Television in 2025

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 Bear: Season 1

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.

Watched on Hulu

The Studio

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.

Watched on Apple TV+

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew

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.

Watched on Disney+

Andor: Season 2

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.

Watched on Disney+

Psychodyssey

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.

Watched on YouTube

First of October

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.

Watched on YouTube

And the Rest

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.