Illustration by The Globe and Mail; Supplied
TV had undeniable impact in 2025.
A dramatic miniseries inspired tens of thousands of parents around the world to sign pledges to keep smartphones away from their kids.
The comedic monologues of a late-night host incited a president to head to social media in rage – and united unlikely allies to keep him on the air.
In a polarized world, storytelling and humour on television screens still broke through the algorithms and echo chambers.
Here are 10 of the best brand-new shows and limited series of the year. The list is alphabetical rather than ranked, though, either way, the same show would be at the top …
No TV show had a more substantive impact on public discourse than this harrowing British miniseries that begins when Jamie (Owen Cooper), an unassuming 13-year-old, is arrested under suspicion of murdering a female classmate.
But Adolescence was, also, just riveting. It’s the masterful acting, writing and cinematography, rather than embedded messages about the manosphere, that have stuck with me. Director Philip Barantini intricately choreographed each instalment to be captured in a single shot and, perhaps, ask: What if we remembered that each second of our lives is meaningful?
Most TV shows are pretty easy to classify by genre – but I can’t think of another half-hour sex comedy about cancer.
This FX limited series follows Molly (Michelle Williams, in a brave performance) as she leaves her husband while she is in palliative care to pursue a bucket list of bountiful bedroom adventures. Nikki (Jenny Slate), a somewhat flaky actress pal, becomes Molly’s caregiver and confidante. The skin-to-skin closeness of the deepest female friendship is, ultimately, the show’s core subject.
Creator/star Florence Longpré busted open Canada’s two small-screen solitudes with this audaciously original and emotionally operatic dramedy about a hot-mess psychiatrist who works at a secure Montreal facility for the not criminally responsible.
Is One Fleabag Over the Cuckoo’s Nest too reductive? Well, yes. Just watch – and then join the wait for Season 2, which will be co-produced with Canal+, France’s HBO equivalent.
This new moving yet uproarious adult animated comedy from BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg is magnificently structured; it follows several generations of one Jewish-American clan over more than 30 years, jumping between decades several times a episode. This was the novelistic television we used to expect from prestige dramas – but with more Looney Tunes slapstick involving exploding mattresses in tubes.
Written by playwright Daf James, this three-episode Welsh weeper follows a gay couple – performance artist Gabriel (Sion Daniel Young) and accountant Andy (Fra Fee) – as they wend their way through the complicated process of adopting a child. Like the short-but-mighty miniseries at the top of this list, Lost Boys and Fairies makes the details of British bureaucracy fascinating – but has more cabaret numbers and ends in more hopeful place regarding fathers and sons.
Before he was Frankenstein’s sexy monster, Jacob Elordi gave a stunning performance as the young Australian doctor Dorrigo in this brutal, unflinching and yet poetry-filled adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning novel.
Ciarán Hinds plays the same character later in life, reckoning with his experiences as a Far East PoW during the Second World War. Director Justin Kurzel’s five-episode miniseries was so dark it seemed as if he was reluctant to show this slice of history – just as so many survivors, like Flanagan’s father, were reticent to speak of it.
The year in Canadian TV began with a blast of fresh, frigid air as this unprecedented co-production set and shot in Nunavut premiered. Siaja (risen star Anna Lambe) decides to leave her less-than-supportive husband – and leaps into life as a working single Inuk mom in a tiny town with no place to keep secrets; though primarily a charming comedy, North of North doubled as the best drama seen on the national public broadcaster in 2025 thanks to Maika Harper’s poignant portrait of Siaja’s complicated survivor of a mom.
R. Scott Gemmill, a Canadian-American veteran of medical dramas, found a fresh take on the well-worn genre that somehow stitched together prestige television with network procedural.
The concept of the HBO Max show – each of the 15 episodes depicted an hour of a single work shift at a fictional Pittsburgh hospital – gripped, but rich characters played by a superb cast led by Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby were what really brought you back each week.
Vince Gilligan first came on my radar in the 1990s as screenwriter of my favourite off-beat, comic-relief episodes of The X-Files. So, all apologies to Breaking Bad fans, I’ve been waiting for his return to this flavour of sci-fi for a long time.
The postapocalyptic world built in Pluribus sees a surly writer of bodice rippers (Rhea Seehorn) left as one of a handful of earthlings to survive as an individual after an extraterrestrial event fuses the rest of humanity’s consciousness. A slow-burn series shot through with wit as dry as the Albuquerque desert.
Limited-series thrillers always seem attractive on paper, promising a story with a beginning, a middle and an end – but too often they’re filled with characters treated as mere pawns in a twisty plot.
While Task was perhaps not quite as memorable as creator Brad Ingelsby’s last show for HBO (Mare of Easttown), it still stood head and shoulders above its class because it was populated with people impossible not to care about: Mark Ruffalo’s ex-priest FBI agent and Tom Pelphrey’s soulful criminal bumbler, of course – but supporting characters played by Emilia Jones and Alison Oliver were most unforgettable.
Honourable mentions: The Studio, Apple TV+; Overcompensating, Prime Video; Rise of the Raven, CBC Gem; Asterix and Obelix: The Big Fight, Netflix; and Ludwig, BritBox.