Netflix
A cast of grotesques and monsters, each with their own grisly peccadilloes and chilling proclivities: spending time with your relatives at Christmas can be tough. The second series starring the rebooted, reimagined Addams family is perfect escapism — a cross-generational treat for fans of deadpan Gen X humour, mutant style and zany gore. Spot the spooky guest appearances from Joanna Lumley, Lady Gaga and Billie Piper; try to solve the latest mystery at Nevermore Academy, and be grateful that at least you don’t have Fred Armisen’s Uncle Fester in the guest bedroom.
Netflix
It’s easy to become jaded about detective dramas — so many troubled coppers, so many serial killers playing unnecessarily complicated games — but this Edinburgh noir, based on the novel by the Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen, sent a fierce jolt of electricity through the police procedural. That was largely down to Matthew Goode’s fantastically abrasive performance as DCI Carl Morck, who was put in charge of a cold case unit after a disastrous shooting. There’s so much to recommend this psychedelic New Tricks: the charisma of Chloe Pirrie, Leah Byrne and Kelly Macdonald; the brilliantly bilious production design; a gothic funhouse of a plot. If you want your Christmas crime less cosy, start here.
Amandaland
BBC1/iPlayer
Lucy Punch’s Amanda was the great monster of Motherland — the PTA dictator with perfect hair, a bunch of minions and her very own lifestyle “store”, Hygge Tygge. This excellent spin-off caught up with her post-divorce as she fought to maintain her standards in “SoHa” while taking up a job — sorry, “collab” — in a kitchen shop. Yet as with Motherland, this was a fabulous ensemble piece, Joanna Lumley nearly stealing the show as Amanda’s mother, Felicity, Philippa Dunne returning as the eager-to-please Anne and Siobhán McSweeney playing the gruff celebrity chef Della. The jokes about Brat summer, Sinn Fein and R Kelly, meanwhile, demand a festive retelling.
Blue Lights
Siân Brooke in Blue Lights
BBC
iPlayer
News that Line of Duty would be returning for a seventh series rightfully triggered a frisson of excitement among fans of bent coppers, but Jed Mercurio’s drama will need to claw back its patch from this superb show. Three seasons in and the Bafta-winning drama dug even deeper into Belfast’s underworld, the engaging “peelers” of Blackthorn station navigating personal trauma, physical danger and criminal conspiracy (Cathy Tyson came on board as the MC of a dubious “members’ club”). Don’t believe in the idea of “relaxation”? Take the holiday to catch up on its viscerally tense action.
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Adolescence
Netflix
In 2024 ITV’s Mr Bates vs the Post Office showed how a TV drama could shift the needle on public opinion, significantly affecting real-life politics. Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham’s devastating Adolescence landed with a similarly heavy impact, with Keir Starmer backing a plan to ensure it was screened in schools to foster discussion around the manosphere’s “red pill” misogyny and violence against women and girls. Owen Cooper became the youngest male Emmy winner for his portrayal of Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old boy who murders a girl in his class after she rejects him: his one-take showdown with his forensic psychologist Briony (Erin Doherty) remains 2025’s most indelibly disturbing scene.
Girlbands Forever
iPlayer
In the 1990s, even a reckless gambler wouldn’t have bet that the BBC would be making a serious three-part documentary series about girl bands in 2025 — never mind one that called them “musical disruptors”. Beginning with Eternal, All Saints and the Spice Girls, before Atomic Kitten and Sugababes crash the party, this astute but gloriously gossipy series zig-a-zig-ahs its way through all the rivalries and alliances, the victories and the defeats — there’s even “a little bit of vomiting in the toilets prior to CD:UK”, according to All Saints’ gorgeously indiscreet Melanie Blatt. A fabulous cultural history that can be picked apart by wise old Gen Xers, millennial nostalgists and retro-minded teenagers alike.
All Her Fault
Sky Atlantic/Now
The opening scenes of this high-shine thriller are the stuff of nightmares, an escalating panic attack as Marissa (Succession’s Sarah Snook) slowly realises that her son is not at the playdate she so casually arranged by text. What follows is a glossy but utterly absorbing mystery based on Andrea Mara’s 2021 novel, essential for viewers who enjoy watching immaculate families implode in the style of Big Little Lies or The Undoing. Under the intrigue lies a sly commentary on women’s emotional labour and “mom” guilt, too, meaning you can provoke a few uncomfortable holiday conversations while revelling in its superior twists.
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Rod Liddle’s picksLandman
Billy Bob Thornton as Tommy Norris in Landman
EMERSON MILLER/PARAMOUNT+/AP
Paramount+
The most joyous of the year’s box sets, an upcycling of Dallas with Billy Bob Thornton playing the laconic oil fixer Tommy Norris stamping about west Texas making enormous amounts of money from the exploitation of fossil fuels. If that wasn’t enough, there’s a steely Demi Moore as the company’s dowager and the wonderful Michelle Randolph as Tommy’s pampered, thick as mince daughter. Thrill as the derricks strike black gold! Watch it on Christmas Day and imagine Greta Thunberg screaming at the set, “How dare you!” Lots of fun and a great cast.
Tipping Point
ITV1/ITVX
Then bring yourself back to earth with the sudden realisation that so many of your fellow citizens are pig ignorant to a degree that would insult a pig. This mash-up of quiz show and arcade game has become famous for the unparalleled dimness of its competitors, with the presenter Ben Shephard sometimes open-mouthed with incredulity at their astonishing lack of knowledge. On a recent edition two contestants were asked to name the star in our solar system. One said “the Earth”, the other said “the moon”. Which 19th-century Scottish novelist wrote the Ivanhoe novels? Nope, it wasn’t “William Shakespeare”. Nor, Pat from Rotherham, is Singapore in Europe.
The Fortune Hotel 
Stephen Mangan with the contestants on The Fortune Hotel
©ITV/TUESDAY’S CHILD PRODUCTION/SI JOH
ITVX
Easily the best of the year’s Traitors copyists, as a bunch of disparate couples vie to double-cross each other and compete in pointless and taxing games in a paradisical hotel on Grenada. OK, the “TV event of the year” went to The Celebrity Traitors — but this was superior, partly because the contestants were not celebrities but a neatly curated conglomeration of oddballs, and partly because the show was presented not by Claudia Winkleman but by the rather more engaging Stephen Mangan. The joy came in watching the animosity grow and the double-crossing get more and more vicious. The Traitors, meanwhile, is back on BBC1 on New Year’s Day. Meh.
Storyville: Mr Nobody Against Putin
iPlayer
Probably the best documentary of the year. Pavel Talankin, a teacher in the ghastly post-Soviet copper mining town of Karabash, on the edge of Siberia, secretly filmed what happened in his school after Russia invaded Ukraine. The kids and staff were bullied and dragooned into a nationalistic, perhaps fascistic, fervour and a concomitant hatred of both Ukraine and the West. Nerdy and self-deprecating, Talankin came into increasing conflict with the school authorities as they implemented the federal patriotic education policy. The show’s antihero was the chief disseminator of propaganda, a lank, grey, lugubrious history teacher called Abdulmanov, who came straight from the pages of Dostoevsky. Talankin fled Russia in 2024 and now lives in the West.
The Gold
iPlayer
We still don’t know what happened to all of the £26 million worth of Brink’s-Mat gold liberated from a warehouse at Heathrow in 1983. I hope someone enjoyed spending at least part of it. Awful lot of bother, really, if they didn’t. But we do know that the perps were the usual suspects — largely sarf Lunnun crims such as Micky “The Nutter” McAvoy and of course Kenny Noye, who allegedly helped with a bit of smelting. All nicely brought to life in the second series of this fine dramatisation.
Jaws @ 50
National Geographic, Dec 30, 8pm
Runner-up for my documentary of the year. The film that grabbed hold of the world in 1975 gave its director, Steven Spielberg, a nervous breakdown and had people paddling in the sea at Clacton terrified that a great white might be waiting for them. It was a difficult trick to pull off. First there was the giant mechanical shark, which kept breaking down — no CGI, of course. Then, worse, Spielberg had to contend with an almost perpetually pissed Robert Shaw and the uniquely irritating — even when sober — Richard Dreyfuss. Top-drawer interviews, including a gently reflective Spielberg, brought 1975 back to life.
Channel of the year — Film4
It seems pointless having a TV channel devoted entirely to films, seeing as almost all movies are available to us these days from Netflix, Prime Video and beyond. But whoever chooses the films for Channel Four has great taste and imagination, and the pleasure comes in watching films you might not have heard of, or hadn’t considered watching. The best viewing time is a Sunday afternoon. That’s when I caught Kind Hearts and Coronets plus a host of old Ealing comedies. Keep ’em coming.
What are your favourite shows of the year? Let us know in the comments below