TV

While all the talk right now is ranking the TV shows of 2025 (which I have yet to do), I am already looking forward to 2026.

If you are not happy about the two-year delay in the return of season five of Apple TV’s For All Mankind, you can rest easy knowing that 2026 will not only have season five of this favorite, but also the premiere of a spin-off called Star City. Yes, the premiere of Star City was announced by Apple TV two-and-a-half years ago with the season five news, but it seems 2026 will see both shows break loose

So what is Star City about? That earlier announcement shared this from executive producers Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi:

Our fascination with the Soviet space program has grown with every season of ‘For All Mankind…The more we learned about this secret city in the forests outside Moscow where the Soviet cosmonauts and engineers worked and lived, the more we wanted to tell this story of the other side of the space race. We could not be more excited to continue building out the alternate history universe of ‘For All Mankind’ with our partners at Apple and Sony.

Wolpwert also had this to say about where season five of For All Mankind was heading:

We can say that, obviously, season four ended with an asteroid being stolen, and so there are a lot of people on Earth who are pretty pissed off about that. I think that more than anything, I would say the thrust of the season five story is how a rift is forming between the people who live on Mars, and more and more people are now living on Mars, and the people who have stayed back on Earth. And so, this show that started with a US versus USSR Cold War is now developing into a Mars versus Earth political schism, and how that impacts all of the characters we’ve come to know and love is really fun.

Okay, after that preamble, what are the premiere dates of these shows? That is unclear, though Apple TV already has a placeholder forStar City on its website, or at least this is the case in New Zealand. I know, very odd.

I am not sure why Apple TV is so quiet about all of this. The secrecy is worst than a classified Russian space program. The delays only frustrate the fan base, though it was smart that the creators showed up at San Diego Comic-Con 2025 to share more about these shows.

Maybe Pluribus is sucking up all of the oxygen in the room at the moment, but I think it is time for Apple TV to start talking about these other shows given that a very eager fan base is getting antsy.

The sixth episode of Apple TV+’s Pluribus dropped this week. If you haven’t heard of the new series, you may want to check in. It starts like the movie Contact, has elements of 3 Body Problem (including the clock), and turns into The Last Man on Earth, though in this case its an angry, lone woman dealing with Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Interested? Oh yeah, it comes from Vince Gilligan, the same guy who also gave us on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. It also stars Rhea Seehorn from Better Call Saul.

It all starts when a radio signal from a civilization about 600 light-years away is intercepted by Earth. This signal contains a RNA sequence. Of course, the dumb Earthlings find it necessary to recreate this sequence, lose control of the experiment (alla Jurassic Park), and thereby release a virus that turns the human population into the Borg. The rest of the story is how one woman and twelve other unaffected humans make their way in this new world.

It’s an odd start to a very odd show, but it is fun and thought-provoking in its own way. It also doesn’t have simple story lines where the everyone agrees there is a problem with the new human state, or at least not all of the 13 remaining people agree. We know the collective mind seems to work in nature, be it bees or ants, so it is not impossible.

It is too early to know whether this show has a soft landing or even a future, but it’s the type of show, like Severance, that is sure to be discussed at the virtual office water cooler.

Okay, that’s enough references to other shows and movies. I counted eight, but I can also say that Pluribus is unique enough that none of those references really does it any justice.

While I am very happy with the sci-fi shows from this past summer, I would be happy to see the return Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville, if only rumors were true. Yes, the series seemed to start as a spoof of Star Trek, but it found its own unique footing and grew on me over time. Hence, I was not happy to see it end in 2022 after 3 seasons and 36 episodes.

You may remember back in January 2024 when MacFarlane told The Wrap somewhat cryptically:

All I can tell you is that there is no official death certificate for The Orville. It is still with us. I can’t go any further than that at the moment. There are too many factors.

And then this time last year, some sites, such as The Cinemaholic, were reporting that filming for season four was to start in January 2025.

While the filming rumor was false, as recently as August of this year Seth MacFarlane kept rumors alive when he told Ted Danson that he still plans to do a season four, or that’s how the media reported it. Actually, if you listen to the interview, what he said was, “We still have yet to do a season four.” This is a correct statement, but not really a statement of intent.

Can we hang our hats on the word “yet” and start to assume a fourth season? That would not be a safe bet. Many artists feel their work deserves more running time and will not let go, if only for the sake of the fans.

So I am deciding to focus on the new sci-fi shows from the last 12 months that really are returning or seem to have a strong shot at another season, which includes:

• Dune: Prophesy – already renewed
• Murderbot – already renewed
• Alien: Earth – still up in the air, but an announcement should be made this month

That said, I am not giving up on the return of The Orville.