TV Premieres This Week: August 16 to 22, 2026 • New Shows

Season 18 starts Monday night on Hulu. The comedy is built around four friends who run a failing Irish bar in South Philadelphia and who are, without exception, awful to each other and to everyone who walks in. Storylines routinely take on subjects most sitcoms leave alone, from religion and gun control to addiction, disability, and racism, and the joke lands on the characters rather than the topic. Eighteen seasons in, the shape of an episode has stayed put: someone has an idea, the group makes it worse, nobody learns anything.

HBO’s new series puts two Green Lantern officers on the ground in the United States. John Stewart is the recent recruit. Hal Jordan has been doing the job long enough to be called a legend. The two are assigned to a murder in the American heartland, and the investigation pulls them into something darker than a routine case. The premise keeps the pair on Earth rather than sending them across the galaxy, so most of the story happens in small towns and open country. The series premiere airs Sunday at 9:00 PM ET, opening the week.

The fifth season arrives Thursday, all ten episodes at once. Outer Banks is set on a coastal island divided between wealthy residents and the working families who keep the place running. The story started with a teenager named John B pulling his three closest friends into a hunt for a legendary treasure tied to his father’s disappearance, and the group has been chasing leads, money, and each other ever since. Netflix has kept the same release pattern here: the full season drops in one go rather than weekly.

Joe Washington’s father died and left behind a second life, along with millions of dollars taken from people who want it back. After a violent confrontation, Joe, his family, and his friends end up looking for the money and for the truth about who his father actually was. Two episodes of the second season go up Wednesday.

The travel series returns for a third season. Conan O’Brien tracks down people he first talked to on his podcast, turns up at their homes, and spends the rest of each trip poking around their countries and local customs with them. The new season starts streaming Friday on HBO Max.