Television · Prime Video · April 2026
Riz Ahmed Just Made
the Show of the Year.
Don’t Miss Bait.
A British Pakistani actor chases James Bond, loses his mind, finds his family, and somehow makes the most alive, original television of 2026 in just six episodes.
RogerEbert.com
“An engaging mix of Uncut Gems and Fleabag, Ahmed has crafted a thrilling tale following one of this year’s most fascinating protagonists. He’s even provided himself a vehicle in which he can show off his own acting prowess, which hasn’t been given enough of a chance to shine in recent years.”
— RogerEbert.com
Four days. Six episodes. One man’s spiral into the abyss of his own ambition — and somehow, it is the most fun you will have watching television this year. Bait, the new Prime Video series created by and starring Riz Ahmed, premiered on March 25 and has been quietly detonating minds ever since. If you have not watched it yet, this is your warning.
The premise sounds almost too clever: Shah Latif, a broke, neurotic British Pakistani actor, blows his audition to be the next James Bond — then spends four chaotic days trying to claw his way back into contention as rumors explode online, his family implodes around him, and his own inner critic becomes his most dangerous enemy. Think Ramy crossed with a Safdie Brothers chase sequence, wrapped in a Pakistani Eid celebration, with a spy-thriller needle drop in the middle.
“Ahmed says Bond is ‘a symbol of aspiration, this unattainable kind of self’ — and the whole show vibrates with that impossible pursuit.”
What makes Bait genuinely extraordinary is its refusal to stay still. Each episode inhabits a different genre. One plays like an indie rom-com set on London’s Brick Lane. Another turns into a full hallucinatory spy thriller. There is a Pakistani soap opera sequence, an Eid family standoff that plays like a pressure cooker, and a surreal fever dream of Shah’s imagined global superstardom. The tonal whiplash is not a bug — it is the entire point. As Ahmed told NPR, “I feel like my life takes place in different genres.” Life does not pick a genre. Neither does Bait.
The soundtrack deserves its own feature. With a score by Shruti Kumar weaving psychedelic 1970s Pakistani film music alongside Jorja Smith and an Urdu cover of “Sweet Dreams,” the show sounds unlike anything on television right now. It feels lived-in. Specific. Deeply human.
In the same conversation as
At its core, Bait is about the gap between the person the world sees and the mess thrashing underneath. Shah’s pursuit of Bond — the ultimate emblem of coolness, control, and desirability — is a chase after an idealized self he does not believe he deserves. It is a show about internalized racism, about what it costs to stay in the room, about the families we perform for and the ones we actually belong to. It is also, miraculously, very, very funny.
“It circles serious themes — identity, visibility, the degradations required to stay in the room — without ever lapsing into piety.”
Will it win Emmys? It absolutely should. Riz Ahmed, in the performance of his career, has made something that stands alongside the best television of the past decade. Six episodes. Not a single one to waste.