Has television finally gone through the glut of mediocrity that has dragged it down for the last few years? By expanding into too many streamers too quickly and prioritizing quantity over quality, the form dipped after its historic peak in the 1990s and 2000s. Sure, there have been some standouts in the 2020s, but anyone who thinks we’re in an era that’s remotely comparable to when Tony Soprano and Walter White prowled the networks needs to do their research.
Something finally feels different at the halfway point of 2025. People are talking about TV again. They’re getting blindsided by the emotional power of “Adolescence,” debating the twists of “The Last of Us,” marveling at the timeliness of “Andor,” and trying to predict where “The White Lotus” is going. The first six months of 2025 have been one of the strongest for TV in a very long time, better than some recent full-year stretches. Let’s hope it keeps up.
There may be some that fall away in the next six months, but these are the 18 shows you need to have seen to talk about the year in TV at the halfway point. They’re the essentials.
“Adolescence” (Netflix)
Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne’s four-part miniseries made waves when it came out on Netflix, not just for its expertly executed visual gimmick (each hour is constructed of one long, uninterrupted take, capturing all of its events in real time) or its carefully crafted performances by actors like Graham and newcomer Owen Cooper, but for the way it touched on the ‘redpilling’ of young men by a social media ecosystem adults can’t see and can barely understand. I totally understand criticisms of the show’s conceit—there’s little exploration of what women and girls think of all this, after all, despite being the ones at risk. But the craft, and performances, will out; I still think there’s ultimate value in exploring these mindsets, especially if, after all, it’s men and boys who are going to have to be the ones to make changes. – Clint Worthington
“Andor” (Disney+)
The Disney era of “Star Wars” has been one of incredible swings and roundabouts, a frantic throwing of material at the wall to see what sticks. But after a divisive sequel trilogy and a bevy of ill-conceived fanbait-y Disney+ shows, the franchise finally showed us something different and valuable in “Andor.” Season 1 was a triumph, as Tony Gilroy expanded on the groundwork laid by “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” to craft a tale of rebellion in its infancy; Season 2 followed those threads in rewarding, if slightly rushed, fashion. Its set-pieces felt more invigorating, its performances more mature, and its cast of characters suffused with the exhaustion that comes from the enormous sacrifices required of revolution. The finale saw Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor striding towards the events of “Rogue One,” and his impending doom. But if the show taught us anything, it’s that those sacrifices are never, ever in vain. – CW
“The Bear” (Hulu)
Being a fan of “The Bear” feels like stewing in the heat of The Beef’s old kitchen; it’s frustrating to see the moments when the show starts to stumble, but it’s got enough heart that you root for it anyway. While its third and fourth seasons haven’t quite reached the revelatory heights of its first two, there’s still plenty of sauce in “The Bear”‘s heady mix of Cassavetes-esque naturalism and dewey-eyed idealism to savor. Season 4 is a step up from the meandering chaos of season 3, with its characters settling into their renewed purposes even as the fate of their restaurant faces a literal ticking clock. But Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and the game cast that surrounds them persevere through the pain and remind us with each emotional closeup why we’ve grown so attached to these characters. Plus, it remains a gleaming (if sometimes inaccurate) tourism ad for Chicago’s many fine eateries. –CW
“Deli Boys” (Hulu)
Speaking of Chicago (which stands in for Philly here), Abdullah Saeed’s Hulu crime comedy “Deli Boys” came out of nowhere to become a sorely underseen favorite. A kind of “Breaking Bad” meets “Good Girls” yarn about a pair of underachieving failsons (Asif Ali and Saagar Shaikh) who find themselves the unwitting heads of a Pakistani crime family after their patriarch suddenly croaks, “Deli Boys” finds a lot of slapstick charm in its cultural specificity. Bricks of cocaine hidden in jars of achar, family fixers nicknamed “Murder Walla,” corner delis as fronts for drug smuggling—it’s all charming, effervescent stuff that mines the specificities of Pakistani-American assimilation for laughs without feeling exploitative. The leads have great chemistry, but Poorna Jagannathan runs away with the thing as the boys’ bloodthirsty Auntie Lucky, both mentor and thorn in their side. – CW
“Dying for Sex” (Hulu)
Michelle Williams quietly did the best dramatic work of her career in this powerful dramedy, and it feels like not enough people have been talking about it. The Oscar nominee plays Molly Kochan, a woman who becomes sexually liberated when she accepts her terminal cancer diagnosis. Co-starring Jenny Slate, Rob Delaney, Jay Duplass, and Sissy Spacek, this marvelous program is a thrilling reminder to live every moment to its fullest. But it never devolves into cheesy platitudes or emotional manipulation as it tracks Molly through all the stages of death. It’s moving, rather than melodramatic, in all the right ways. – Brian Tallerico
“Forever” (Netflix)
Loosely based on the 1975 Judy Blume novel of the same name, this Netflix original succeeds by never talking down to its young audience. Well, that and truly insane chemistry between stars Lovie Simone and Michael Cooper Jr. From the minute they reunite at a New Year’s Eve party going into 2018, it’s obvious they’re fated for one another. Still, Mara Brock Akil’s show consistently turns left when you expect it to go right, which is what makes it special. Akil and her collaborators (including Regina King, who directs the premiere) trust their characters, giving them three-dimensional emotional realities that make them feel so much more genuine than most programs for young adults. Having wonderful vets like Wood Harris, Karen Pittman, and Barry Shabaka Henley in the ensemble helps, but this show belongs to Cooper and Simone, who are future stars, if there’s any justice. – BT
“Hacks” (Max)
The fourth season of HBO Max’s comedy hit asked how far Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) would go to hold onto what she was trying to grip her entire career. It turns out that staying relevant in the late-night comedy scene is even harder than getting a hosting gig, especially when your closest ally has become your work enemy. The writers of “Hacks” understand the complex intersection of professional ambition and personal attachment more than any show on TV, detailing how the yin-yangs of Hollywood, like art & business, forge one another. The finale of the fourth season felt like the first time in this show’s legacy that fans reacted skeptically, but there’s little doubt that showrunners Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky can bounce back. Deborah always does. – BT
“The Last of Us” (Max)
The second season of HBO’s adaptation of the Sony hit became one of the third rails of pop culture in the first half of 2025, becoming a funhouse mirror version of the divisive response to the game on which it was based. Did Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin handle all of the twists and turns of that masterpiece with the same agility? No. In retrospect, it was a season with some significant pacing issues as essential narrative threads of the game (like Dina’s pregnancy) were rushed while others felt dragged out. And yet with all of the speedbumps, this is still one of the most impressive dramas of the 2020s, and the second season contained at least two of the best episodes of 2025 in the second and sixth chapters. Also, God bless Jeffrey Wright. – BT
“Murderbot” (Apple TV+)
Sci-fi comedies are hard to pull off, but Apple TV+’s “Murderbot” makes for a far more admirable effort than most, thanks largely to a game performance by Alexander Skarsgård as a futuristic security droid who hacks its “governing module” to become self-actualizing in a future run by greedy corporations. Trouble is, it can’t really break free from its programming without giving the game away, so freedom exists only to internally sneer at dopey human employers (in this case, a small ensemble of charmingly cringy space hippies) and watch “content” on the media library in its head. The first season still has its ups and downs, largely down to the show’s struggles to adapt the acerbic tone of Martha Wells’ novels to the screen. Still, “Murderbot”‘s charms are many, and its initial run offers so much promise for the future. –CW
“Paradise” (Hulu)
If you were to look at the initial marketing for Hulu’s big-budget series “Paradise,” it’d look like little more than a ho-hum political thriller about a stalwart Secret Service bodyguard (Sterling K. Brown) investigating the murder of James Marsden’s apple-cheeked President. But in the final minutes, creator Dan Fogelman (“This Is Us”) throws the first of many bonkers curveballs at you: Turns out the whole thing takes place in a domed city carved out of a mountain, where the presumed remnants of humanity reside in a gilded cage. What follows is some of the craziest, smooth-brained television you’ll see all year, as our characters both try to solve the mystery of who (and why) the President was murdered, and wrestle with the usual moral quandaries that come from surviving the apocalypse. It’s “Silo” or “Fallout” as envisioned by television’s most mawkish melodramatist, and that’s what makes its many baffling swings so endearing. –CW
“Pee-wee as Himself” (Max)
How do you make a pull back the curtain on someone who hid his true self behind an exaggerated on-screen and on-stage persona for his entire life? Matt Wolf’s two-part docuseries, already a Gotham Award winner, is the multifaceted answer to this question, a reclaiming of the legacies of both Paul Reubens and Pee-wee Herman through stunning editing, probing interviews, and an understanding of what made its subjects such important figures in the history of comedy. Millions of people still think of the controversies that clearly haunted Reubens when the name Pee-wee Herman comes up, which makes this excellent project not just a great documentary but a correction of the record. It’s a must-see. – BT
“The Pitt” (Max)
It took a show that once existed as a sequel to “ER” to remind viewers how much they missed the intensity of a well-done hospital drama. And this one is as well-done as they come. One of the best dramas on TV of any subgenre, “The Pitt” features career-best work from Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby, a man still dealing with trauma as he navigates one of the toughest days in a Pittsburgh ER. Wyle is the sun around which this show orbits, but it’s the extended ensemble and excellent writing that make it move. Told in real-time, “The Pitt” is harrowing, funny, and memorable, and the way it quietly became the most buzzed-about program of the first half of 2025 was almost encouraging for those of us who have been writing about TV for a quarter-century. It was clearly a show that people were recommending to friends and family, growing its fan base with each episode, a reminder that the most important element in a hit show will always be quality. – BT
“The Rehearsal” (Max)
When I wondered at the beginning of Season 2 of “The Rehearsal” how exactly Nathan Fielder was going to land this particular plane, I didn’t know that thought would become so very literal. And yet, his follow-up to the incredible first season finds purchase and purpose in its overarching bid to construct intricate, darkly-comic dollhouses to help people ‘rehearse’ the most stressful times in their lives by placing a laser focus on the welfare of airline pilots. It’s a remit Fielder takes incredibly seriously, which is what makes moments like reliving the life of Sully Sullenberger (complete with shaving himself to look like a baby and nurse at a 12-foot-tall puppet of Sully’s mother’s breast) take on knee-slapping significance. Never has Evanescence’s “Bring Me to Life” been imbued with such ironic, spiritual import, nor Fielder committed so wholeheartedly to a bit. –CW
“The Righteous Gemstones” (Max)
Danny McBride’s prior shows for HBO (“Eastbound and Down,” “Vice Principals”) always knew just how to get out while the getting’s good, and the fourth season of “The Righteous Gemstones” makes for quite the holy hat trick. In winding down the “Succession”-esque tale of a televangelist dynasty reckoning with its future, “The Righteous Gemstones” found ways to work in Tim Baltz pole-dancing with stone-faced professionalism, Walton Goggins’ Baby Billy casting himself in a church-bankrolled TV show as a teenage Jesus (or “Teenjus”), and a host of other great bits and guest turns. (Its premiere episode gave us a flashback to the Civil War, and Bradley Cooper as the original Gemstone huckster who set the tone for the family’s God-sanctioned avarice.) But more than anything, the show’s crass bits always made way for a perverse affection for its wild cast of characters, all of whom brought their A-game even when they didn’t get a lot of screentime. The Gemstone family walked towards the light when it was their time and earned a pass from St. Peter in the pearly gates of great TV families. –CW
“Severance” (Apple TV+)
My review, rather notoriously, landed a little further down the spectrum of reviews for this beloved Apple TV+ program than my peers, but I came around after seeing the final few chapters (even if I still prefer the freshman season). Once again, this is a list of the essential programs of 2025, rather than just personal favorites, and it would be incomplete without this one. And there was arguably no drama more essential to the story of TV so far this year, proof that fans of a show as ambitious as “Severance” will go to some truly strange places once they have decided they trust the writers as much as they do here. Will that trust be rewarded in future seasons? Only time will tell, but for now, people still love “Severance,” and television as a whole is better because of that relationship. – BT
“The Studio” (Apple TV+)
Seth Rogen’s Apple TV+ Hollywood satire is arguably the best comedy of the year, a consistently funny, smart, and unexpected piece of work. Inspired by Robert Altman’s “The Player” (Bryan Cranston’s studio executive even shares a name with Tim Robbins’ character from that film), “The Studio” could have been too “Inside Baseball” for those who don’t read Variety. Still, the brilliance of the writing here is how often it works on multiple levels and for all audiences. It’s also nowhere near as cynical as something like “Entourage,” instead serving as a reminder of how many studio executives are trying to express their love for film through their projects, even as the business of show so often gets in the way. The writing has been justly praised, but the ensemble is the true gem here, including career-best work from Rogen and Ike Barinholtz, along with wonderful turns from legends like Catherine O’Hara and Kathryn Hahn and a fantastic debut from Chase Sui Wonders. It’s hard not to love these inept maniacs as they fumble their way through a system that destroys dreamers as often as it elevates them. – BT
“The White Lotus” (Max)
The third trip for Mike White’s hit HBO show was arguably the most divisive, but it’s also a show that had people talking about it from February through its April finale in ways that the streamers just can’t match with their binge model. As people speculated about who would die and argued about the strongest and weakest narrative threads, White spun another tale about how vacations can often amplify our worst tendencies. While the writing was criticized this year for taking too long and ending a little ridiculously, it feels like not enough attention was given to White’s direction, especially the fantastic performances he enabled from actors like Carrie Coon, Aimee Lou Wood, Walton Goggins, and Sam Rockwell, among others. It’s also underreported how simply gorgeous “The White Lotus” is compared to most network dramas. – BT
“Your Friends & Neighbors” (Apple TV+)
The first season was a bit unfocused at times, but this has still been one of the series that people have been obsessed with most this year, landing in the top three of all shows on Apple TV+ since its April premiere. People just love to see Jon Hamm in the mode of a put-upon businessman, as his Coop recalls Don Draper in ways that make it feel like the Emmy winner has avoided since the end of “Mad Men.” Hamm is excellent as a New York hedge fund manager whose life falls apart after a divorce and a trip to unemployment. He’s the reason to watch and the main reason this show is one of the essential ones. –BT