The Most Anticipated TV Shows of Winter 2025-2026

The best cure for the winter blues is getting excited about television. (We at TV Guide are not doctors, but trust us on this.) The next few months are filled with new shows like the Game of Thrones prequel A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and the Jon Bernthal-Tessa Thompson-starring thriller His & Hers; returning shows like Stranger Things, Fallout, and Bridgerton; and shows that fall somewhere between new and returning, like the Scrubs revival. If you want to know what's worth keeping your eye on, here are our picks for the most anticipated shows of the season.

ALSO READ: The new shows of the winter TV season

This town ain't big enough for both Lena Headey and Gillian Anderson. In The Abandons, a new Western series created by Sons of Anarchy's Kurt Sutter, Headey and Anderson face off as a pair of widowed matriarchs separated by privilege in mid-19th-century Washington Territory. Headey's Fiona Nolan is an Irish woman who has forged a home for an adopted family of outcasts (the titular Abandons) on silver-rich land, which Anderson's wealthy Constance Van Ness is determined to seize. Their fellow haves and have-nots are played by an extensive cast that includes Michael Greyeyes, Nick Robinson, Diana Silvers, Lamar Johnson, Lucas Till, Aisling Franciosi, and Brían F. O'Byrne. -Kelly Connolly [Trailer]

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Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) is about to sail to the Sea of Monsters. Based on Rick Riordan's second book in the Percy Jackson series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2 follows the son of Poseidon as he embarks on a nautical quest. And he must move with a new sense of urgency, because Camp Half-Blood's border has been breached, and his best friend Grover (Aryan Simhadri) is missing. Joined by Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries), Clarisse (Dior Goodjohn), and his cyclops half-brother, Tyson (Daniel Diemer), Percy is determined to thwart Luke (Charlie Bushnell) and the Titan Kronos' efforts to take down Olympus. -Kat Moon [Trailer] [Everything to know about Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 2]

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Until the long-teased third season of Big Little Lies is released, we have to make due with other shows about moms with problems, and Little Disasters looks like it just might scratch that itch. Diane Kruger and Jo Joyner star in this limited series, based on Sarah Vaughan's novel, about a friend group that begins to fracture after Jess' (Kruger) young daughter sustains a head injury that Jess can't explain, prompting Liz (Joyner) to call social services. -Allison Picurro [Trailer]

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Fans of Fallout: New Vegas, rejoice. Season 2 of Prime Video's Fallout, which adapts the video game of the same name, takes place away from Los Angeles, in the city that's the primary setting of the popular 2010 spin-off of the Fallout games. The show's upcoming chapter follows Lucy (Ella Purnell), who's been freshly betrayed by her father (Kyle MacLachlan), and the Ghoul (Walton Goggins), who continues to search for his family. The duo's journey across the post-apocalyptic wasteland brings them to New Vegas, where secrets from the past will be unearthed. Aaron Moten returns as Maximus, a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, and Justin Theroux joins the series as Mr. House. Macaulay Culkin and Kumail Nanjiani also join the Season 2 cast, though their roles have not been revealed. -Kat Moon [Trailer]

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Getting your email hacked is bad enough, but your brain? That's the core idea of The Copenhagen Test, a spy thriller that stars Simu Liu as an agent whose noggin has been infiltrated by bad guys, allowing them to access anything he sees and hears. Knowing that he's been compromised, Liu's character then puts on a charade, only giving the hackers information he wants them to have in a tricky game of cat and mouse. There are comparisons to The Truman Show, as a "reality" is constructed to keep the hackers at bay, which is cool, but our question is, "Where does the show go from there?" Melissa Barrera also stars. -Tim Surette [Trailer]

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Stranger Things Season 5: Volume 1 ended with a revelation about Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) that's going to turn the Upside Down upside down. We always knew "The Boy Who Came Back to Life" had a unique connection to Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), but it wasn't until the final season's fourth episode that we knew what that bond enables him to do. Heading into the next three episodes, which will be released on Christmas, and the finale, which premieres on New Year's Eve, the possibilities are endless for the Party and their allies. Vecna may be dangerously close to reigning supreme in Hawkins, but Will's new discovery might just tip the scales. -Kat Moon [Trailer] [Everything to know about Stranger Things Season 5]

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His & Hers stars Jon Bernthal and Tessa Thompson, which is an extremely exciting pair and probably more than enough information to interest you. But if you somehow still need to know a little more, the Georgia-set psychological thriller follows withdrawn news anchor Anna (Thompson), who begins searching for answers after hearing about a local murder. Jack (Bernthal), the detective assigned to the case, becomes suspicious of her involvement, prompting him to look into Anna as he simultaneously investigates the crime. -Allison Picurro

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Happy Fourth of July! The Pitt is returning for its second season, which will follow Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) and the staff at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center throughout another (probably) hellish shift — which, yes, will take place on America's birthday. Both Dana (Katherine LaNasa) and Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball) are back, new doctors are entering the mix, and Robby has a motorcycle. No, seriously, HBO Max released Season 2's opening scene and Robby is literally driving a motorcycle. We can only hope that purchase came at the suggestion of his therapist. -Allison Picurro [Trailer] [Everything to know about The Pitt Season 2]

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Peaky Blinders' Steven Knight created A Thousand Blows, an underrated 2025 drama that should get a little more attention in 2026 thanks to the success of two of its actors in another 2025 show, which was very appropriately rated. Stephen Graham and Erin Doherty, who both took home acting Emmys for their roles in Netflix's juggernaut Adolescence, star in the period drama set in Knight's wheelhouse of 1880s London. Graham plays a beefy legend of the city's underground bare-knuckle boxing scene, and Doherty plays the leader of the all-female criminal gang known as Forty Elephants. They both struggle to maintain power in their seedy corners, when a Jamaican immigrant (Malachi Kirby) fighting for survival upends both of their plans. -Tim Surette [Teaser]

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After a better-than-ever third season that saw Industry finally get a long-deserved boost in popularity, we finally know when HBO's finance drama will return to resolve all it put into motion the last time it graced our TV screens. The first teaser, set to Nina Simone's "Lilac Wine," gives very little away in terms of plot, but we do get a lot of flashes of our favorite characters looking sleek and cool. While the press release announcing the premiere date mentions a "high stakes, globetrotting cat-and-mouse game" that involves both Harper (Myha'la) and Yasmin (Marisa Abela), new characters played by Max Minghella, Kiernan Shipka, and Kal Penn seem primed to shake things up, as new characters on Industry are wont to do. -Allison Picurro [Teaser]

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You can leave the top two buttons of your shirt undone for this one. The Night Manager returns for Season 2, along with Tom Hiddleston's casual Friday dress shirts, nearly a decade after the debut of Season 1, which was nominated for a dozen Emmys, including Outstanding Limited Series. The spy thriller is adapted from John le Carré's novel and stars Hiddleston as an MI6 agent, and this time he gets tangled with a ruthless Colombian arms dealer (Diego Calva), and a beautiful woman (Camila Morrone) who helps him infiltrate the dealer's business. Season 1 was one of the slickest, sexiest spy dramas of the last decade, and things only look like they've gotten better with age. -Tim Surette [Teaser]

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Something is not right with Spear, the grunting, temperamental caveman and mostly silent protagonist of Primal. Genndy Tartakovsky's award-winning animated series has been resurrected for a surprise Season 3 — a surprise because Spear shouldn't be here — sending its unlikely hero on an adventure that Adult Swim claims culminates in "an emotional and explosive reunion." I wonder who that could be with? What Primal lacks in dialogue it more than makes up for in its visual storytelling, easily making it one of TV's best shows, animated or otherwise. -Tim Surette [Teaser]

Stream on HBO Max

Apple TV's Hijack was supposed to be a one-and-done limited series. Then it became a hit, and you know what happens when limited series become hits! But there are some valid reasons for its shocking return, as Season 2 asks one major question on everyone's minds: Besides planes, what else can be hijacked? This season's answer is a train, as Idris Elba's Sam Nelson is stuck on a Berlin underground train when it's taken over by baddies, putting hundreds of lives at risk. We're on board. -Tim Surette [Teaser]

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You asked for it: A young adult Star Trek show filled with fledgling cadets coming of age and hooking up with each other while learning the ins and outs of Starfleet. OK, most longtime fans of Star Trek didn't ask for this, but as Paramount looks for ways to extend the life of one of its most valuable franchises, a "How do you do, fellow kids?" spin-off was inevitable. Still, we're cautiously optimistic (or hopefully delusional). Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is set toward the end of the Star Trek timeline, in the 32nd century — around when Star Trek: Discovery was set — and follows the first Starfleet cadets in nearly a century following a cataclysmic event. Holly Hunter plays a Starfleet chancellor, and Robert Picardo reprises his role as the Doctor. -Tim Surette [Trailer] [Everything we know about Star Trek: Starfleet Academy]

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The new Game of Thrones prequel is about an unlikely duo: Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) and his squire, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell). Taking place a century before the events of Game of Thrones, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms follows the pair's adventures as they wander Westeros. (For context, House of the Dragon takes place two hundred years before the events of Game of Thrones, so you can think of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms as being sandwiched in between.) The length of the show is a departure from those of other titles in the franchise: Season 1 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms consists of six episodes, with each one being roughly half an hour. -Kat Moon [Teaser] [Everything to know about A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms]

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Wonder Man's journey to our TV screens has been treacherous. The Marvel series was first announced in 2021, got delayed by the Hollywood strikes of 2023, and then got caught in the middle of corporate restructuring. But Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Guest's long-delayed series is finally coming, starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Simon Williams, an aspiring actor with superpowers who auditions for an in-universe film about Wonder Man. It's all very meta. Ben Kingsley co-stars, reprising his role as failed actor Trevor Slattery from Iron Man 3. -Allison Picurro [Trailer]

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Everything changes for Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) when he meets Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha) at his mother's (Ruth Gemmell) masquerade ball. There's a catch, though. Sophie, who has spent much of her life working as a maid, went to the ball in disguise. Her romance with Benedict unfolds as he searches for the identity of the "Lady in Silver" in Season 4 of Bridgerton, which is based on Julia Quinn's novel An Offer from a Gentleman. Like the third season of the hit period drama, Bridgerton Season 4 will be released in two parts of four episodes each. -Kat Moon [Teaser] [Everything to know about Bridgerton Season 4]

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Aldis Hodge's Detective Alex Cross is back. Cross, which brings the James Patterson character to TV, fits squarely into Prime Video's brand as the go-to home for book-to-streaming adaptations about intelligent tough guys (see also: Reacher, Jack Ryan, Bosch). And while we had some reservations about Season 1, Cross couldn't ask for a better lead than Hodge. Details on the plot of the second season are vague — Cross is "in pursuit of a ruthless vigilante who is hunting down corrupt billionaire magnates" — but the cast is adding some exciting names, including Matthew Lillard. We're hoping to see this show level up in Season 2. -Kelly Connolly [Teaser]

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It's time for AMC's excellent, underrated Western noir to get the attention it deserves. Dark Winds (which is currently available to stream on both Netflix and AMC+, for the uninitiated) stars the great Zahn McClarnon as Joe Leaphorn, a Navajo Tribal Police officer investigating twisted cases in the 1970s. In Season 4, Leaphorn, Chee (Kiowa Gordon), and Bernadette (Jessica Matten) head to Los Angeles in search of a missing Navajo girl, leading to a race against the clock to save her from a killer. Chaske Spencer, Franka Potente, Isabel DeRoy-Olson, and Titus Welliver join the cast, and McClarnon makes his directorial debut. What could be better? -Kelly Connolly [Teaser]

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This isn't just one of J.D.'s fantasies — Scrubs really is coming back. The comedy, which aired from 2001 to 2010 on NBC and ABC, is returning to ABC for a revival that promises to reunite plenty of the original Sacred Heart gang. The new season finds J.D. (Zach Braff) and Turk (Donald Faison) scrubbing in together "for the first time in a long time," per Deadline, while confronting changes in medicine and in their own lives and dealing with a new class of interns. Sarah Chalke, who plays Elliot, is also a series regular, and Judy Reyes and John C. McGinley, as Carla and Dr. Cox, respectively, are on board as recurring guest stars. Officially, there's been no word on whether the Janitor (Neil Flynn) and Dr. Kelso (Ken Jenkins) will make appearances, but here's hoping. -Kelly Connolly 

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