A more mellow year for television, at least for me. But certainly some diamonds in the rough. As always, this list is what I newly experienced in 2025, not necessarily what actually released in 2025.
The experience of this show is alternating between beautiful shots of food preparation and stressful environments where everyone is yelling at each other. It is simultaneously very pleasant and very unpleasant. The characters are endearing and broken. It’s terrific. Yes, chef.
Seth Rogen often plays the loser stoner role. In this show he is certainly a bumbling failure… but also a studio executive? Everything is continuously just about to fall apart, with millions of dollars in the hands of people making bad decisions. It’s all very well filmed, and chock-full of “as themselves” industry cameos. There’s one episode that’s about the process of filming a “oner” (filmed all in one take) that itself is a “oner”, and is both incredibly anxious to watch and impressive. Sometimes the ongoing outright failure of the characters grated on me a little bit, but overall I felt like this show had enough heart to rise above.
This is basically The Goonies, but Star Wars. You know, kids swept up in an adventure, way over their heads. Also pirates, including a smarmy one-eyed droid and a sleazy Jude Law. I found the whole thing very charming. It didn’t try to be too much. There’s no big mythology, no interweaving with a grand epic. Just a story about kids seeking secret treasure and missing their parents.
I’ve talked about my love for the first season of Andor before. The second season essentially tells the tale of how we get to the overtly totalitarian empire that we see in the original Star Wars trilogy. Which frankly, in the year 2025, is not an easy story to be digesting in the name of entertainment. It’s science fiction… right? The second season doesn’t quite hit the high highs of the first season’s multiple cascading climaxes, instead only really having one. But a climax is still a climax. So instead of being the best thing ever, it’s merely really good.
I had previously enjoyed watching the Double Fine Adventure documentary, and also the Amnesia Fortnight movie. The same studio and film crew came together this time to document the entire experience of creating Psychonauts 2, the sequel to one of the most innovative games of all time. I watched this documentary after completing the game, of course, which was quite excellent and a worthy follow-up to its predecessor. I had no idea that this documentary was going to be as long as it was. It covers the whole process from initial inception to its final release in 2021, including how the studio had to navigate the pandemic. We’re talking over 30 full-length episodes. I certainly wouldn’t have expected my daughter to be into watching this with me, but she was. It’s very much see-how-the-sausage-is-made, workplace drama, and product-on-fire content. Not what you would assume is desirable television content for a tween. But we both found it fascinating.
This is stretching the meaning of what constitutes “television”, but I get to make my own rules. Every year on the 1st of October, these two musicians (Rob Scallon and Andrew Huang) get together and make a 10-track album all in one day. They don’t record an album of their latest compositions. No, in one day they start from a blank slate, invent, write lyrics, riff off of each other, and capture the whole thing on video as well as in the DAW. The first of these I caught was from this year where they made the album in a Guitar Center while it was open. And from there I dove into the preceding years and a bunch more of their collaborative content. If you’re interested in the process of making music and writing songs, while being truly playful in multiple ways, this is a great watch.
Here are some other shows I watched (or started) that are worth a little mention.
Interview with a Vampire: I’ve read some of Anne Rice’s vampire books, but weirdly not the first and most famous one. But I’m very fond of the movie from the 90s. I’m enjoying this new adaptation immensely. But I’m not done with it and feel unable to give full commentary. I certainly like how a more expanded format gives these characters in this world of darkness more time to breathe. Well, not literally. They’re dead.
The Rings of Power: Season 2: The series seems to be divisive. I myself have a deep fondness for the Lord of the Rings source material, so I should be a critic. Instead, I remain a fan. This is an important period in the history of Middle-earth, and with the second season we’re now actually dealing with the titular rings of power. I think this show is handling the material and the substantial interpolations with just the right amount of gravitas. I’m still along for the journey.
Three Body Problem: The book wasn’t originally written in English, but that’s how I read it. And now here we have another level of adaptation to television. It’s pretty far removed from the source. I thought the book had interesting concepts, but ultimately was… just fine? As a television show it felt even more clunky but also… just fine?
Silo: Season 2: The show takes some pretty serious liberties with the source material. Which hey, is to be expected. But it means in those moments where the show doesn’t quite come together it’s very easy to be yelling at the TV wondering why they changed something that worked well on the written page. Ignorance is bliss, yes? In the second season we’re into the full bleak revolution by suppressed people. There’s very little levity here. Also, I found it very distracting the way the show intercut between the different storylines of the main protagonist and the main silo. To me this underserved some of the more dramatic moments from the book around the vault and the flooding and the whole story of that new world. And here I am, the cliché of the book reader nitpicking the adaptation, but also that was my experience.
Arcane: Season 2: This is still an absolute feast for the eyeballs. I enjoyed it, but I don’t know that I have a ton of new things to say beyond “yep, still gorgeous, still having a good time.”
Severance: Season 2: Everyone was super into the second season. I remain super triggered by the “innie” corporate existence and how similar it can feel to some of my less empowered work experiences. I had a bit of a sleepy response to the second season. But I know I’m in the minority.
Station Eleven: There is a familiar-yet-not post-apocalyptic premise behind this show. Of life on the other side of a world-altering pandemic, and what the new generations do or don’t adopt from the “before times.” It’s based on a book written before the pandemic we all went through. But this show, while it had its moments, didn’t stick to my bones. I found it just a bit floaty, pretentious, and ultimately dissatisfying.
Here are the loop jams I captured from month of December.
Loop 1
I think I was looking back at some old loops and wanted something with a slow groove. With a modulated held chord. I remember playing around for a while before I landed on a bass line that I liked. Well, mission accomplished, because this jam is slow AF.
Loop 2
Let’s do phaser distorted percussive funky chords and a bunch of chicken scratch. What next? Well, I’m not exactly clear on that. I’m just making all of this up as I go.
Loop 3
Whenever I go to lay down a new loop I have to clear a memory slot, because the 100 available on the looper pedal have all been used. I’ll generally give what was in there one playback before deleting it. This was an example where I liked something that was there and decided to do it differently. Inevitably the new becomes unrecognizable from what was there before. The chord progression here is two parts, once descending and one ascending, both with a chorus effect on. The lead line is some fuzz doing what felt right, which is another layer of stair step motion.
Loop 4
This started as the chord progression for the sea shanty “Bully in the Alley.” I was contemplating doing a straight take of the vocal melody, but once I laid down the main chords with that phaser effect and rhythm I had no interest in that anymore. So some simple fuzzy lead line it is.
Loop 5
It’s unrecognizable now, but again I was aiming to cover a sea shanty, this time “Drunken Sailor.” Don’t hear it? Yeah, I didn’t stick with that idea. I really liked the syncopated rhythm over the dreamy chorus-laden chords. It all came together and created a delightful base to play over. This was one of my favorite grooves to get into this month.
Loop 6
Keeping the theme of wanting to cover and reinterpret songs, I was listening to “Glory Box” by Portishead and had the idea to take the string section and do it with guitar. But of course that string part has many sources doing a bunch of different harmonies and that all came out very different with the guitar layers. Loud, really. That didn’t leave any room sonically to put more guitar on top (which is usually how I finish a loop). Plus I didn’t entirely stick to the original string bit. So this was… an experiment. A fun one.
Loop 7
Not exactly a complicated riff to start, but what I was looking for was a bit of a “pedal tone,” where the motion came from the second layer of chords on top. Which came out great, in my opinion. Very emotive.
Loop 8
I remember really struggling to figure out the final chord on this one to go with the tiny little riff. It feels a bit like a question mark. Continuing a trend for this year, this really came into its own once the bass line came together and gave it grounding and momentum. What felt awkward earlier on became cohesive.
Loop 9
Not a lot of complexity in the base loop here. I pretty much raced through to get to the point of adding a fuzzy lead line on top. I like when that traces over the base riff.
Loop 10
Enough electric tomfoolery, it’s time for raw funky acoustic guitar. Which… I immediately felt needed a muted electric rhythm on top of that. There was so much going on with the rhythm that I wasn’t exactly sure how to accompany. I’m trying to decide if that’s a problem or not. In some ways, if a thing is ever to be a song it probably needs vocals and those need a melody. And that could be traced out with guitar. But not always. I’m not technically songwriting here, so it’s fine. I think.
2025 brought some truly excellent games. I think it’s noteworthy that something like Hades 2 is still in my queue because of how solid these games were. Also, almost all of these games were shared with my daughter in some way, either playing together or just spectating and chatting. It’s a pretty great time to be playing video games.
Hollow Knight: Silksong
I loved Hollow Knight, a modern classic and jewel of the “metroidvania” genre (of which I am a big fan). When the trailer for Silksong dropped 6 years ago, it already looked incredible. And the end result… is outstanding. It’s so good, y’all. It’s visually stunning. The music is wonderful. The character design is inspired. There is so much game to explore. And there are so many varied and challenging boss fights.
This last bit is the controversial one. Are those boss fights tough? Yep. Frustrating? Yep. Do you feel incredible when you finally overcome each one of them? Absolutely yes. I know this aspect of the game will turn away many people, and I’m sad about that. Because this is very clearly one of the best games I’ve ever played.
Compared to the Vessel of the previous game, Hornet controls like a sports car. She can dodge and weave with extreme agility. With that the demands on your performance piloting her have also gone up. But it never feels unfair. And when you’re in the flow… it feels great.
In short, this game is Honey I Shrunk The Kids as an open world multiplayer-friendly game with crafting and base building. That sounds cool, but what I didn’t anticipate is how deep me and my daughter would get into playing this together.
There’s an incredibly healthy dose of exploration and resource gathering. At times this reminded me of Subnautica, with the fear of something bigger that’s going to eat you, and where you craft and explore and build to expand your range. Although in sharp contrast, Grounded is a game where you fight back. There’s a solid progression of battling bugs to get materials to craft better gear and battle bigger bugs. And the way you can build a home where grass blades are the “planks” and the roof is made of clover and sap… it’s all very charming.
We played Grounded an obscene amount earlier this year. Together. And in that I’ve seen her grow. At this moment, Grounded 2 is in early access, and we held off for 6 months before getting started with that. But now we’re in it, it’s proving to be a great time too.
Three people recommended this to me in the same week, all insisting it was very much my style of game. They were correct. In this game you explore a mysterious mansion one room at a time, building it as you go, in a way that feels something like a rogue-like deck builder. But more than that, there are secrets and mysteries everywhere. This is a game where you will need a notebook to navigate its many hidden puzzles. Blue Prince fits in the grand tradition of Fez, Tunic, Outer Wilds, Inscryption… games with layers that require out-of-game thought (obsession?) to decipher.
This game absolutely nails the classic Indiana Jones vibe. There’s a globe-trotting mystery, memorable set-pieces, and ample archaic puzzle solving by torchlight. And yes, you will punch a lot of nazis in the face. Or you’ll use a whip to disarm and then knock them out with a shovel or candlestick or whatever is lying around. And then get back to your ancient temple puzzles. It all feels pitch perfect, like a lost film that would have fit within the original run.
By now it’s clear that this game has been well received, sweeping the various 2025 game awards. It’s a critical darling, and deservedly so. It oozes style, with fantastic environments, truly great music, emotive characters, and a unique premise. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t finished it; I’m probably only a third through it. Look… Silksong came out, and that is my jam. Clair Obscur isn’t not my jam, to be clear. One of my most charming memories from PAX West 2025 was the Clair Obscur cosplay that was everywhere. I’ve enjoyed this game quite a bit (even if the combat block/parry timing is just a smidge too unforgiving for my taste), and there’s no questioning that I’ll be returning to complete it. Just… after I finish getting the good ending from Silksong…
This is a game exclusively for two players. Each controls a LEGO 1x1 brick, and together you navigate through beautifully lit LEGO environments and solve puzzles. It’s not complicated. You use like two buttons. Nor is it long. But it’s incredibly charming. If you have fondness for LEGO, and someone to partner with on a second controller, I recommend this.
My daughter has a pretty unique name. So when I saw a trailer for a game with her name, we had to play it. And we did so separately, her first. She was pretty proud of herself for beating it all on her own with no help. It’s a 2D platforming and combat game, where you have an animal companion that grows in size and skill as the game progresses. Oh, and it’s really beautiful.
Somehow I didn’t fully finish any of the games below, and they remain in my active list. But I wanted to mention them nevertheless.
Animal Well: It’s a puzzly metroidvania, so that’s a smart choice for me. I did play this one until the credits rolled. Okay, so yes I did finish it… but it clearly has many more secrets to uncover. With the stiff competition for play time this year I haven’t been able to give the extra time to delve into those.
Wildfrost: Digital deck building games can be great, and this one is really creative and stylish. The cute aesthetic helps offset how brutal it can be. But I liked that it existed in the post-_Slay the Spire_ world but is clearly its own thing.
Celeste: This indie darling parkour platformer has been on my radar for a while, and I finally got to give it some time this year. It’s good.
Keeper: What a surreal entrancing thing this is. I’m not sure how it is as a game. But it’s a mesmerizing vibe.
Winter Burrow: I like when this game on you being a mouse knitting in a cozy chair between bouts of journeying into the bitter cold. That vibe is great. I’m not loving the amount of redundant back-tracking.
The experience of this show is alternating between beautiful shots of food preparation and stressful environments where everyone is yelling at each other. It is simultaneously very pleasant and very unpleasant. The characters are endearing and broken. It’s terrific. Yes, chef.
Seth Rogen often plays the loser stoner role. In this show he is certainly a bumbling failure… but also a studio executive? Everything is continuously just about to fall apart, with millions of dollars in the hands of people making bad decisions. It’s all very well filmed, and chock-full of “as themselves” industry cameos. There’s one episode that’s about the process of filming a “oner” (filmed all in one take) that itself is a “oner”, and is both incredibly anxious to watch and impressive. Sometimes the ongoing outright failure of the characters grated on me a little bit, but overall I felt like this show had enough heart to rise above.
This is basically The Goonies, but Star Wars. You know, kids swept up in an adventure, way over their heads. Also pirates, including a smarmy one-eyed droid and a sleazy Jude Law. I found the whole thing very charming. It didn’t try to be too much. There’s no big mythology, no interweaving with a grand epic. Just a story about kids seeking secret treasure and missing their parents.
I’ve talked about my love for the first season of Andor before. The second season essentially tells the tale of how we get to the overtly totalitarian empire that we see in the original Star Wars trilogy. Which frankly, in the year 2025, is not an easy story to be digesting in the name of entertainment. It’s science fiction… right? The second season doesn’t quite hit the high highs of the first season’s multiple cascading climaxes, instead only really having one. But a climax is still a climax. So instead of being the best thing ever, it’s merely really good.
I had previously enjoyed watching the Double Fine Adventure documentary, and also the Amnesia Fortnight movie. The same studio and film crew came together this time to document the entire experience of creating Psychonauts 2, the sequel to one of the most innovative games of all time. I watched this documentary after completing the game, of course, which was quite excellent and a worthy follow-up to its predecessor. I had no idea that this documentary was going to be as long as it was. It covers the whole process from initial inception to its final release in 2021, including how the studio had to navigate the pandemic. We’re talking over 30 full-length episodes. I certainly wouldn’t have expected my daughter to be into watching this with me, but she was. It’s very much see-how-the-sausage-is-made, workplace drama, and product-on-fire content. Not what you would assume is desirable television content for a tween. But we both found it fascinating.
This is stretching the meaning of what constitutes “television”, but I get to make my own rules. Every year on the 1st of October, these two musicians (Rob Scallon and Andrew Huang) get together and make a 10-track album all in one day. They don’t record an album of their latest compositions. No, in one day they start from a blank slate, invent, write lyrics, riff off of each other, and capture the whole thing on video as well as in the DAW. The first of these I caught was from this year where they made the album in a Guitar Center while it was open. And from there I dove into the preceding years and a bunch more of their collaborative content. If you’re interested in the process of making music and writing songs, while being truly playful in multiple ways, this is a great watch.
