The Best Fantasy Series Of 2026 Is Coming To Apple TV In 48 Hours

Published Oct 5, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT After 18 months at Screen Rant, Guy became Classic TV Editor in September 2026, and specializes in leading features content about shows from decades gone by. Having written for and editing several TV, film and music publications, his areas of expertise include comedy, crime, historical drama, Westerns, and political thrillers. When it comes time to account for the year 2026 in television, the best fantasy series won’t be Harry Potter or Rings of Power. It won’t even be HBO’s admittedly brilliant Game of Thrones spinoff A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Instead, it will be a little-known BBC sitcom that’s finally coming to U.S. streaming this month, after its British TV debut back in February. The Office actor Mackenzie Crook is already an expert in penning weird and wonderful, criminally underrated sitcoms that no one seems to know about. But if Apple TV play their advertising cards right, his latest creation shouldn’t be underrated or unknown for long. It’s a distinctly warm-hearted, off-kilter affair about a lonely man and his jars of organic alchemy. Much like Crook’s previous sitcom Detectorists, the fantasy elements in Small Prophets aren’t immediately apparent. They’re initially passed off as figments of Brian Sleep’s senile imagination. But Brian’s son Michael is at such a loss that he ends up following his father’s highly unorthodox advice. What follows is a particularly enchanting tale of magical realism quite unlike any other. The number one TV premiere date in your calendar for October shouldn’t be The Diplomat season 4, or Mike Flanagan’s new Carrie adaptation, as worthy as these releases are. It should be Small Prophets, a plucky underdog that deserves to be loved wholeheartedly, much like its relatably tragic protagonist. Apple TV Is Premiering Small Prophets On October 7 Best known to many audiences for playing the wooden-eyed pirate Ragetti in Pirates of the Caribbean, Mackenzie Crook is a highly accomplished comedy writer as well as an actor, whose writings are infused with a subtly perceptive and empathic humanism that’s becoming increasingly rare on television. Small Prophets is the best TV show that Crook has created so far, a hilariously relatable and intensely moving story about a middle-aged man whose life is in tatters after his wife leaves him, apparently without explanation. Michael Sleep finds a way forward in the unlikeliest of hobbies, tending to jars with magical contents, on the advice of his formerly adventurous father, who once visited sorcerers in Egypt, but now lives with dementia at a retirement home. He soon reveals his secret pastime to a like-minded work friend named Kacey. Whether Michael gets what he needs from the jars in his garage, his absent-minded father, or his curious colleague remains to be seen. However his story ends up, anyone who watches Small Prophets can’t help but buy into its protagonist’s strange journey. As the show’s title suggests, it’s in the little things that we find its infectious warmth and wicked sense of humor. Whether it’s an awkward conversation between Michael and Kacey during lunch hour, or Michael’s increasingly incensed next-door neighbors trying to spy on his garage, the true magic of Small Prophets is that it’s painfully relatable. Viewers in the United States and certain other global regions will be able to watch the sitcom from Wednesday, October 7 on Apple TV. Its first two episodes will be released together, and the subsequent four episodes in season 1 will each be released weekly, every following Wednesday until November 4. Small Prophets Is The Best New Fantasy TV Show Of 2026 It’s no surprise that the BBC have already renewed Small Prophets for season 2, given the relative success the series has had in the UK. While it hasn’t attracted as many viewers as its rave reviews merit, the show has also done well enough to be picked up by the major streaming platform it deserves. 2026 has already been a big year for fantasy TV in the United States, and the release of The Witcher’s final season, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 3, and Harry Potter’s debut season on HBO are about to make the genre front-page news. Yet, any of these series will do well to match Small Prophets as a work of art. This unassuming British sitcom pulls on the heartstrings while turning its partially concealed magic into a tantalizing mystery for us to solve. But with terrific performances from Pearce Quigley, Lauren Patel, and Monty Python’s Michael Palin, among other British screen luminaries, Small Prophets shouldn’t remain a secret for long. Release Date October 7, 2026 Network BBC Two Directors Mackenzie Crook Cast Pearce Quigley Michael Sleep Michael Palin Brian Sleep Seven years ago, Michael Sleep's partner Clea disappeared. In his loneliness and grief, Michael experiments with an old alchemical recipe for creating prophetic homunculi, hoping the strange creatures can finally tell him whether he will ever see Clea again.