They skewered Hollywood and gave a middle finger to the Man. They hailed everyday heroes and made us feel for bad guys. They reminded us that humans are flawed — but TV loves us anyway
Just when you thought the post-Peak TV glacier of shows had melted into a puddle of mediocre algorithm-feeders, the medium snapped back to form in 2025. We may not be in the midst of a new golden age — streamers and cable networks alike are muddling their way through a very uncertain media landscape (see Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery just this morning!) — but this year delivered a handful of truly original shows that did more than throw A-list stars at a paper-thin plot and try to pass it off as prestige. The series that stood out were daring, stylish, and had something to say about the world we live in today. Oh, and they were damn entertaining, too. Whether dissecting Hollywood or the health care industry, exploring history or an alternate universe, making us laugh or making us cry (and sometimes both), these 15 shows, presented here in alphabetical order, proved that TV’s top creators still have dogs in the fight.
Photographs in Illustration
Netflix; Warrick Page/HBO; Apple TV,2.
Adolescence (Netflix)
Image Credit: Netflix
This four-part British limited series, about a kid accused of murdering a classmate, hit Netflix on a Friday with little to no advance fanfare; by the end of the weekend, it was the most viewed show on the streamer and inspiring dozens of think pieces about the impact of incel culture on young men. A labor of love from director Philip Barantini and co-writer and star Stephen Graham, Adolescence starts with cops bursting into the home of an average suburban family and arresting 13-year-old Jamie Miller (newcomer Owen Cooper). Each episode then focuses on the aftermath via a different perspective, from Jamie’s fellow students to his family members; Episode Three, a standoff between Cooper’s incarcerated teen and a psychologist played by Erin Doherty, is a master class in sustaining tension. And as with Barantini and Graham’s previous collaboration, the proto-Bear chef drama Boiling Point, everything is shot in a single extended take. There’s a reason this import dominated the 2025 Emmys, but even if it hadn’t walked away with armfuls of statues, it would still leave you feeling like you’ve been gut-punched. —David Fear
Andor (Disney+)
Image Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.
The sophomore (and final) season of Tony Gilroy’s Star Wars prequel series doubled down on the revolutionary spirit, delivering an even deeper sausage-factory view of how the Rebellion was made while still giving fans what they needed. The fact that Diego Luna’s Cassian and his fellow freedom fighters were fighting a fascist empire a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away almost feels incidental; few works of mass entertainment captured the social uncertainty of our current capital-R resistance moment better in 2025. These 10 episodes had their share of thrills and chills, first-class villains (especially Denise Gough’s imperial apparatchik), highly memeable moments — dance like no one’s watching, Mon Mothma! — and a sequence inside an enemy hospital that played like a stand-alone heist movie. But the season also offered a chilling look at how authoritarian governments use misinformation and manipulate certain populations into enemies. The I.P. will be with us, always, but Gilroy’s contribution to the canon will be missed. It was even more invaluable the second time around. —D.F.
Death By Lightning (Netflix)
Image Credit: LARRY HORRICKS/NETFLIX
Writer Mike Makowsky, best known for his zippy 2019 HBO film Bad Education, took one of the oddest side plots in American history and made it one of the most riveting shows of the year. Based on Candice Millard’s book Destiny of the Republic, Death By Lighting chronicles, over a tight yet expansive-feeling four episodes, the 1881 assassination of President James A. Garfield (played with stoicism by Michael Shannon) by an unstable fan turned hater named Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen, better than ever). It’s an original story of standom gone wrong that tackles the scourge of American violence. It’s also deeply amusing, featuring basically every character actor you know and love (lookin’ at you, Nick Offerman, Bradley Whitford, and Shea Whigham) in a big bushy beard, absolutely killing it. —Esther Zuckerman
Dept. Q (Netflix)
Image Credit: Justin Downing/Netflix
One of the year’s most delightful surprises was this sleeper hit in the vein of Slow Horses — it centers on a group of misfit cops in Scotland — but with a bit more emotional heft. Matthew Goode, who’s bounced around in rom-coms and period pieces and legal dramas, absolutely melts into the lead role of Carl Morck, a prickly and misanthropic detective returning to work after an on-the-job shooting in which his partner was paralyzed. Banished to a basement office and saddled with a bunch of dead-end cold cases, he becomes the leader of a motley crew of crimefighting wannabes. At home, meanwhile, he’s saddled with an annoying roommate and an angry teenager — the son of an ex-wife who up and left him. With The Queen’s Gambit creator Scott Frank at the helm, the writing is assured and the pacing is swift. The show builds suspense but never at the expense of feeling; some of the most quietly poignant scenes are between Morck and his hospitalized partner (played by Jamie Sives), two men communicating a lot without saying much. The case the Dept. Q oddballs end up solving is less memorable than the characters themselves — a recipe for a show with legs. —Maria Fontoura
Dying for Sex (FX on Hulu)
Image Credit: Sarah Shatz/FX
It’s understandable if you put off watching Dying for Sex for a while, knowing that it would devastate you. (This writer certainly did.) But once you dig into Elizabeth Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock’s adaptation of the nonfiction podcast of the same name, you’ll be wholly glad you did. Michelle Williams gives one her finest performances — and that’s saying a lot — as Molly Kochan, who, upon learning her stage 4 breast cancer has returned, decides to ditch the husband who refuses to touch her (Jay Duplass) and embark on a journey of sexual self-discovery. Her flighty actress best friend (Jenny Slate) becomes her primary caretaker, while Molly has a series of misadventures in the hopes of orgasming and understanding her body before the disease takes it away from her. With an achingly tender supporting performance by Rob Delaney, the show is as heartfelt and funny as it is kinky. —E.Z.
Long Story Short (Netflix)
Image Credit: Netflix
How do you follow up a near-perfect animated series like Bojack Horseman? If you’re Raphael Bob-Waksberg and Lisa Hanawalt, you craft a deep dive into the agonies and ecstasies of a dysfunctional NorCal family that spans decades, gleefully hops timelines, and does for the Jewish-American experience what the pair’s previous collaboration did for Hollywood-celebrity neuroses. Meet the Schwoopers: Naomi (Lisa Edelstein), the occasionally nagging matriarch; Elliot (Paul Reiser), the peacemaking husband and father; Avi (Ben Feldman), a former music critic; Shira (Abbi Jacobson), who’s raising two kids with her wife Kendra (Nicole Byer); and the youngest, Yoshi (Max Greenfield), who has executive dysfunction and a secret. We watch them grow up, grow old, get into fights, and go to bar mitzvahs, JCC tributes, and funerals. Nothing happens except life and the forward motion of time, both of which have a way of going by way too fast — there’s a sudden flash-forward at the end of the first episode that hits like slap to the face. But when that moment gets not just a callback but more context in the finale, you see exactly how Long Story Short has been playing its long game: Family will drive you crazy. They’re also the only thing that keeps you from truly going insane, so be thankful for them now rather than later. —D.F.
Pluribus (Apple TV)
Image Credit: Lewis Jacobs/AppleTV
Done with the Breaking Bad universe, at least for now, Vince Gilligan has cooked up a phenomenal new sci-fi series that sucks you in almost immediately — and keeps you perpetually on your toes. Pluribus tells the story of Carol (Rhea Seehorn), an author who becomes one of only 12 people on the planet not to succumb to a hive-mind pandemic caused by a sort of virus synthesized from alien code. While everyone else suddenly shares all human knowledge and becomes cheerily complacent (“Hi, Carol!”), Carol — whom the show bills as “the most miserable person on Earth” — must decide whether she’ll be the face of the resistance. The pleasure comes from Gilligan’s slyly incremental plotting that makes you second-guess whether Carol’s independence is worth saving, and Seehorn’s powerhouse performance that gives you the answer. —E.Z.
Severance (Apple TV)
Image Credit: AppleTV
We all had to wait a long time for Severance, which debuted in 2022, to return, but it was well worth the nearly three years of thumb-twiddling. The second season expanded the mystery of the show’s central company, Lumon, while also heightening our emotional pull toward Mark (Adam Scott), Hilly (Britt Lower), and the rest of its employees. As we got to know our protagonists’ outies better, we got to see the world they leave behind when they enter Lumon’s doors. The result was often heartbreaking. Beautiful spotlights on characters like Gemma (Dichen Lachman) and Harmony (Patricia Arquette) only deepened the series’ emotional range. At the same time, the visual language of the show became even more spectacular, with mind-blowing sequences including the instantly iconic Mr. Milchik (Tramell Tillman) leading a marching band. —E.Z.
Task (HBO)
Image Credit: Peter Kramer/HBO
We know what you may have been thinking when you got word of this Brad Ingelsby series: Oh, great, another dour story set in an incomprehensibly gray part of Pennsylvania, where people are grouchy and everyone talks funny. You’d only be half-right. Yes, the Mare of Easttown creator returned to his native stomping grounds outside Philly for this show. Yes, the characters talk with a distinct Delco accent (or try to, anyway). And yes, the storyline is dark. But where Mare could sometimes feel leaden (despite great performances from Kate Winslet and Jean Smart), Task was somehow softer and lighter on its feet. The episodes were propulsive, following two men on a collision course: Tom Pelphrey’s garbageman-with-a-plan, Robbie, who leads a crew robbing stash houses along his trash route, and Mark Ruffalo’s taciturn cop Tom, grief stricken from a family tragedy and merely going through the motions until he’s put on this case. Pelphrey’s performance is a revelation — a marvel of emotional depth — while Ruffalo is in peak less-is-more mode. Emilia Jones is so in the pocket as Tom’s frustrated niece/keeper Maeve it’s hard to believe she wasn’t plucked from a Delaware County casting call. And just when you think you know where the show is headed, it takes an unexpected turn. Not only that, for all its sadnesses, Task manages to end on a hopeful note. A feat, especially in 2025. —M.F.
The Chair Company (HBO)
Image Credit: Virginia Sherwood/HBO
Tim Robinson has done it again: He’s gotten us invested in the plight of another maniac. This time it’s William Ronald Trosper, known as Ron, an Ohio man who is helping develop a new mall complex. In the pilot, Ron has just finished giving a big presentation when he goes to sit down onstage in an office chair that promptly collapses on him. Most people would brush off this incident as a minor humiliation. Not a Tim Robinson character. Ron spirals trying to figure out just what was wrong with this seating implement, leading him down a darkly absurdist path. Along the way he finds a little person hiding in his coat closet, fights a man with a large dent in his head at a “coke bar,” and is briefly coerced into having a fake affair on camera, among other activities. (Kudos to Joseph Tudisco, who plays Ron’s investigation partner, Mike Santini, like a Sopranos extra who’s just been jabbed in the heart with adrenaline.) Created by Robinson and his comedic partner Zach Kanin, The Chair Company is both a compelling mystery and a deluge of some of the most bizarre images you’ll see onscreen this year. A masterpiece of oddity. —E.Z.
The Last of Us (HBO)
Image Credit: HBO
The general consensus is that The Last of Us Season Two was not as good as Season One. So be it. It was still one of the most well-crafted, finely acted, compulsively watchable shows of this year. The early death of Joel (uh, spoiler?) is a blow to the show’s heart center but it makes you treasure Pedro Pascal’s return for the flashback sixth episode — an intimate look at the evolution, and breakdown, of Ellie and Joel’s relationship — all the more. It also opens the door for Kaitlyn Dever to flex her dark side as the vengeful Abby. The set pieces were as dazzling as ever, and the creepy next-level infected upped the stakes. Season Three, set to focus on Abby, has much to live up to. —M.F.
The Lowdown (FX)
Image Credit: Shane Brown/FX
Meet Lee Raybon — muckraking journalist, bookstore owner, resident “truthstorian,” and the sort of rambling, shambling sleuth that makes Jeffrey Lebowski look like a seasoned professional. Sterlin Harjo’s follow-up to Reservation Dogs hands Ethan Hawke the role of a lifetime, and were his Oklahoma noir simply a showcase for the actor to play his own version of a shaggy-dog detective in way over his head, this would still be one of the best shows to hit TV over the past 12 months. But like the best hardboiled tales, The Lowdown pulls on the single thread of a case, i.e. the apparent suicide of a prominent local, and watches as an entire infrastructure involving class, race, land ownership, and a legacy of exploitation unravels before its hero’s eyes. (Forget it, Lee… it’s downtown Tulsa.) Throw in a crack ensemble of actors like Tim Blake Nelson, Keith David, Jeanne Triplehorn, and Kyle MacLachlan, as well as oddball bits of business involving underground caviar rings, wannabe Native gangsters, and first-edition Jim Thompson paperbacks, and you have a sideways genre exercise that still packs a helluva uppercut at the end. —D.F.
The Pitt (HBO Max)
Image Credit: Warwick Page/HBO
You’d have been forgiven for thinking that the medical drama was long played out. Soapy and frequently silly, the genre couldn’t possibly offer something innovative or relevant to our times. Then The Pitt arrived like a shock to the system in January. The series’ first season traced a single 15-hour shift in the emergency department of a Pittsburgh trauma hospital — one hour per episode — swapping network schmaltz for a no-frills adrenaline rush. On the strength of its precise and understated writing as well as its extremely capable cast — including Noah Wyle as the weary head of department Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, journeywoman Katherine LaNasa as the straight-shooting nurse Dana holding the whole chaotic operation together, and standout newcomer Taylor Dearden as shy resident Mel King — The Pitt rightfully zoomed straight to hit status. In the process it highlighted real problems facing American hospitals, from budget cuts and understaffing to vaccine skepticism and opioid addiction, and made heroes out of people who just do their damn jobs. Season Two is just weeks away: Come for the case-of-the-minute drama; stay for the rich character studies and competence porn. —Claire McNear
The Rehearsal (HBO)
Image Credit: John P. Johnson/HBO
How to follow something as profoundly bizarre as the 2022 debut season of The Rehearsal, Nathan Fielder’s surrealist docuseries? Make it much, much stranger, obviously. The show’s sophomore season took on aviation in the way that, say, Salvador Dalí took on clocks. As its premise this time around, The Rehearsal asked a basically reasonable question: What if most aviation accidents are attributable to pilot performance, and what might one have to do to change that? In Fielder’s hands, the prompt led to an exercise in gonzo limit-pushing that featured, among other things, the staging of a fake American Idol–style competition show and the acquisition of an actual 737, which Fielder flew with a fuselage full of fake passengers after getting formally licensed as a pilot. And that only scratches the surface of The Rehearsal’s bonkers shenanigans. It’s unlikely that anyone who saw the Sully Sullenberger episode — in which Fielder attempts to get to the heart of the captain’s heroics during the Miracle on the Hudson by personally speed-running Sullenberger’s entire life, complete with scenes in a supersized crib with a giant puppet mother breastfeeding him — will ever forget it. —C.M.
The Studio (Apple TV)
Image Credit: Apple TV
“Hollywood hates itself” meta-comedies are legion, and Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s parody of what passes for the Dream Factory in 2025 is definitely in on the joke. (R.I.P., Martin Scorsese’s Kool-Aid movie.) Yet there’s as much appreciation for the craft as there is for the cringe in this Apple TV comedy. You don’t make an episode like “The Oner” with such panache and virtuosity if you’re simply chasing after self-loathing. Centered around Rogen’s idealistic studio head scrambling to keep his job, this hilarious spin on the art of stabbing someone’s back while shaking their hand makes excellent use of its celebrity cameos — you may never think of Zoë Kravitz or Ron Howard the same way again — and constantly reminds you that it’s called show business and not show let’s-make-the-next-masterpiece. After seeing a million and one satirical jabs at movie-studio culture that are actually love taps in disguise, we’re grateful that Rogen and Goldberg found a way to make this series feel funny, sharp, and fresh. And listen, if we’re thanking people, we also wanna say thanks to Sal Saperstein. —D.F.