Bottom Row: Ponies (Peacock); Rooster (HBO); Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen (Netflix).
We’re right around halfway through 2026, and there have been so many shows to watch that I almost feel a little bit overwhelmed at times. Therefore, I like to do these TV Review Catch-Ups, so as to get my thoughts out there on a wide variety of shows that I watched and perhaps enjoyed, but which didn’t really inspire me to dedicate entire solo reviews for. So, instead, here I’ve collected my thoughts in bite-sized form in a review compilation. This time around, I’m giving you my thoughts on 1) a returning Danish Netflix series, 2) a very odd HBO dramedy, 3) a video-game adaptation whose second season may not have fully blown me away, 4) an underseen period piece spy-dramedy, 5) another Bill Lawrence comedy, and 6) an unsettling Netflix original series from earlier this year.
The Chestnut Man: Season 2 | Series | Created by Dorte Warnøe Hagh | Release Year: 2026 | Season Length: 6 Episodes | Recommended?: It depends.
The second season of the Danish police procedural based on Søren Sveistrup’s Kastanjemanden books is dubbed The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek internationally. The second season, released almost five full years after the first, reunites Copenhagen-based investigator Naia Thulin (played by Danica Curcic) and Danish Europol investigator Mark Hess (played by Mikkel Boe Følsgaard) for another disturbing, active murder case they must solve. I thought the first season was a solid Scandi-crime show, and while I don’t necessarily think it is as solid this season, I enjoyed my time with the second season a fair bit, and I really liked the inclusion of Sofie Gråbøl, who is one of the screen legends of Danish crime shows (she was the lead of Forbrydelsen, known internationally as The Killing).
To be clear, though, this is relatively unremarkable, standard police procedural fare, and if you’re into that kind of thing, then I think you’re going to have a pretty good time with this series, as both Curcic and Følsgaard are some of Denmark’s best actors. My main gripes this season are that there is a relatively cliché romantic re-blossoming of the two leads’ romantic relationship, which relies on us buying into something having happened that apparently happened between seasons. For that reason, I didn’t ever really feel attached to the romantic side of things here, even though it was nice to see the duo back together for another case. The case itself is rather gripping, though. However, I do think the eventual reveal of the identity of the killer is slightly predictable.
Although it all happens because of a very over-the-top, insane ex-husband type of character, the one major surprise and trick this show has up its sleeves is that there is a pretty shocking and effective traumatic halfway point in the season. That said, the effect of said bold surprise is only effective in that moment. The next episodes felt less effective because the surprise takes something, or someone, away from the series, who helped make the show what it is. In general, I think the action is over-the-top in this show, and I’m not just talking about the aforementioned traumatic event; I’m also referring to the final climax. Still, I had solid enough time with this show, even if it was cliched and overreliant on a dynamic switch-up happening between seasons.
DTF St. Louis | Series | Created by Steven Conrad | Release Year: 2026 | Season Length: 7 Episodes | Recommended?: It depends.
This show may take the cake as the oddest series I’ve seen thus far this year. Conrad’s dark comedy-crime series is about middle-aged despondency and a love triangle that may or may not be the reason for someone’s death. Presented non-linearly, the narrative revolves around the solving of a suspected crime, as David Harbour’s character, Floyd, has been found dead inside a local community pool house. Floyd was meant to meet someone he communicated with on a dating app, which his buddy Clark (played by Jason Bateman) recommended for him. Clark, however, is also having an affair with Floyd’s wife, Carol (played by Linda Cardellini), whose relationship with her husband has deteriorated. Oh, and on top of that, the show is also about seeing Richard Jenkins’ detective character learn about various kinks.
Given the cast and the odd genre-concoction, I thought this show was going to be right up my alley. But, even though I mostly enjoyed watching it, I was also somewhat underwhelmed by it. I have mixed feelings about the week-to-week experience of watching the show. In my notes, I jotted repeatedly that the series felt flat and that it was a little too obvious what was going on. That said, I do think the show deserves a lot of credit for featuring uniformly great performances, and, especially, for being a very well-made show about middle-aged male loneliness. I also think it has something to say about the importance of connection and opening up in male friendships. As they say repeatedly in the show: “No one’s normal, it just looks like that from across the street.” As for the ending, well, parts of it felt unsatisfying, perhaps especially because of the whole murder case aspect of the series. I don’t know if the series needed that framing from the very start. So, yeah, I have mixed feelings on the show and perhaps especially the structure of it, but there is enough to like here, if it sounds like your kind of thing.
Fallout: Season 2 | Series | Created by Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet | Release Year: 2025-2026 | Season Length: 8 Episodes | Recommended?: Sure.
I was a very big fan of the first season of Fallout. It instantly became one of the best TV-show adaptations of a video game, right alongside The Last of Us. But it didn’t work as well for me in the second season. I’m not sure what the general consensus is, but while I enjoyed watching and following along in season two, it did feel like a little bit of a downgrade from season one. It still does a good job of striking the right tone, but my overall investment in the show has taken a hit. I do think certain subplots have moved quite slowly this season and with minimal development, and I’ll add that I think certain subplots suffer from not featuring a multifaceted character, whose arc we’re invested in. The cameos earlier in the season were a lot of fun initially, but they were really just there for show.
I’m still super invested in Lucy and the Ghoul (including the Walton Goggins-led flashbacks), but there’s been something about the pace and the narrative juggling act that hasn’t worked as well as it should. Still a solid season, but plenty to improve upon (including the Vault-dweller stuff, which is much less interesting now). I thought the finale was entertaining, but I also see it as an overly busy (and thus rushed) finale. It definitely feels like a mistake to force all of the narrative threads into the finale, as you end up feeling like you don’t get enough time with any of the characters. I am also not fully happy with how they leave things. Some subplots ended in strong ways, but just as many ended in frustrating or underwhelming ways.
This is a spoiler, but, as someone who is primarily invested in Cooper/the Ghoul’s storyline(s), I was a little bit disappointed by them having set up him finding his family only to punt that storyline into next season. That’s not very satisfying. Again, it’s not quite as strong as season one, but it’s more than solid enough. It’s still one of the very best video game adaptations. I wouldn’t be surprised if they changed the weekly release model going forward, as I’m not sure it did the show many favors this time around.
Ponies: Season 1 | Series | Created by Susanna Fogel and David Iserson | Release Year: 2026 | Season Length: 8 Episodes | Recommended?: Sure.
If you’re craving a fairly entertaining espionage drama set in the late 1970s, then Ponies is the show you’re looking for. It follows Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson, who play the wives of CIA operatives killed in action in the Soviet Union. After their husbands’ deaths, they decide against just going back to America. Instead, they stay in the Soviet Union, become CIA operatives themselves, and try to figure out why their husbands died. Fogel and Iserson’s show has two genuinely charming lead performances from Richardson and Clarke, who are almost performing an espionage drama-based double act, with Richardson being a loose, funny man type of character and Clarke being a more nervous straight man type. I think the leads are genuinely delightful in this, and the Soviet-era version of the spy world is always quite entertaining, especially in this genre concoction. The undercover KGB stuff that’s going on here is appropriately tense and gripping, and the show really just works. I did think the season was a little bit too long, and, frankly, I could’ve done without a tease for another season. This would’ve been a perfectly fine one-season show.
Rooster: Season 1 | Series | Created by Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses | Release Year: 2026 | Season Length: 10 Episodes | Recommended?: It depends.
I just really like Bill Lawrence comedies, so I was an easy mark for this show. Still, I have to say that I was baffled at times by how much this show resembled his other hits. Sometimes it genuinely made me think that HBO must’ve asked him for exactly what he’s done before. The Bill Lawrence show formula is a little bit too obvious in this show. For example, the Walt and Sunny scenes in the sauna felt very close to what they did on Shrinking with Harrison Ford and Jason Segel’s character’s daughter. That counseling/mentor-mentee type dynamic, I mean, felt unoriginal, and perhaps it feels even more familiar given the fact that it’s literally John C. McGinley, of Scrubs fame, playing another Bill Lawrence mentor-character. But then they also go the way of Ted Lasso, just with hockey. It’s obviously not a one-to-one similarity, but I don’t understand why they had to force a team-sport coaching subplot into this show (and with the lead character, no less). Having said all that, McGinley, Phil Dunster, Charly Clive, Lauren Tsai, and Danielle Deadwyler are all uniformly good here, and, unsurprisingly, Steve Carell fits perfectly into the mold of a Bill Lawrence protagonist. Frankly, the show sometimes made you think of a younger version of Carell, as they give us an episode of him out on the town, getting drunk and high with college students. It’s zany, over-the-top, and laugh-out-loud funny. The show doesn’t hit all the time, but when it does, it really hits hard. One of my favorite bits in the show was the premiere’s clever Chekhov’s “First Edition of Tolstoy’s War and Peace” bit. I will say that I think this probably could’ve been just a single season, and the end of the season, which sets up a second season, felt very rushed to me. Charly Clive’s character flip-flops with an epiphany that came way too soon, and one of the students of Carell’s character goes from being an underperforming student to an OK student way too quickly. But, hey, despite all of this, I still think this was a fun watch.
Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen | Series | Created by Haley Z. Boston | Release Year: 2026 | Season Length: 8 Episodes | Recommended?: Yes.
Now, this is actually one of this year’s hidden gems thus far. Here is a horror show about an engaged couple experiencing strange events that make them second-guess their getting married and their family histories in the process. Haley Z. Boston’s horror miniseries has a really solid cast (also including Jennifer Jason Leigh and Ted Levine, among others), spearheaded by an excellent Camila Morrone, who turns in a breakthrough performance. As a Dane who grew up watching him in the Nicolas Winding Refn Pusher films (and has enjoyed seeing him have a second international breakthrough in the 2020s), I really enjoyed seeing Zlatko Buric in this, and I thought he added the right kind of mystery and character quirks to the show. Although it definitely carves out its own lore and is rather different from it in other respects, I will say I often found myself jotting notes about how much this series reminded me of Radio Silence’s Ready or Not, given both how things play out and how it’s all set up. But at the end of the day, though there was maybe one too many reversals at the end of the show, I was really impressed by how dark and how much of a downer it is willing to be. It was also fascinating to see a major American show be this much of a blood-soaked argument against the institution of marriage and the rituals built around it. As a closing side note, I’d be very interested to know what Lars Von Trier would think of this show, what with the end-of-the-world feeling around marriage (Melancholia) and the foxes present in it (Antichrist). There are definitely some lines to be drawn between his oeuvre and this.
– Reviews written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.
