9 best TV shows to watch this month (October 2026)

Crystal Lake, Tip Toe, and Carrie are just a few of the shows you should be watching right now.

While many outlets will tell you what everyone is watching (see: Reacher), that's not our point. As always, the TV shows we're watching this month reflect the kinds of stories WIRED covers every day — shows that intersect technology, science, politics, culture, and sometimes in uncomfortable ways.

From returning favorites to ambitious new series — and at least one show that might rekindle your love for traditional anime — these are the TV shows we think you should make time to stream this month.

What happens when a newspaper struggles not just to survive, but to thrive in a world where digital media has become the norm? The Paper, The Office spin-off from Greg Daniels and Michael Koeman, follows the staff of a struggling newspaper as they try to revive it.

Finally, its idealistic new editor Ned Sampson (Star Wars and Harry Potter ace Donnell Gleeson) and his hungry young reporter Mare Preeti (Chelsea Frey) finally grapple with what journalism looks like in the digital age. Season 2, out September 9, sees the recently revived Toledo Truther in search of his next big part, making the series a surprisingly sharp comedy about the future of journalism and who's shaping it.

Although The Mandalorian and Grogu (now streaming on Disney+) underperformed at the box office this summer, Lucasfilm is teaming up with Lego to give the fan-favorite Star Wars series another shot. Just what the franchise needs right now. Lucasfilm and LEGO are going back to basics, reimagining all three seasons of the live-action series starring Pedro Pascal as a 49-minute animated comedy.

For anyone who's ever managed to miss Mando and Grogo, the story follows Dean Jarin (Pascal in the live-action series, Gavin Hammon in this iteration), a bounty hunter known as the Mandalorian, who is tasked with transporting a mysterious Force-sensitive child. That child is, of course, Grogo, aka Baby Yoda. What starts as a simple assignment turns into a galactic adventure as the pair become unlikely partners. Consider this version a fun way to play.

It's hard to remember a time when the world didn't have South Park. For nearly 30 years, audiences have watched four fourth graders—Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny—live in the quaint mountain town of South Park, Colorado, in this very adult animated comedy. Along the way, they've encountered alien life forms, celebrities, and Elon Musk (yes, the real one). They have also watched Kenny die at least 100 times.

Last year, this seemingly endless sitcom reinvented itself as a niche political satire, taking aim at figures including JD Vance, Pete Hegsett, Christy Nome, Donald Trump and Donald Trump's masculinity. The White House, unsurprisingly, had thoughts. And so are the Emmy Awards. The show just took home the 2026 award for Outstanding Animated Program, and it's clear that creators Terry Parker and Matt Stone have no plans to take their foot off the gas. They just announced that they're taking a page out of Trump's renaming book and renaming the South American series for its 29th season, which premieres on September 16.

What if the best spy show on TV is also one of the funniest shows on TV? If John Le Carre and (the original) The Office had a baby, it would look a lot like slow horses, which returns for a sixth season on September 16.

Based on Mick Heron's Slough House series of books, the series follows a dysfunctional team of MI5 misfits who are exiled to the infamous Slough House unit, where they work under the infamous Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), a foul-mouthed, wind-chilling, chain-smoking man who operates the room. It's a prestige spy thriller that doesn't take itself too seriously, effortlessly flitting between shootouts and the kind of annoying banter you'd expect from the best workplace comedies. In a career full of memorable performances, and an Academy Award for it, Slow Horses may be the role for which Oldman is most remembered. It is also the project that made Jack Lowden the best choice for the next James Bond.

In City of Blood, an eight-episode miniseries from Germany, climate change has turned Berlin into a city teetering on the brink of collapse—and vampires are ready to take advantage of the chaos. While a privileged few live under a climate-controlled dome, the rest of the city's residents are left to battle the heat, crime, and corruption that have become part of everyday life. But when estranged sisters (Lea Drinda) and Phoebe (Soma Pisalle) reunite, they uncover a sinister political plot and learn that blood has become the city's most valuable commodity, thanks to that aforementioned undead population. It's a totally weird mix of climatic dystopia, family drama, and vampire thriller. And it arrives on September 16.

Season 2 of MobLand is almost here - whether Tom Hardy likes it or not. (Despite all the recent headlines surrounding the Oscar-winning behind-the-scenes drama, he's already signed on for Season 3.) The much-underrated, or perhaps under-seen, crime drama returns with the Harrigan family's criminal empire under threat from rival forces, and street-smart fixer Harry D'Souza forces them to navigate intense internal tensions.

As Harry struggles to keep his fractured family together, he enlists the help of his trusted assistant Zosia (Jasmine Jobson), a tech expert who brings a distinctly 21st-century flair to their old criminal enterprise led by Conrad (Pierce Brosnan), (Helen Merenton) and Marv Haring. Meanwhile, rival forces converge, loyalties shift, and violence spreads to every corner of the family's world. Expect more bloodshed, shifting loyalties, poor decisions, and one of TV's most Kickass theme songs ("Starburster" by Fontanes D.C.) when season 2 premieres on September 18.

Before Jamie and Claire were there, there were their parents. Like its predecessor, this Outlander prequel follows two separate timelines as it details the courtship of Jamie Fraser's parents, Brian Fraser (Jamie Roy) and Ellen Mackenzie (Harriet Slater), in 18th-century Scotland, alongside the story of Claire Beauchamp's parents and Beauchamp's parents, Juviner Jimsery. (Hermione Corfield), in England during World War I. Their two romances take place in different time periods and combine the romance, family drama, and time-travel forces that have kept Outlander fans enthralled for eight seasons. The second season of this series will be released on September 18.

Season 13 of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk's horror anthology is taking shape, billed at various points as an Avengers-style "greatest hits" "endgame event." While details, as always, have been kept relatively quiet, what we do know is that the new season of American Horror Story will pull bits and pieces from each season of the series, with a heavy emphasis on the witch-filled stories of "Coven" and "Apocalypse."

We also know it's reassembling a cast of past stars, some of whom will play double or even triple roles. Among them: Murphy supports Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Emma Roberts, Billie Lourd and Angela Bassett. The new season arrives on September 26, giving you plenty of time to brush up on your AHS info.

Before Netflix gave it a new English dub—and caused quite a stir, depending on who you ask—there was the original Japanese version of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Released in 1995, this landmark anime follows a group of teenagers who are recruited to pilot giant biomechanical weapons called Evangelions, or Evas, to defend a post-apocalyptic Tokyo (now known as Tokyo-3) against mysterious beings called angels. But what begins as a fairly straightforward story of the battle for humanity soon turns into something very strange, exploring trauma, loneliness, identity, and human connection.

The Criterion Channel is streaming all 26 episodes of the classic (pre-Netflix) English dub for the first time, along with the original Japanese version, for all you purists. It's a fitting return for one of the most borderline anime series.