workers for the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. This series is based on real-life stories. The pilots and medical staff of the Royal Flying Doctor Service bring much needed emergency care to the remote Australian outback. They navigate private lives as turbulent and riveting as the emergencies they attend to across some of the most beautiful and inhospitable places in the Australian outback.
We discovered it during Covid and were disappointed when it was not renewed for a second season. In 2023, after two years, Season 2 premiered. The delay was due to production schedules, not lack of popularity. Season 3 premiered on PBS on November 27, 2025, and will run for 8 episodes. The series has a few gory medical moments, and lots of soap opera intrigue.
Movies:
The 3rd Knives Out movie was released to theaters a few weeks ago on November 26th, 2025. The movie began streaming on Netflix December 12th, 2025.
It is called Wake Up Dead Man and Daniel Craig returns as Benoit Blanc to investigate a death inside a quiet church. It is the third installment in the Knives Out film series, and a standalone sequel to Glass Onion (2022). These films are whodunits that tell a good story with humor, but on closer inspection, many reviews point out that they also contain incisive moral messages. In the first one, Knives Out, these messages were about inherited wealth, illegal immigrants, entitlement, and class warfare. These layers are what keep the viewers interested and entertained at the same time. If you haven’t seen the first two, you might want to stream them in order before getting to number three. It is rated PG-13.
Zootopia 2 was released last month to theaters by Disney. Detectives Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde are searching for a mysterious reptile (Gary De’Snake) who is turning the mammal metropolis of Zootopia upside down. The detectives go under cover to solve the case. It is expected to stream on Disney+ in March, 2026. It is rated PG.
Toy Story 5 will be released June 19, 2026, to theaters only. It is expected to stream on Disney+ in late 2026. Tom Hanks will be the voice of Woody, and Tim Allen will be Buzz Lightyear. It hasn’t been officially rated yet, but predictions are that it will be rated G, or possibly PG. The plot is that Jessie, Buzz and Woody face a challenge to toys as kids seem obsessed with electronics.
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