What will you be watching in 2026? There are a ton of great sci-fi TV series on the way, but it might be an even bigger year for fantasy. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys swords, sorcery, dragons, and castles, we’re compiling a list of some of the biggest shows to look out for over the next several months, starting with one that’s just around the corner.
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A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (HBO)
The second Game of Thrones prequel show begins
Game of Thrones was the biggest fantasy show of the 2010s, and maybe the biggest show of the 2010s, period. HBO has capitalized on that success first with House of the Dragon, which is set some 200 years before Game of Thrones, and now with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which is set some 100 years after that.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is much lighter and zippier than either Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon. It revolves mostly around one guy, a newly minted knight named Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey), looking to make a name for himself alongside his squire Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell). For those who care about this kind of thing, it looks like it stays very close to the source material by George R.R. Martin, which is a good sign.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premieres on HBO on January 18.
- Release Date
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January 18, 2026
- Network
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HBO
- Directors
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Owen Harris
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Peter Claffey
Ser Duncan ‘Dunk’ the Tall
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Finn Bennett
Aerion Targaryen
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Bertie Carvel
Baelor Targaryen
Outlander season 8 (Starz)
One last trip through the stones
Outlander, based on the fantasy book series by Diana Gabaldon, will come to an end this year with the eighth and final season, and the cast and crew look determined to make it one to remember. The seventh season ended with Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Clare Fraser (Caitriona Balfe) dealing with plentiful family drama as well as the Revolutionary War. Claire is actually from the 20th century, but has traveled back in time and has been with Jamie ever since; their romance has always been at the center of the show, but can it withstand whatever tests it faces in this final phase?
Outlander season 8 premieres on March 6 on Starz.
- Release Date
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2014 – 2026-00-00
- Network
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Starz
- Showrunner
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Matthew B. Roberts
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Caitriona Balfe
Claire Randall Fraser
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Sophie Skelton
Brianna Randall
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Richard Rankin
Roger Wakefield
House of the Dragon season 3 (HBO)
The first Game of Thrones prequel show continues
The first Game of Thrones prequel show is more of what fans are used to: tons of characters, an epic story that takes place all over the map, and epic battles. The Dance of the Dragons heats up in the show’s upcoming third season, as the Blacks and the Greens fight to take the Iron Throne. Their most powerful weapon? Dragons aplenty.
House of the Dragon season 3 doesn’t have an exact release date yet, but the cast says it’s probably coming out in the summer.
- Release Date
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August 21, 2022
- Network
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HBO
- Showrunner
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George R.R. Martin
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Matt Smith
Prince Daemon Targaryen
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Fabien Frankel
Ser Criston Cole
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Emma D’Arcy
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (voice)
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Steve Toussaint
Lord Corlys ‘The Sea Snake’ Velaryon
Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2 (Netflix)
Aang warfare
Netflix took a big risk by remaking the classic animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender in live-action, but the first season did well enough to renew the show for two more laps, which works out to three seasons in total. There were also three seasons of the original show, meaning fans will eventually get the full story.
The second season will take Aang (Gordon Cormier) and his friends to the Earth Kingdom, where they’ll continue to try to train Aang up so he’s ready to take on the tyrannical lord of the Fire Nation (Daniel Dae Kim) and bring peace to the world.
The second season of Avatar: The Last Airbender will be along sometime this year, although we don’t know when. That goes for every other show on this list.
- Release Date
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July 1, 2010
- Runtime
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103 minutes
- Director
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M. Night Shyamalan
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-
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Nicola Peltz Beckham
Katara
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The Legend of Vox Machina season 4 (Amazon Prime Video)
Mighty Fine
The Legend of Vox Machina is an adaptation of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign played by the fine folks at Critical Role. There’s a goofy looseness to the show that’s made it a hit with fantasy fans. The first three seasons go down easy, and the fourth promises more of the same. The show will end with season 5.
Again, we don’t know exactly when the new episodes will drop, but if you’re missing Vox Machina in the meantime, you can always check out The Mighty Nein, which is based on a different Critical Role D&D campaign. They’re building an empire over there.
- Release Date
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January 27, 2022
- Network
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Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Brandon Auman
- Directors
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Young Heller, Eugene Lee, Alicia Chan
- Writers
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Eugene Son, Travis Willingham, Chris Wyatt, Kevin Burke, Suzanne Keilly, Mae Catt, Todd Casey, Ashly Burch, May Chan, Marc Bernardin
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Laura Bailey
Vex’ahlia (voice)
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Taliesin Jaffe
Percy (voice)
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Ashley Johnson
Pike (voice)
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Liam O’Brien
Vax’ildan (voice)
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 3 (Amazon Prime Video)
Númenor no more?
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is all about what your favorite characters from The Lord of the Rings were doing during the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before the likes of Frodo and Sam were born. Sauron (Charlie Vickers) is on the rise, and the likes of Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Elrond (Robert Aramayo) are resisting him.
The Rings of Power has let down some Lord of the Rings fans, upset with how fast and loose it plays with J.R.R. Tolkien’s mythology, but it’s definitely found an audience. And as one of the most expensive TV series around, you can’t argue with its scale and sweep.
- Release Date
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September 1, 2022
- Network
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Amazon Prime Video
- Showrunner
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John D. Payne, Patrick McKay, Louise Hooper, Charlotte Brändström, Wayne Yip
- Directors
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J.A. Bayona, Sanaa Hamri
- Writers
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Patrick McKay, John D. Payne, J.R.R. Tolkien, Justin Doble, Jason Cahill, Gennifer Hutchison, Stephany Folsom, Nicholas Adams
- Franchise(s)
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The Lord of the Rings
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-
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Charles Edwards
Lord Celebrimbor
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Markella Kavenagh
Nori Brandyfoot
The Witcher season 5 (Netflix)
Limping towards the finish
The Witcher, on the other hand, seems to be a perennial punching bag on the internet, with lots of folk taking shots at this adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy book series. A lot of people still don’t seem over the fact that Liam Hemsworth replaced original actor Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, the professional monster hunter at the center of the story. Is that fair? You can judge for yourself when the fifth and final season of this show drops on Netflix, probably late in the year.
- Release Date
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December 20, 2019
- Network
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Netflix
- Showrunner
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Lauren Schmidt Hissrich
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Henry Cavill
Geralt of Rivia
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Anya Chalotra
Yennefer of Vengerberg
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Freya Allan
Princess Cirilla ‘Ciri’ of Cintra
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Kinda fantasy
There are a few other fantasy-esque series on the way this year, although their genres are all a little ambiguous, so they didn’t make the list proper. Still, they’re worth mentioning:
- The Testaments: This spinoff of The Handmaid’s Tale will return to the dystopian nation of Gilead. It’ll start airing on Hulu in April.
- The Vampire Lestat: If the third season of Interview With The Vampire is anything like the first two, the return of this horror show could be the TV event of the year. Expect it on AMC in April.
- One Piece season 3: Netflix’s live-action remake of the classic pirate anime will return at some point in 2026.
- Devil May Cry season 2: Netflix’s animated adaptation of the demon-slicing video game series is also coming back.
Happy watching!
