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5 of the best dramas of 2026 that you probably haven't seen yet - from new Brenda Blethyn favourite to Prime Video thriller

Proof that some of the best television of 2026 isn’t always the most talked-about, here are five hidden TV gems just waiting to be discovered...

David Thewlis and Jason Watkins in Dirty Business, stood outside an looking down at something, concerned.

Channel 4

Published: Thursday, 18 June 2026 at 7:00 am

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During the first half of 2026, we’ve read plenty of paeans to The Pitt, endless eulogies for Euphoria, and countless recommendations for Rivals.

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But what of those underrated TV dramas that fade from view after that initial ping on the critics' radar?

So crowded is the current TV landscape that only a chosen few programmes end up standing tall in this highly populated field. But we’re here to redress that balance and offer an extra shout-out to the shows that have suffered the small screen’s equivalent of a mayfly’s fate.

There’s murder, daring schemes, social comment and sudsy melodrama – proof that the year’s best television isn’t always the most talked-about…

1) Dirty Business (Channel 4)

Three people wearing bright orange high-visibility vests stand inside an industrial facility surrounded by large machinery and pipes. A blonde woman stands in front with her hands clasped, wearing a lanyard and ID badge, while two men stand slightly behind her. All three look serious as they face something off-camera.

Dirty Business. Channel 4

“It helps when people lie,” says David Thewlis’s character, Ash, in this impactful three-parter. “It’s how you know they’ve got something to hide.” From Toxic Town to Mr Bates vs The Post Office, factual TV dramas have become one of our most potent tools for highlighting corporate malfeasance and giving voice to victims.

Based on a decade-long investigation into England’s water companies, this latest one tells the stories of real people who believe their lives have been destroyed by sewage pollution. Thewlis and Jason Watkins play the unlikely Oxfordshire duo – a former police detective and a biology professor – who notice that fish are dying in their local river and courageously launch their own campaign.

What ensues is a belief-beggaring of failure, negligence and human tragedy – including an eight-year-old girl who died after contracting E coli from what her parents believe was illegally dumped human waste on a Devon beach. The righteously angry narrative skilfully flits between timeframes and cases, between fictionalised scenes, newsreel and graphics. A shocking story powerfully told. – Michael Hogan

2) Agatha Christie's Seven Dials (Netflix)

Mia McKenna Bruce and Corey Mylchreest in Agatha Christie's Seven Dials. He is wearing a tuxedo, she is wearing a dress and they are dancing together, smiling.

Agatha Christie's Seven Dials. Simon Ridgway/Netflix

This is Agatha Christie on high-spirited form, her 1920s-set story of Bright Young Things dicing with danger more similar in tone to Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? than to any of the traditional mysteries featuring Miss Marple or Poirot for which she’s best remembered. Light on clue-finding but strong on a sense of youthful adventure, it takes its wilful aristocratic heroine Lady Eileen “Bundle” Brent (a well-cast Mia McKenna Bruce) on a caper from a country estate to a shady London nightclub as she pursues a murderer with possible links to the worlds of espionage and secret societies.

If all this sounds too far-fetched to be credible, then the same thought must have struck screenwriter Chris Chibnall (Broadchurch, Doctor Who) who, following a slightly sedate opening hour, leans increasingly into the romping, light-heartedness of the plot. In this endeavour, he has able assistance from Helena Bonham Carter (as Bundle’s sardonic mother Lady Caterham) and Martin Freeman (playing dry, wry Superintendent Battle) – both actors pitching their performances just the right side of parody. – David Brown

3) Waiting for the Out (iPlayer)

Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́ as Officer Stephens and Josh Finan as Dan in Waiting for the Out, sat against a white tiled wall, looking at one another.

Waiting for the Out. BBC/Sister Pictures/Kerry Spicer

There is layer upon layer of satisfying dramatic sophistication in this new series by the playwright Dennis Kelly, whose eclectic TV CV consists of the Sharon Horgan sitcom Pulling, startling Channel 4 conspiracy thriller Utopia and the Jude Law-led folk horror The Third Day. This is much more what you’d expect from a writer known mostly for theatre, since it includes long, talky scenes set in the prison philosophy classes led by Dan (Josh Finan), a clever but nervous young man whose troubled background has left him with obsessive behaviours and a limited capacity to cope with adulthood.

As Dan’s class of prisoners challenge his attempts to school them on Locke, Descartes and the rest – either because they don’t have any knowledge of academic philosophy, or because they do – the conversations shape Dan as much as they do the inmates. Kelly’s deft, wise script is equalled by a lead performance from Finan – so good in The Responder and Say Nothing, and grabbing a bigger chance here – that delicately brings all of Dan’s vulnerability and strength to life. Waiting for the Out will tickle your brain in a way that few dramas can. – Jack Seale

4) A Woman of Substance (Channel 4)

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A Woman of Substance. Channel 4

Poverty, passion and power: Barbara Taylor Bradford’s rags to riches saga has it all so was a major success when it was published in 1979. The 1985 TV version (starring Jenny Seagrove and Deborah Kerr) was watched by over 13 million people. Here, the magnificent Brenda Blethyn plays the fabulously wealthy Emma Harte who has dedicated her whole life to revenge (while also becoming a global business tycoon) and Jessica Reynolds is young Emma, a lowly yet resourceful kitchen maid working at the Fairley family’s grand Yorkshire mansion in the early 1900s.

The opening episode concentrates mainly on the relentless hardship, cruelty and misery young Emma endures. No wonder she’s taken in by the sweet words of young Edwin (Ewan Horrocks) who persuades her “we are the same” while we at home are indignantly screaming “no you’re not!” at the screen. Among the familiar faces in this enjoyable adaptation are Will Mellor, Emmet J Scanlan, Lenny Rush and Leanne Best. – Jane Rackham

5) Steal (Prime Video)

Sophie Turner as Zara in Steal, stood in a tower block and leaning on a glass wall.

Steal. Samuel Dore/Prime

In a City of London skyscraper, it’s another dull day at a pension management fund as ambitious people in their 20s shift large sums of money around, Industry-style – until a gang of smoothly suited visitors burst out of the lift, armed with machine guns and intent on executing a truly outrageous plan to steal several billion pounds. Once a nicely taut hostage/heist scenario has played out in episode 1, the thriller’s scope widens to take in a larger conspiracy that, as TV drama conspiracies tend to, includes some frighteningly powerful people e- and a narrative where a good rule of thumb is to assume that nothing and nobody are quite as they initially appear.

This six-parter is never top-class – there’s always something slightly unconvincing about the dialogue, and the endless twists become a little wearing – but it’s ably led by Game of Thrones' Sophie Turner and Saltburn’s Archie Madekwe as investment analysts Zara and Luke. They star alongside Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as the potentially compromised investigating detective, with the likes of Peter Mullan and Anna Maxwell Martin popping up in the supporting cast. – Jack Seale

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Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.

Authors

David Brown is standing outside in front of some greenery. He wears a grey T-shirt and is looking at the camera

David BrownDeputy Previews Editor, Radio Times

David Brown is Deputy Previews Editor at Radio Times, with a particular interest in crime drama and fantasy TV. He has appeared as a contributor on BBC News, Sky News and Radio 4’s Front Row and has had work published in the Guardian, the Sunday Times and the i newspaper. He has also worked as a writer and editorial consultant on the National Television Awards, as well as several documentaries profiling the likes of Lenny Henry, Billy Connolly and Take That.

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