Greetings, reader!
Well, it's the first Thursday of the year - and as is tradition, that means that it's time for me to share what my very favorite TV shows of the past year were. While 2025 was a slightly below-average movie year for the 2020's, it was arguably the best TV year of the decade so far, with so many great offerings that I had to leave many shows in the honorable mentions that would easily make the top 10 in most years. These are my picks for the very best television of 2025!
Here are my honorable mentions: Futurama (Season 13), Rick and Morty (Season 8), Squid Game (Season 3), Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld (Season 1), The Last of Us (Season 2).
10. Saturday Night Live (Season 50B and 51A)
Lorne Michaels' sketch comedy has been making Americans laugh (and other Americans shake their fists) for fifty years now, and it shows no signs of slowing down. The big highlight for SNL this year was obviously the fiftieth anniversary special, which was an absolute blast of nostgalgic callbacks, hilarious continuations of beloved running jokes, and comedic clashes between eras in the show's run.
This year also gave us gems like Timothée Chalamet promoting A Complete Unknown by being the host AND the musical guest (performing Bob Dylan songs as Bob Dylan), Jost&Che continuing to kill it as Weekend Update anchors, and Bowen Yang getting the touching farewell he deserved with his final episode as a castmember. It'll be interesting to see who emerges as the next "face of the SNL" star to fill the void left by Bowen - my money is on Sarah Sherman, but honestly Ashley Padilla has been so good this fall that it could just as easily be her.
9. Big Mouth (Season 8)
In its expectation-defying run, Big Mouth slowly evolved from a crude "who is this even for?" comedy about puberty into one of the most wholesome, sex-positive and healing viewing experiences on television - and it all came to a conclusion this year, with the show's final season. While not quite on par with the show's greatest seasons, season 8 was still a very fitting ending, and one that had me choking up multiple times as I had come to care about the characters and their coming-of-age archs so much.
I want to especially praise the show's penultimate episode, Everything We Forgot to Tell You About Sex. The gimmick for this anthology episode was that the showrunners had asked fans for subjects that the show hasn't yet handled and would like to see discussed, and then gave us short stories on a whole bunch of those. The final reveal that the most-asked question by far was some form or other of "Am I normal?", the answer to which was presented as a spectacular musical number with all the show's characters proudly displaying their quirks and peculiarities, was a beautifully moving sentiment.
8. Stranger Things (Season 5)
First of all, addressing the controversies - I didn’t end up boycotting the final season like some, although I did consider it and do respect those who felt that was necessary. If I was the showrunner, I 100% would have fired Noah Schnapp and Brett Gelman for their pro-genocide comments, and I was upset about the lack of consequences. But as disappointed as I am, I found it hard to direct it too much at this one show, because the lack of consequences mirrored a much larger issue. I’m guessing that if the actors had spoken out in some other controversial way, there would have been consequences, but the bleak reality is that a large mainstream in the West doesn’t care about Palestinian lives, and Schnapp and Gelman’s stances are much more mainstream than they should be. Sure, it would’ve been the right thing to do if the Duffer brothers had fired them, but at the end of the day, they’re making a show in capitalist Hollywood and they didn’t really have an incentive to fire them because people who give a shit about Gaza still appear to be a minority in the United States. A loud minority, and one that needs to get a lot louder until we see some change, but still.
So, yeah, I did watch the hit show’s final season despite my mixed feelings and the difficulty of separating the art from the artist. TV-wise, I really liked the season - it was a fitting end, with the blockbuster series finale especially being a satisfying conclusion to the epic story arch that has grabbed the world’s attention for nine years.
7. Black Mirror (Season 7)
Screw the haters - Black Mirror continues to rock with each new season, and the very newest one was the best they've done in quite a while!
With its seventh season, Charlie Brooker's technology-anthology series gave us six original stories. Some were better than others - Bête Noire was a bit of a let-down, but thankfully the only one. The season had everything you might want from a season in this show: Common People gave us a very old-school Black Mirror tech-gone-wrong story sure to please the early season loyalists, Hotel Reverie gave us the sort of boundary-pushing next-level creative gimmick sure to please later season enjoyers, Eulogy felt like an Oscar-worthy short film with its emotionally driven story and dynamite lead role by Paul Giamatti, and Plaything was a chaotic blast of everything, wildly combining moments of fun with incredibly dark undertones.
The season concluded with USS Callister: Into Infinity - the first sequel to an earlier episode that the show has ever done. The original USS Callister remains my #1 favorite episode of the entire show, so I'm beyond happy that they chose this episode for that idea. Into Infinity was the closest thing Black Mirror has ever had to a blockbuster film, with its lengthy runtime, grandiose production values and epic atmosphere, and I loved every minute of it.
6. It: Welcome to Derry (Season 1)
As a massive fan of Stephen King's It and the 2017 film, my anticipation was high for this universe-expanding spin-off series. The first season of Welcome to Derry was one of those TV seasons that just gets better and better - the first two episodes were alright, the next two a tad better, the two after that really got the ball rolling with unexpected quality, and the last two were absolute masterclasses of directing, acting, tie-ins, horror and emotionally charged storytelling.
From the first few episodes, I would not have guessed in a million years that we'd get the levels of elite television that the episodes The Black Spot and Winter Fire ended up being, or that the show would end up ranking this well in my best-of-the-year ranking (especially since this was an above-average TV year). Andy Muschietti's directing in the penultimate episode is relentlessly intense and masterfully gripping, while the absolutely genius plot twists and connections revealed in the finale made for a truly epic addition to the It lore.
Having Bill Skarsgård reprise his role was an absolute treat as well, as was the atmospheric score by the great Benjamin Wallfisch. Very much looking forward to the second season!
5. Mo (Season 2)
Mo, a dramedy about a Palestinian-American family living in Texas, created by Palestinian-American comedian Mo Amer with a pseudo-autobiographical touch, aired its first season in 2022. Already then, the show was hard-hitting in its social commentary, eye-opening in its exploration of the Palestinian immigrant experience, and a funny and endearing family show amidst the sobering look it gives at some real-world issues.
As one could imagine, the second season (written after 2023 and aired this year) turns the heartbreaking, tear-jerking and educational side of the show to the maximum.
In light of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the second season of Mo pulls no punches, with Amer's real-life values translating to the fictional story in an honest, raw manner. The show doesn't even address the post-2023 events directly, nor does it have to: in a story that likely takes place before October 7th, it sheds light on what the Palestinian experience has always been, and the oppression they have faced both in the homeland as well as migrating across the world with no right of return. The commentary on the cultural tensions and shifting view in the U.S. is done with brilliant nuance, and the season finale taking place in occupied Palestine is some of the most gripping TV I've seen. Kudos to Mo Amer for making this much-needed series, one that a lot more people (especially Americans who only ever hear one side of the conversation) should be exposed to.
4. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Season 17)
And then there's these f**kers. By now, I'm certain that Rob Mac, Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day have sold their souls to the devil a long time ago, in exchange for the unique gift of being able to make a TV series that runs for multiple decades and completely keeps its level. No other show could accomplish a seventeenth season that feels so fresh, original, and good as ever - especially since It's Always Sunny never really had a slump they had to come back from!
The seventeenth season gave us eight episodes, all of which were quite unforgettable in their own way - the Abbott Elementary crossover (more on that later) was just as hysterical as you'd expect, Mac and Dennis Become EMTs and Thought Leadership: A Corporate Conversation were hilarious parodies of hit shows The Bear and Succession, Frank Is in a Coma and Overage Drinking: A National Concern felt like blasts of old-school IASIP while The Gang Gets Ready for Prime Time and The Golden Bachelor Live proved how creative and full of new ideas and directions the show still is. Even the least-good episode, The Gang Goes to a Dog Track, was far from terrible - the imagery is forever etched in my mind, for better or for worse, and the whole thing definitely had me and my fiancée talking.
The record-breaking, expectation-defying sitcom celebrated its 20th anniversary this year - and honestly, based on how well it's going, I'd greenlight them for 20 more on the spot.
3. Abbott Elementary (Season 4B)
Apart from IASIP, every sitcom ever made has a fairly distinctive prime. More often than not, it comes in the middle of the show's run, after the first few seasons of still growing and finding your groove, and before you start recycling the same jokes and plotlines. Most of my favorite sitcoms are ones that I've watched after their full run is finished - so it's exciting as hell to be following a new sitcom right as it enters its prime!
The first three seasons of Abbott Elementary were really good - but season 4 is the first one to feel like the series has reached its full potential, truly unlocking every character in to the funniest and most interesting version of themselves. Particularly the second half of season 4, released in 2025, is incredibly full of bangers - you got the Jordan Peele vibe of Girard Creek, the delightfully close-to-home Music Class, the mega-entertaining rapid-fire jokes of Karaoke, the well-written and surprisingly emotional Audit, and the amazing series of payoffs we see in Rally (my personal favorite of the series so far). Just to name a few. Oh, and then there's Volunteers, the first half of the two-part crossover with IASIP, which is such a perfect culture clash with the two Philly-based sitcoms really bringing out the best in each other!
The entire main cast was absolutely on fire this year, with their dynamics working so well together. The show is as wholesome as ever, while getting funnier and funnier season by season. It's quite simply the best sitcom currently out there. Can't wait to see season 5 once it rolls out!
2. The Bear (Season 4)
This critical darling about the culinary world continued to dazzle with its most recent season. From the moment that an epic montage started to unfold to the tune of The Who's Getting In Tune in the season premiere, it was clear that this series isn't losing steam and will continue to kick ass and take names. Season 4 was a wild ride, with the overarching theme being a wholesome one that fits the larger scheme of things well.
The first season was all about toxic, self-repeating patterns in people who aren't the best versions of themselves, while season 2 was surprisingly upbeat as we saw our characters grow and improve, and season 3 was a devastating look at how easily people can fall back into harmful cycles and take a step back right after a step forward because true growth is hard to achieve. After the bleak third season, it felt like such a payoff that season 4 was a more optimistic one again, feeling like a deeper version of season 2: the character archs this year were all about growing even when it's hard, and overcoming serious obstacles as the characters finally began to feel like the best versions of themselves.
This was evident on different levels in episodes like the conventionally feel-good Scallop, the character-driven sidequest Worms, the magnificently entertaining Bears and the gripping but ultimately uplifting Tonnato. Everything culminates in the mesmerizing season finale, which consists entirely of a riveting dialouge between a few of the central characters. Dynamite acting, remarkable screenwriting, artistic directing - what a killer combo.
1. Andor (Season 2)
The best TV season of the year, and possibly the decade. As good as the first season of this Star Wars spin-off was, absolutely no one could've seen it coming that the second and final season would be this good. I mean, I expected a lot, but for the prequel show for a spin-off film originally made to fix a plot hole from the original trilogy to grow into a massively acclaimed, borderline revolutionary work of antifascist art - that's a plot twist even bigger than the whole Darth Vader thing from Empire Strikes Back.
Consisting of four three-episode archs, the second season of Andor is a masterclass in TV storytelling, with carefully built slow-burn setups eventually transforming into massive, earth-shattering payoffs. Everyone in the cast puts in their A-game, with characters like Stellan Skarsgård's Luthen Rael and Elizabeth Dulau's Kleya Marki proving to be in the very same tier as Han Solo, Yoda and company when discussing the franchise's greatest characters. Come to think of it, this season is so good that within the Star Wars franchise, it stands ahead of everything except for the original trilogy, and neck to neck with that as well.
While the story is strong enough to work on its own, it does gain humongous extra value for someone like me when considering what it has to say about the times we're living. Star Wars has always been political, what with George Lucas admitting that the Rebel Alliance was a Viet Cong metaphor in a time when he wanted to rage against the system with his creative works, and I'm glad to see that this tradition is alive and well. The best episodes in this masterpiece of a season, like Who Are You? and Welcome to the Rebellion, hit so much harder when you recognize the skillfully weaved parallels to the ongoing genocide in Gaza and other atrocities - it's not too on-the-nose, but not too subtle either, so that the point comes across with blistering emotional power.
And finally, the nerd in me has to give praise to the genius tie-ins to the rest of the franchise. No prequel that I've ever seen, not even Better Call Saul, has done such a 10/10 job in providing further emotional context for the previously existing work, thus complementing the whole. Watching Rogue One and the original trilogy was already a pretty epic thing to do, but it's going to feel even more dramatic now that Andor exists. The Death Star being blown up (uh, spoiler alert) at the end of Star Wars went from being the climax for that individual film to being the culmination of a long-winding story of heroism and sacrifice, with the moment being the eventual, inevitable, well-earned victory that so many unsung heroes fought and died for across the dramatic events seen in Andor. Thinking about this show in contrast to Rogue One and the original trilogy, or vice versa, makes you appreciate the story of the Rebel Alliance as one of the most dramatic and powerful fictional stories ever written. And if you think I'm exaggerating, I will leave you with Nemik's immortal words:
"There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this: freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy - there are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort - it breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear"
Words to live by, if we don't want to let the Trumps, Netanyahus and Orpos win. Thank you, Tony Gilroy.
Thank you for reading! Tune in next week for a list of my most anticipated movies of 2026.
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