Catch Up: Top TV to watch in November 2026
Halloween may have gone, but there’s still scary stuff to add to your watchlist including a Friday The 13th prequel, an update on the Slavic legend of Baba Yaga and a hairy hellbeast prowling the Hebridean waters. Claire Sawers finds quality laughs among the chills too
‘This is a show for everyone who is, has been, or will be a delusional and irritating 24-year-old: I see you, I love you, I am you,’ explained comedian Leo Reich when describing his glorious Gen Z sitcom It Gets Worse (Channel 4) just prior to it airing. The now 28-year-old stars as Ethan, and wrote the London-set series where consent forms are signed before sex parties and a privileged white boy reflects to his therapist, ‘maybe woe is me?’ Reich’s knowing writing is simultaneously zingy and zeitgeisty, and soaked in jaded ennui; he slays at the angsty, in-between areas between twink cluelessness and ultra self-awareness. But there’s plenty of wisdom in his wisecracking which lands like Russell T Davies scripting Broad City. There’s some inspired casting too, with a delicious Andrew Scott cameo as a daddy-issues hook-up, plus Vicki Pepperdine plays Ethan’s mum, bringing some fabulous Dear Joan And Jericha vibes.
Gird your loins as the group sex continues in Yaga (Now TV), where the son of a billionaire has gone missing from a small coastal town, and a cocky, flirty PI (Noah Reid aka Patrick from Schitt’s Creek) is flown in to help local police crack the case. In this Canadian adaptation of Kat Sandler’s dark thriller play, Hudson ‘so hot right now’ Williams gets an extra part cast just for him: he plays both the missing rich boy and his lookalike roommate. The mystery swirls around satanic rituals, supernatural magic and trippy visions. Carrie-Anne Moss plays an enigmatic academic (complete with Olivia Colman-style elegant grey tresses) rumoured to be sleeping with her students. Through her, plus the myth of the child-eating Baba Yaga, the show explores female fury, sexuality and invisibility. Entertaining but perhaps with a few too many clashing elements thrown into the potion.
Linda Cardellini plays a grieving mother in Crystal Lake (Now TV), giving some gory back story to the 1980 slasher movie Friday The 13th. From production company A24 and writer Brad Caleb Kane, this prequel series blends 1970s Americana scenes of cookouts, camping and bowling alleys with schlocky violence. Sometimes it’s not clear whether the show is going for deliberately camp, fun pastiche or just spilling over into naff nonsense: a scene with a burst Ziploc bag of blood feels like the former while a fake brown bear encounter swings sharply to the latter. Cardellini, though, is brilliant as Pamela Voorhees, struggling to rebuild her life and even fall in love again, after her son Jason drowns in a lake when his summer camp counsellor abandoned her kids to go frolic in a cabin. Flawed, but now with added psychological depth.
‘Intimacy was his greatest wish and biggest fear,’ sighs an ex-girlfriend of the late Matthew Perry. She shares warm memories of the thoughtful, sweet man that she met in rehab and, like most of the talking heads here, describes a man easy to love yet impossible to save. The One About Matthew Perry (Netflix) rewinds to the slapstick, sarcastic comedian’s early days breaking into acting; from chasing the dopamine hit of making others fall about laughing, up to his breakthrough, era-defining role in Friends and the snare-like trap of addiction. No cast members from the iconic sitcom appear here but Perry’s sister Mia conveys the family’s turmoil as they witnessed overdoses, a coma, criminally exploitative staff, but also his eventual happiness after writing a bare-all memoir. Episodes one and two reminisce about his career highs before the final episode takes a deeper dive into his emotional struggles and the heartbreaking impact on loved ones.
Sawers also saw…
Bel on BBC iPlayer: ‘Haunting, powerful documentary about gifted singer-writer Beldina Odenyo’; Loch nam Madadh (Wolf Bay) on BBC iPlayer: ‘Jump scares and Scottish folklore prowl around this fun horror on a CalMac ferry’; Nocturne on Apple TV: ‘Stephen Graham is a seriously chilling serial killer in this deeply creepy US thriller’.