20 Best TV Shows of 2026 (So Far)

7. Bait

In Riz Ahmed's delightfully meta miniseries Bait, the actor plays a struggling British-Pakistani actor who auditions for the role of James Bond despite pushback from his family and the general public.

Purposefully at odds with itself, reinventing itself with every episode, Bait tackles the question of whether a non-white actor should play 007 without ever answering the question. Instead, the show acts as a satirical interrogation of Hollywood hypocrisy, a hilarious examination of family, and a warm portrayal of Muslim life.

At once romantic and hysterical, wacky and feisty, Bait never gets comfortable, which is entirely the point. This isn't a show about whether a Muslim actor could play Bond - though Ahmed certainly could, if his performance here is anything to go by - but about how we see ourselves when all we see are other people's ideas of who we are. 

Bitingly funny and wonderfully odd, Bait is a brilliant, poignant burst of creativity from one of our very best movie stars.