The 10 most underrated TV shows of 2025

We’re overrun with TV. From the traditional terrestrial channels to the ubiquitous streamers to the rise of YouTube, the choice is immense – and going to get even more overwhelming with the launch of HBO Max next year. How are you supposed to know what is worth your time and what will end up a damp squib? Give it a go and hope for the best?

Nine times out of 10, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. But every so often you’ll find a hidden gem, a series you thought everyone would be shouting about from the rooftops, but for some unknown reason, seems to have slipped under the radar.

Watching as much television as I do, that happens quite a lot, and I often find myself begging people to join me in giving the less popular series a go. Now, I’m asking you to do the same. These are the most underrated TV shows of 2025:

What It Feels Like for a Girl

Calam Lynch as Max and Ellis Howard as Byron (Photo: Enda Bowe/BBC/Hera)

From Nadia Almada’s Big Brother win to the soundtrack stuffed with Sugababes and All Saints, What It Feels Like for a Girl is like stepping into a Y2K time machine. Based on Paris Lee’s brilliant 2021 memoir of the same name, this raucous, captivating drama follows Byron (Ellis Howard), a young person discovering themselves – and their gender identity – in 2000s Nottingham. Bullied by their father (a brutish Michael Socha), Byron finds their own tribe in the underground queer nightlife scene, but it soon all spirals out of control.

Streaming on BBC iPlayer

Unforgiveable

Anna Maxwell Martin as Katherine (Photo: Kerry Spicer/BBC/LA Productions)

Writer Jimmy McGovern isn’t known for pulling punches – he tackled life in prison in Time, the Hillsborough disaster in Hillsborough and the court system in Accused. In this one-off drama, we meet the Mitchell family, who are learning to cope with the aftermath of learning about the sexual abuse one family member inflicted on another – a situation that only gets more complicated when the perpetrator is released from prison. Starring David Threlfall, Anna Maxwell Martin and Anna Friel, it’s a challenging, heartbreaking and powerful programme.

Streaming on BBC iPlayer

Get Millie Black

Tamara Lawrence as Millie-Jean Black (Photo: Fernandez Hevia/Channel 4/HBO)

Police procedurals are far too common on TV, so you’d be forgiven for avoiding Channel 4’s Get Millie Black when it arrived in March. But it’s a mistake worth correcting, as this is certainly no cosy Death in Paradise. We first meet Millie-Jean Black (Tamara Lawrence) in London, working as a detective at the Met, but when she hears her abusive mother has died back home in her native Jamaica, she travels back home to seek out her runaway brother and to help the police with their missing persons cases.

Dark, brooding and oftentimes violent despite the Caribbean sun, Get Millie Black is one of the most original detective series in years.

Streaming on Channel 4

The Assembly

Jade Thirlwall (Photo: Rockerdale Studios/ITV)

When Michael Sheen sat down in front of a group of neurodivergent people in 2024 and allowed them to ask him anything, it made for surprisingly touching TV. No wonder ITV went ahead and turned it into a full series, with Danny Dyer, Gary Lineker, Jade and David Tennant all taking their place in the hot seat.

Whether its Dyer sharing his journey to sobriety, Jade talking about her old band Little Mix or Harry Potter actor Tennant tackling the tricky question of JK Rowling’s transphobia, these chats are as revealing as you’d hope – but it’s the questioners who prove the real stars. Even better, these episodes are so short that you can get through them all in just one afternoon. Just make sure you have tissues to hand.

Streaming on ITVX and YouTube

Just Act Normal

Akins Subair as Tionne, Chenée Taylor as Tiana and Kaydrah Walker-Wilkie as Tanika (Photo: Ben Gregory-Ring/BBC/The Forge)

Akins Subair, Chenée Taylor, Kaydrah Walker-Wilkie – three names worth remembering; they’re going to be big stars. In this quietly hilarious series, they play siblings Tionne, Tiana and Tanika, whose lives are turned upside down by the disappearance of their mum.

To avoid getting social services involved, they decide to keep the fact that they’re now living alone a secret, reminding each other to just act normal. No problem – until a drug dealer shows up, demanding money their mother supposedly owed him. Just Act Normal is a revelation and deserves much more hype.

Streaming on BBC iPlayer

Such Brave Girls (series two)

Louise Brealey as Deb, Kat Sadler as Josie and Lizzie Davidson as Billie (Photo: BBC/Various Artists Limited)

Kat Sadler is one of the funniest writers in British TV right now, as proven by this bananas second series of her comedy Such Brave Girls. The Johnson family finally seems to have settled down – Josie (Sadler) is in art school, Billie (scene-stealer Lizzie Davidson) is falling in love and Deb (Louise Brealey) is about to move in with her boyfriend. Then everything quickly, hilariously falls apart.

Taking on themes of sexuality, mental health and strained family relationships is difficult enough; it’s even harder to make them laugh-a-minute. Such Brave Girls makes it look easy.

Streaming on BBC iPlayer

Riot Women

Rosalie Craig as Kitty (Photo: Helen Williams/BBC/Drama Republic Ltd)

Riot Women had all the elements needed to be a one of the biggest shows of the year: an impressive cast, a compelling plot and writing from none other than the mastermind behind Happy Valley, Sally Wainwright. But for some reason, it didn’t get the traction it deserved. Time to change that!

Set in the stunning Yorkshire town of Hebden Bridge, it follows a group of middle-aged women who channel their frustrations over feeling invisible into creating a punk band. As with all Wainwright shows, there is a dark undercurrent to Riot Women – but there’s also plenty of joy (and great music) to balance out the misery.

Streaming on BBC iPlayer

Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping

David Mitchell and Robert Webb (Photo: Lara Cornell/Channel 4)

There was a lot riding on David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s return to sketch comedy – not only did they have to be funny, but it felt as though the future of the entire medium rested on their shoulders. Luckily, they pulled it off – with the help of (and sometimes despite) fresher faces Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Stevie Martin, Krystal Evans and Lara Ricote in the writing room.

Highlights include the Aussie soap in which the characters can’t help but swear, a parody of the multiple former Prince Andrew interview dramas and so-dull-it’s-funny “Middle Aged Man Island”. I’m glad a second series has already been confirmed.

Streaming on Channel 4

Alien: Earth

Babou Ceesay as Morrow (Photo: Patrick Brown/FX)

I’m not exactly a sci-fi afficionado and (confession time) I could take or leave Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic Alien. But after hearing how good the first TV series in the franchise is, I decided to dip my toe in – and I’m so glad I did.

In the not-too distant future of 2120, businesses, rather than governments, rule the world and spend their money on experimenting on alien life forms. But when one of their spaceships crash lands on Earth, a terrifying xenomorph escapes and begins its killing spree. Alien: Earth is properly scary, and I had to watch most of it from behind a cushion, convinced that the sharp-toothed Alien was going to jump out from my TV. I suggest you do the same.

Streaming on Disney+

The Rehearsal (series two)

Nathan Fielder (Photo: HBO)

It’s hard to put Nathan Fielder’s strange experimental comedy/documentary into words… but I’ll give it a go. After learning that most aeroplane crashes are caused by miscommunication by the captain and the first officer, Fielder sets out to set up a way for two pilots to practice. Typically of Fielder, he takes this “rehearsal” to the nth degree, building his own replica Houston airport and hiring actors to help him with his experiment. I won’t spoil the finale, but it’s one of the most heart-stopping, wonderful and frankly dangerous episodes of TV I’ve ever seen. Go and press play right now.

Streaming on Now

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