has placed the television show A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms on its roundup of the best TV of 2026 so far, praising its lighter, simpler approach to Westeros while also noting a late Targaryen twist that propels the story into a blood‑soaked spiral.
The paper’s endorsement rests on the show’s contrast with its grim predecessors: simpler storytelling, mostly sweet characters and a broadly comic tone that makes the central pairing of Ser Dunk and Egg “a duo worth rooting for.” Reviewers found the series instantly enjoyable for its ease and warmth, even as they acknowledged it does not spare gore when the plot demands it.
That mixed verdict gave the show weight in a list that highlighted other standout work from the year so far. A second series of Am I Being Unreasonable? drew praise for Lucy Punch’s creation of a modern TV antihero — Amanda, a divorced, middle‑class mum, influencer and kitchen‑shop worker who wants to move into a bigger house in SoHa — with Philippa Dunne as her long‑suffering friend Anne and Joanna Lumley as an overbearing mother. The roundup also flagged Bait, noting Patrick Stewart’s surreal turn as the voice of a dead pig’s head, Guz Khan’s Muber startup conceit and Riz Ahmed’s semi‑autobiographical project about an actor chasing the next James Bond, which plays as a woozy portrait of a borderline breakdown driven by the pressure to fit in without abandoning one’s community.
Non‑fiction made the cut, too: a 90‑minute film about the Blitz was described as enlightening and deeply touching and said to have struck chords with survivors across the British Isles. The broadcast came after filming had wrapped and after the death of Patsy Moneypenny, who died between filming and that later transmission — a fact the reviewers treated with quiet gravity.
Context matters here. framed the list as a year‑to‑date snapshot, not a definitive ranking, which turns inclusion into a spotlight rather than a final judgement. For a crowded release calendar, that spotlight can drive discovery: viewers who trust the roundup are likelier to sample shows they might otherwise miss, and streaming platforms often see immediate bumps in attention from titles lifted into critical conversation.
The friction in the paper’s appraisal is telling. The spin‑off’s selling points are its accessible tone and likeable leads, yet the same review emphasises that a Targaryen twist pivots the series into darker territory. That flip complicates the show’s identity: what begins as an amiable, almost comic stroll through Westeros becomes, after the twist, a harsher, bloodier narrative. The result is not contradiction so much as tonal layering — viewers expecting a gentle companion to other franchise entries should be prepared for sudden escalation.
For audiences deciding what to watch next, the practical takeaway is clear: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has received a midyear critical endorsement that will increase its visibility, but the series will live or die in cultural memory depending on whether its audience accepts the tonal risk at the moment the Targaryen turn arrives. ’s roundup has done its job of signaling what critics find most interesting so far in 2026; whether the spin‑off emerges as one of the year’s defining shows depends on how that early goodwill survives the blood‑soaked spiral.
