I watch a ton of movies and TV shows. There are a lot of times that I think that I might be allowing this sort of viewing to consume too much of my time and I might be better off if I did really anything else other than stare into the TV void like I do all the time.
I watch so many series that I almost never finish any of them and not since Pluribus have I seen a show that I was super excited for the next episode to come out.
I did a search the other day to see what the top series for 2026 are thus far and was kind of alarmed to find out that the "best" or most viewed at least, shows of this year are all series that I either never bothered with in the first place, or watched 1 or 2 episodes of before giving up.
[src](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Stranger_Things_logo.png?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=index&utm_content=original)For fans of this show, it probably wont be all that surprising that Stranger Things is the number one most viewed show of 2026. Who knows how they get this data but there has been 23.26 billion minutes streamed of ST. If we were to somehow be able to factor in unauthorized viewing and piracy, it would likely be considerably higher.
I tried to like this show and made it all the way through season 1 and a couple of episodes into season 2. I can't really put my finger on exactly why I didn't care for this show, but it just never really resonated with me for some reason. I know a few people that absolutely loved this show but to me, it seemed like slop and since I don't particularly care for child actors, this was an easy pass on my part.
The number 2 show of 2026 is even more surprising because not only am I not a fan of it, I've never even heard of it.
[src](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/48/Bluey_%282018_TV_series%29_title_card.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=index&utm_content=original)I'm a lot more likely to watch this show than Stranger Things and I can only guess that this show is meant for kids and that is why I have never seen it. There are 154 episodes of this. Good grief. I would be willing to bet that there are a lot of parents out there that absolutely hate this show the way that my parents despised Teletubbies and Barney.
The 3rd most viewed series of the year is something that I actually did try to watch, and this year as well.
The reason why I bailed on The Pitt was because I guess I've never really been a fan of medical dramas. I never enjoyed ER and there are countless others that I did try to get into, but the formula simply doesn't work on me. While it is not at all the same thing, one of my favorite TV series of all time is Scrubs and had it not been for the delightful mix of comedy and drama I likely would have jumped ship on that one as well.
Other top series of the year are A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms but I don't enjoy trying to put a comical spin on GoT. I suppose I have Game of Thrones fatigue because as you would expect, they are truly milking the crap out of that franchise and I guess this was always inevitable. I haven't really even been enjoying House of the Dragon and initially I was enjoying that even more than Game of Thrones.
Corporate greed ruins a a lot of things and I think GoT is right up there with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings in terms of how over-exposure and modern audiences have ruined what I used to love about all of these things.
Other top shows include Widow's Bay, The Testaments and Bridgerton round out the top shows and I have not so much as seen a single minute of any of these.
If you have seen any of these last ones give me a heads up if you think they are worth watching.
