The Best TV of 2026 Thus Far

Hello.

Welcome to Taking it down this week.

There are no TV podcasts out there.

Really?

For the working class.

Made by the working class.

Well, until now.

That's us.

That's us at Taking It Down.

We know that a lot of television shows are scattered with a lot of different options and that you work.

We want to let you know what's worth your time and your dollar.

If you're not borrowing passwords, you won't get any judgment here.

Anyway, on this week's episode, it's only me, and I'm going to examine some of the best of the television shows this year.

If you haven't seen them, perhaps you can find one you like.

Enjoy it.

Let us know what you think.

Let me get in the show proper here.

Alabama Take projection.

Okay, no Donovan or Adam this week.

Donovan has some obligations.

Adam's wrapping up his tour as he journeys back from the uk.

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Out of all of them, why you'd recommend us to friends.

In fact, we'll take a break right here so you can go and do that.

And on the other half, I'll give you the five best series from 2026 so far.

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Okay, I'm back.

This is usually the spoiler section and after the break, but not this week.

No spoilers.

Today.

I'm going to use my time alone to review very briefly, five best shows of the year for me thus far.

So it's the top five, but I won't put them in any kind of order.

I'm just going to lay them out for you.

They've ended their run.

That's a qualification I must tell you that I'm using.

They've at least ended their run for the year, that is.

And I've seen them.

Yeah.

So no particular order over on Disney in January.

You may have forgotten it aired.

It's a new Marvel show.

Wonder man doesn't sound like much of anything, but this was an original and therefore fresh TV series in their lineup and easily the best of theirs to date.

The chemistry between the leads, Yahya Abdul Martin III and Ben Kingsley was fantastic.

It was believable.

It centered the series.

Part of why you kept coming back for the next episode every week and I think the thing that put it over the top is that it was realistic as realistic a superhero show should be.

Part of what made it great is that it recognized it was a superhero show set in a world where people have powers and exist.

I think that was a smart move.

I liked it a lot and it should be one of Disney's and Marvel's most proud of television shows.

I don't know how they feel about it, but it was great.

I would like to see more.

Next on my list is kind of out of left field is in its own way it's the NBC broadcast comedy the Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins.

It was just hilarious.

Most of its 10 episode run had multiple great jokes per minute.

It stars Tracy Morgan, Bobby Monahan from SNL days, Daniel Radcliffe and Precious Way as Reggie Dinkins fiance.

This is a show where Tracy Morgan's Reggie Dinkins is trying to get into the NFL hall of Fame after a bit of a disgrace.

I won't say more but I love this one.

It lifted me up a lot.

Very funny, good natured show.

You can find all the episodes on Peacock if you missed them on NBC each week.

Also on my list are three HBO shows.

I'll run these down, the first of which is A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, which is the first of two Game of Thrones series set to air this year.

House of the Dragon returns for its third season this summer.

I expected A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms to be pretty fun to a degree.

I didn't see it having quite the emotional impact that it did.

It's very grounded but very real.

The emotional stakes felt not incredibly large but at the same time human.

And it had some surprises that you'll find in almost all Game of Thrones series.

That was here too.

The list, you know, going in probably the better.

Some of it's been covered in Game of Thrones and its lore, but still, try not to remember that and enjoy this one.

I thought it was good.

Kind of funny too.

Next in my HBO series of greats this year.

I've praised the Pit a lot, but the second season did not suffer any sort of slump.

If anything, it's a tighter and better season than its first.

I think Noah Wy gets a lot of credit, deserved credit here as he plays Dr. Robbie, but he took it upon himself a lot more to do writing and directing.

He wrote a lot of the episodes, directed a few of them this season.

I loved it.

I thought the way that they handled a lot of the story lines from ice to health insurance was realistic and fantastic, but none were as realistic as with emotional health that the Dr. Robbie storyline had.

I thought that was very well handled.

And lastly, on the short list is the HBO series DTF St. Louis.

Again had more emotional punch than maybe, than maybe I saw coming.

Just a note.

Perfect.

Looked at suburban life.

You know, we've said it here on this podcast that the mystery is excellently done, but it's a piece of the puzzle.

It does have an odd, very surreal at times tone.

Don't let that throw you.

Jason Bateman, David Harbour and Linda Cardinelli paint really true pictures of this sort of life, even with some odd twists and turns and different tone.

And I hope out of those five you find something you like.

Or maybe you've seen some of them and you wanted to hear a little more.

That's it for this week, I believe.

Next week.

With Donovan back, we're diving into Widow's Bay on Apple and see if Apple can get a series on this list.

We'll probably end up talking about the back half of the Netflix anthology Beef and perhaps a little of HBO's Half man in both non spoilers and spoilers.

In the meantime, you can let us know what you think.

What have you been your favorite shows of this year?

You can comment on thealabamatake.com where our podcast resides, or you can email us or any of our podcasts@thealabamatakemail.com and that's it for me.

I am appreciative of your listening and your time.

For Adam and Donovan, I'm Blaine and we hope you like videos to that are coming.

Have a nice weekend.