I’m not sure you can call 2025 an exceptional year for television.
The continued shakeout of the recent writers’ strikes was part of it. Nonetheless, there were still a large number of very good-to-great shows to check out.
Pop Thruster’s Top 10 TV shows of 2025 span a wide range of tones, genres, and ambitions, which makes me hopeful that we’ll get an even stronger slate of new and returning seasons in 2026.
#1. The White Lotus
First of all, I’m honestly shocked that Mike White’s darkly satirical masterpiece didn’t make many “best TV shows of the year” lists I saw. While each of the show’s first three largely anthology-style seasons has been great in its own way, I find each edition to be richer, stranger, and more rewarding than the last.
Season 3 brought the action to Thailand, with the theme of spirituality getting draped on top of the murder mystery structure. Bonus: Sam Rockwell and Walton Goggins made an all-time pairing.
Bizarre, hilarious, compelling, occasionally upsetting, all around brilliant.
#2. Task
I almost passed up watching the latest show from Brad Ingelsby (also see: the excellent Mare of Easttown), thinking it might be a dreary and grim cops-and-bad-guys story set in Delco outside of Philly.
I’m so glad I didn’t: this is exceptional storytelling, with outstanding writing and deeply nuanced performances from a stellar cast led by Mark Ruffalo, Tom Pelphrey, Emilia Jones, and Fabien Frankel (a.k.a. Ser Criston Cole from House of the Dragon!).
3. Pluribus
One of my TV rules is to both watch and deeply trust anything Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, produces. And that rule holds as Gilligan returns to his sci fi roots with a head trippy and wildly original spin on “the aliens took over the planet” story.
Oh, another TV rule: watch anything with Rhea Seehorn in it. She gets lots of screen time in the Apple TV+ show’s first season and owns every second of it.
4. The Righteous Gemstones
I was also shocked and slightly bummed that the final season of this hysterical series that skewers the culture of money-hungry mega churches also didn’t make most of the end of year best TV lists that I scoped out. Season 4 concluded what I consider to be Danny McBride’s finest show to date – and I state this knowing that some Eastbound & Down purists will be dismissive of this take – on the strongest of notes. While the ensemble cast is absolute perfection, I must call out Walton Goggins’ performance (again!) as Uncle Baby Billy, who I find myself imitating offhandedly to this day.
5. Adolescence
Much has been made of how each of the four episodes of this taut, gut punch of a limited series is a “one shot,” and indeed Adolescence is a technical marvel. It’s the writing and performances that stand out most to me, particularly in the third episode, where almost all of the “action” takes place in a single room that contains a table, two chairs and Erin Doherty as psychologist Briony Ariston attempting to assess a child – Jamie Miller, an astonishing performance by newcomer Owen Cooper – accused of murder.
6. The Last of Us
Not everything worked perfectly in Season 2 of this prestige zombie apocalypse show based on the popular video game, but there were strong moments throughout and some of the action sequences rank among the best produced on television in recent years.
7. The Agency
I’m cheating ever so slightly with this one as it premiered in late 2024, but the first season finale landed in January ’25, so I’m slotting it as one of the best TV shows of 2025, damn it. I found this chilly spy thriller to be absolutely compelling, led by Michael Fassbender (as a CIA agent codenamed Martian) in a role he seems born to play.
8. The Chair Company
There were multiple moments during the first season of Tim Robinson’s lunatic-bizarre comedy-conspiracy show, The Chair Company, that made me laugh more than anything else on television this year.
9. The Rehearsal
Nathan Fielder quite simply pushes the boundaries of what television is. The results don’t always land, so to speak (a pun that fits Season 2, if you can dig), and are often uncomfortable to watch, and yet somehow it’s hilarious and weirdly compelling, and fascinatingly unique at the same time.
10. The Pitt
I’m not typically drawn to medical dramas, but The Pitt is so well executed, has such a great cast and such strong writing, and is driven so relentlessly by its real-time pacing that it demanded a slot on the Top 10.
Mea culpa: Andor
Even while being mostly out on the sprawling Star Wars universe, I was riveted by the first season of Andor. I simply haven’t had the chance to see Season 2 as yet so that’s why, if you’re wondering, it didn’t make Pop Thruster’s Top 10 for 2025.
Other TV stuff and notes to round out 2025
- While I haven’t yet seen the second season of Severance, I found Season 1 to be more watchable than great, with occasional flashes of brilliance.
- I was very excited by the premiere episode of The Studio and have great fondness for Seth Rogen, but found each subsequent episode a little bit less interesting than the last.
- The Beast in Me is quintessentially good-but-not-great Netflix fare. I gobbled it up but kind of barely recall what it was about. Clare Danes and Matthew Rhys were great as always, I guess?