As an overview of television in 2025 and as shows have been in the last ten years, there were few that were excellent, a chicken truck full of average TV (the kind you use to do your laundry), and there is always the terrible, though perhaps a little less than previous years. That bell curve is larger. Apple TV seems streams more and sometimes better series; but Mid TV is on every streaming service, and no more so than Netflix. That's still the norm. Here are the top ten TV shows of 2025 and ten more that deserve recognition.
Notable mentions (20 – 11): Your Friends and Neighbors (Apple TV), The White Lotus (HBO), Smoke (Apple TV), Dept. Q (Netflix), The Lowdown (FX/Hulu), Alien: Earth (FX/Hulu), The Studio (Apple TV), 100 Foot Wave (HBO), Stranger Things 5 (Netflix), Plur1bus (Apple TV)
10.
The Pitt
(HBO Max)
In a surprise that relies less on originality and more on heavy drama, HBO Max made a leap backward. The Pitt was ER in its own HBO way, and it worked to near perfection. A busting-pants-at-Thanksgiving number of episodes at fifteen, a lot less melodrama than broadcast, plenty of chances for great and varied actors to display their talents for a week or two, and deeper story lines for the characters who mattered the most. In particular, of course, is Noah Wyle, returning as an emergency room doctor who’s more grizzled, more traumatized, and more fascinating than ever. The Pitt aired one episode each Thursday, and viewers could not wait for the next. With a new season coming quickly in January, The Pitt is worth the time it takes to watch it all with its examinations on life, death, and the effect of both.
9.
It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
(FX)
The gang never stops. It’s a constant battle of greed or one-upmanship or merely revenge, but this formula has only gotten better. In its seventeenth season, the laughs were louder and crazier as the episodes added a television twist from its unexpected crossover with Abbott Elementary to Frank making a sexually demanding appearance on The Golden Bachelor. These horrible people always give more than being horrendous: there's many a lesson on the current American spirit, and it ain’t pretty. But at least it’s hilarious.
8.
The Last of Us
(HBO)
The big HBO hit has its share of grit, sadness, shock, and horror. Yet it never fears to go thematically large, too: who are we without our mentors? What happens when there is not a resolution? Who makes the decisions of life and death and punishment? It also balances those major thoughts with true tension and great action. The writing, the production, and the acting all add up to a sincere -- and mournful -- piece of television which knows better than to spend too long on pondering the all of it. Instead, The Last of Us leaves it to viewers longer after the HBO screen goes black.
7.
The Bear
(FX)
Perhaps back to form from previous two entries, The Bear gets into facing its issues in its fourth season. Carmie and Syd need to talk, yes. With these big character moments come mesmerizing scenes from great actors: one episode is more or less a play between three characters, and viewers never look away. Family, here, is important, but which family is that? Is family what you make? Or does blood bind us all whether we like it or not? And the melancholy remains, too. The Bear oscillated between deep hurt and hilarity, perhaps no more so than, where else? A wedding. It’s nice to have solid writing on television that’s able to balance those waves of true, real emotions.
6.
Chad Powers
(FX/Hulu)
In the “It Had No Business Being This Good” category comes Chad Powers. What could have been a complete flop based off of an ESPN skit with Eli Manning and the comparisons to a beloved Ted Lasso, Chad Powers (and Chad Powers) signs up for the season with aplomb. The wonder of its excellence is a simple, quadruple approach: include the realities of the sport of college football from NIL to its right-wing leanings; create real tension and thrills with characters viewers care about almost instantly; cast it perfectly with Glen Powell, Steve Zahn, Perry Mattfield, and an unsung Clayne Crawford; and keep it a true comedy with hilarious scenes and one liners. Here’s to a second season.
5.
Death By Lightning
(Netflix)
Who knew history could be rich, multifaceted, funny, thrilling, scary, and comparable to the modern world! Creator Mike Makowsky sincerely realized the potential of the 2011 book Destiny of the Republic. Michael Shannon, Shea Whiggham, and Bradley Witford all crackle as politicians who all have differing views on how to run a country, but it’s Michael Macfayden who captures a nice balance of pathos and creepiness to presidential assassin Charles Guiteau. It’s a series which reveals the most amazing tales of our country can easily be lost to the ages. Nor does Death by Lightning overstay: it runs a compact four episodes, but leaves you wondering more.
4.
Andor
(Disney+)
The best move for streamers going forward may be to put the series in the hands of the right writers and creators first. Andor, written and created by Tony Gilroy who also wrote the screenplay for Rogue One, digs granular. Each scene seems too tight with rigidity and tension until it all explodes, quite literally. The series serves as another example of so few on what to do with a prequel, how to handle a story when viewers know where it’s going. First, you have to care. But when you have a world as robust as Star Wars, get to the bottom of where it all starts and make the humans – and aliens – as real as can be. Andor does it all. Beware: you’ll want more.
3.
Severance
(Apple TV)
That Severance aired its second season this year may shock some, but way back in January, it peeled more layers away from Lumon, from Helly, from Mark, and none other than from Harmony Cobel, who gets her own episode here. Each throughline of the narrative engages. Pair Severance with the visual stylings of Ben Stiller and Jessica Lee Gagne and its narrative structure of giving viewers just enough for the next episode, and the show dominates pop culture as much as anything can these days in the era of streaming. Severance asks and answers, pulls viewers close while holding them at a distance, and feels strange and real simultaneously.
2.
Task
(HBO)
Brad Ingelsby knows how to build a crime drama that's more than crime. No more evident than Task, which could have been Mare of Easttown 2. It was not. Instead, Mark Ruffalo as former priest and current FBI agent Tom Brandis tracks down a group of invaders led by Tom Pelphrey in a star-making performance as “Crazy Robbie.” But is it crazy to try to fend for your family whose patience and love keeps you going? It isn’t the only question Task asks, and the remaining are both existential and open. Plus, with excellent performances all around, especially scene-stealer Emilia Jones who plays Maeve with such subtly, audiences could drown in true emotional waters Task.
1.
Adolescence
(Netflix)
Hopefully the discourse does not kill the desire for viewers to watch and to meditate on Adolescence. Yes, it is a crucial reflection of our times, but the skill it takes to make a four-episode series in this manner baffles. Each episode is shot in one continuous take. It’s no gimmick. Adolescence pulses in gut-wrenching moment after moment and does so in the short amount of time actor and writer Stephen Graham gets to pull it off. Could the actual discourse be an argument of which episode generates more awe in such a constrained structure: episode three or four? Or, does Owen Cooper’s performance (as the pre-teen alleged murder Jamie Graham) in the third episode shake audiences more or less knowing that it was the first episode shot for the show? Perhaps the culmination of it all makes us take our medicine with no sugar: how much does the final scene rattle? The answer: Jesus, a lot.