It is dark before the washing-up is done now, which is the point of the year when the telly starts winning. This is what is new to streaming in the UK in September 2026, with the home, the date and the catch-up for each. Two things are already mid-run when it opens. Lanterns is still going weekly on NOW after August and Ted Lasso runs on Apple TV to 7 October, so two evenings a week are booked before any of the six below get a look in.
The pattern this month is homework. Four of the six are continuations, and three of those assume twenty to thirty hours of television behind you. September is where the schedulers decided you spent August catching up, which you did not.
The oddity is the calendar. Two services empty a full series onto the shelf on consecutive days, and a third spreads six episodes across seven weeks with a fortnight off in the middle.
Six new to streaming in September, sorted
The bar for this list is the same as ever: releases that will come up at work whether you have seen them or not. Two films, three series, and one honourable mention. Dates are the UK arrivals as announced, and they move. Disney's own Mandalorian and Grogu date is the one the rest of the month hangs off.
Toy Story 5
The one the whole flat will sit through without a word of complaint. Woody, Buzz and a new generation of toys land on Disney+ on 23 September, three months after the cinema run. Clear the evening, order the takeaway, and accept that somebody will cry. Probably an adult.
The Mandalorian and Grogu
The Mandalorian and the child get a feature of their own, and it arrives on Disney+ on 2 September, early enough to sort the first weekend of the month. The biggest film on any service in September, and the rare Star Wars thing you can walk into cold.
Slow Horses
Series six starts on Apple TV on 16 September and runs weekly through to 21 October. Six episodes, one a week, and an autumn evening quietly accounted for until half term. The one on this list you can put on without checking with anybody first.
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story
Ryan Murphy's Monster gets to the Fall River axe murders, with Ella Beatty as Lizzie and Sarah Paulson in support. All eight episodes on Netflix on 17 September, which means the whole country has opinions by the Friday. Not a gentle one. Best not put on straight after the news.
Neagley
The Reacher spin-off, with Neagley off doing the thinking rather than the doorframe-filling. All eight episodes arrive on Prime Video on 16 September, in one go and in more than 240 countries at once. A binge in a single night if you are that way inclined, and you are.
Saturday Night Live UK
Honourable mention
Series two of the British transplant, back on NOW from 12 September with a different host every week. Honourable mention rather than a pick, because nobody plans an evening around a sketch show. Sunday morning catch-up material, which is not an insult.
The six, in more detail
Toy Story 5
Andrew Stanton directs, with Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and Joan Cusack all back. The premise is almost too on the nose: Bonnie is given a tablet called a Lilypad, becomes obsessed with it, and the toys find themselves losing a child's attention to a screen. Conan O'Brien voices the rival, a toy called Smarty Pants. At an hour and forty-two minutes it is the shortest thing here. Whether Pixar can land a fourth ending, having already given us one, is the open question.
Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3 and Toy Story 4 are all on Disney+, and the four together run about six and a quarter hours: a wet Saturday and most of the Sunday after it. Optional, but not pointless. If you do one, do Toy Story 4, the most recent and the ending everybody half remembers. Small children will follow the fifth cold. Adults who skipped the fourth will miss why any of it is meant to hurt.
The Mandalorian and Grogu
Jon Favreau directs, Pedro Pascal is under the helmet, and Sigourney Weaver arrives as Colonel Ward. The Empire has fallen, its warlords are scattered, and the fledgling New Republic hires Din Djarin and his young apprentice to clear up after it. Jeremy Allen White voices a Hutt called Rotta, which nobody saw coming. Two hours and twelve minutes, and the first big arrival of the month. The risk is plain: this is a television programme promoted to a film, and those go either way.
All three series of The Mandalorian are on Disney+, eight episodes each, twenty-four in total, with The Book of Boba Fett alongside at another seven. At roughly forty minutes an episode that is a fortnight of evenings, which is more than most households have spare. Series three on its own is enough, being the most recent. Skip the lot if you would rather: this is built for people whose Star Wars knowledge stopped somewhere around the second Death Star.
Slow Horses
Gary Oldman is Jackson Lamb, who runs Slough House, where MI5 files the agents it cannot quite sack. Jack Lowden is River Cartwright, Kristin Scott Thomas is Diana Taverner upstairs, and Saskia Reeves and Christopher Chung hold the remaining desks. Series six opens on River's grandfather's funeral and brings Frank Harkness back, so this run is settling old business rather than opening new. Six episodes, weekly from 16 September to 21 October, and the least likely thing here to disappoint anybody.
Series one to five are all on Apple TV, six episodes apiece, thirty in total. At roughly three quarters of an hour each that is a little over twenty hours, and it is the one genuinely essential catch-up on this list. The cases are self-contained. The people are not, and half the pleasure by now is knowing who died and who failed upward. Series one tells you inside two episodes whether the register suits you, and it usually does.
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story
Ian Brennan takes the creator credit on this run of the anthology. Vicky Krieps plays Bridget Sullivan, the family's maid, and Charlie Hunnam and Rebecca Hall are Andrew and Abby Borden, with Billie Lourd and Jessica Barden further down the bill. The official synopsis promises a house built on humiliation and cruelty and the escape the two women invent inside it. The reservation is the usual one: this series is very good at atmosphere and much less careful about the people it is describing.
Nothing needs watching first, which is the quiet advantage of an anthology. Every season has its own story and its own cast, so starting here costs you nothing at all. If you want to know what you are in for, the Jeffrey Dahmer season is on Netflix at ten episodes, and it is the one that turned this format into a national argument. Ten hours of research for an eight-hour show is poor economics. Twenty minutes will tell you.
Neagley
Maria Sten plays Frances Neagley, who worked alongside Jack Reacher in the 110 Special Investigators and now runs her own investigations in Chicago. A former colleague dies in circumstances nobody will explain. Nick Santora and Nicholas Wootton created it, with Damon Herriman and Matthew Del Negro among the people she meets. It arrives complete on a Wednesday, which is an odd day to hand anybody eight hours. Keeping the more famous surname off the poster is the most confident decision here.
All four series of Reacher are on Prime Video, eight episodes each, thirty-two in all, which is somewhere north of twenty-five hours. Not essential, and the setup introduces her from scratch. If you want the context without the sit, series four only landed in August and is the freshest in the memory. One series is plenty of grounding for a character who explains herself by doing things rather than saying them. Start there if you want one, or start with hers.
Saturday Night Live UK
The British transplant of the American institution returns for six episodes: 12, 19 and 26 September, then a fortnight off, then three more through October. Nobody has explained the gap. The format is the format, a live studio and a guest fronting the week, with roughly half the sketches landing. It sits at the bottom of the list rather than off it because live television that might visibly go wrong is worth something in a month otherwise made of prestige drama and axe murders.
The catch-up here is the easiest on the list. Series one is eight episodes, on NOW, if you want a taste of the format first. Entirely optional. A cold start is fine here in a way it is not with the rest of these. The format resets weekly, the running gags belong to the cast rather than to any plot, and nobody has ever needed last series to laugh at a wig. Half an hour costs you nothing either way.
The rest of the month, briefly
Elsewhere, Strictly Come Dancing is back: the pre-recorded launch on Saturday 19 September, the first live show on Saturday 26 September, both on BBC One and iPlayer. The Great British Bake Off returns to Channel 4 in late September, with Nigella Lawson reported to be taking over from Prue Leith.
On the paid shelves, The Paper returns for a second series on NOW from 10 September, a day after the Americans get it. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple reaches NOW in September, with no date announced. ITVX is dropping all five series of Poldark as a boxset, also from September, also without a date, which is a great deal of Cornwall for nothing.
How to pace this without losing October
A word on shape. The heavy end is the middle: Neagley on the 16th, Slow Horses the same day, Monster the day after. Three sizeable things inside forty-eight hours, and no chance of doing them justice. Push one to the following week and nothing is lost.
None of which solves the actual problem, which is the twenty minutes between switching the telly on and agreeing on anything. Add the ones you fancy, swipe them with whoever shares the sofa, and put on the first thing you both said yes to. The what to watch this week page stays current all month, and the getting started guide covers setting your services. That is everything new to streaming in the UK in September worth clearing an evening for. MatchWatch is free to use. Available in New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and the United States.