This year, Hollywood’s decline was evident from its output—but a few great, conversation-starting shows made our critic crave the return of the water cooler.
Fourteen years ago, Emily Nussbaum, one of my esteemed predecessors in the TV-critic chair, notoriously titled her Top Ten list “I Hate Top Ten Lists.” I’ve seldom felt the same. I’m not much of a holiday person, but, for most of the time that I’ve been a working critic, I’ve loved the end-of-year ritual of sorting the so-so from the superb and the overhyped from the justly praised, pruning my favorites down to a most-deserving few. I’ve always taken seriously—probably too seriously—the privilege of giving hidden gems another chance to shine.
But, in 2025, I can’t say that curating such a roundup was much fun. This year, as executives backed away from the kind of risky, ambitious programming that marked the last golden age of television, the industry’s decline was evident from its output. TV felt smaller. There were few epics like “The Last of Us” and “Alien: Earth,” which, while entertaining, were ultimately constrained by their source material. Several of the year’s most prominent prestige series—“Severance,” “Andor,” “Adolescence,” “The Bear,” “The White Lotus,” and “The Studio”—were, to my mind, ponderous, shallow, or both. I was especially disheartened by the dearth of straightforward sitcoms, as the comedy ecosystem continues to migrate online and becomes increasingly, sometimes incomprehensibly, niche.
In the past, keeping tabs on all the boundary-pushing shows could be a lonely affair; there were always series that I felt sure were only being watched by other TV critics. But, in such an uninspired year, I found my yardstick for what constitutes great television shifting. Though the traditional standards of excellence—innovation, ambition, execution, distinctiveness, and relevance—still apply, I was more inclined to highlight projects that I wanted to discuss (and debate) with other people. The water cooler may never be reinstalled, but these shows made me crave its return.
10. “Death by Lightning”
Netflix
In 1881, a man named Charles Guiteau assassinated President James Garfield in a bid to be remembered in the history books; instead, he consigned both himself and his victim to the footnotes. This lively excavation of the entwined fates of Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen) and Garfield (Michael Shannon) makes for a twisty, political period drama, as well as a haunting parable for our violent times. The killer’s obsession with achieving glory isn’t the only element that feels startlingly modern, with anachronistic touches lending the series an unusual brio. A focus on Garfield’s sense of duty and grand agenda underscores what was lost with his death—and invites the question of what he might have achieved had he lived.
9. “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City”
Bravo
The “Real Housewives” franchise, which turned interpersonal conflict into an art form, is some two decades old, but the “S.L.C.” installment, now in its sixth season, feels as fresh as ever. This year’s episodes consistently deliver the best of the “Housewives” brand: moments of transcendent camp, viral one-liners, and the gaudiest fashion money can buy. But interwoven with the usual bickering and betrayals are the vulnerabilities that define this particular cast: struggles with addiction, religious (specifically Mormon) trauma, marriages involving profound disparities in age and wealth, and, of course, the perils of reality-TV fame.
8. “Caleb Hearon: Model Comedian”
HBO/HBO Max
Caleb Hearon’s quick wit and irreverent streak, demonstrated via front-facing-camera antics and a weekly podcast, “So True,” have already earned him a rabid online fan base—a group he’s characterized as “hundreds of thousands of mentally ill baristas.” His stellar first special, “Model Comedian,” introduces him to a mainstream audience. Hearon is thirty, gay, fat, and happy in a way that surprises even him; raised in a “redneck progressive” milieu in the Midwest, he also believes that “being attracted to men is a curse from the devil.” His jokes exhibit a writerly flair to rival that of John Mulaney, whether he’s reflecting on his father’s untimely death or affectionately lampooning the excesses of the queer community. Watching him weave effortlessly between the personal and the political feels like glimpsing the future of comedy.
7. “Hacks”
HBO Max
For its first three seasons, “Hacks” was about chasing redemption: Deborah Vance (Jean Smart), a faded standup pioneer, wanted to prove herself worthy of new opportunities, while her protégée, Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder), hoped to write her way back from cancellation. The dramedy’s fourth season brings Deborah and Ava from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, where they quickly discover that Hollywood itself is in such dire straits that it has only Potemkin success to offer. The new episodes are extra acidic, skewering the industry while illustrating how much easier female solidarity is to sell than to practice. But Deborah and Ava remain irresistible—and a supporting cast with prime roles for guest stars of a certain age, including Helen Hunt, Lauren Weedman, and Julianne Nicholson, prove that no other show sees more clearly the creative potential of older women.
6. “Big Boys”
Hulu
In the first season of Jack Rooke’s semi-autobiographical, silly-sad dramedy, two depressed young men—one straight and eager to fit in, the other gay and nervous about exploring his sexuality—become college roommates, then fast friends. This year, the third and final season marks a self-assured farewell—one that tackles the male mental-health crisis with candor and tenderness. “Big Boys” is a series that always earns its (copious) tears, but it’s especially moving to see Rooke himself appear as an older version of his queer protagonist in the finale, declaring his intention not to “let the injustice of what could’ve been override all the joy of what was.”
5. “Pluribus”
Apple
In his much anticipated follow-up to “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul,” the TV auteur Vince Gilligan envisions an alien force that ends humanity as we know it—and arguably changes the world for the better. With its deliberate pacing and the built-in isolation of its heroine, Carol (played by the “Saul” alum Rhea Seehorn), one of a handful of people left intact by the extraterrestrial virus that takes over the planet, this unsettling thought experiment of a series can test a viewer’s patience, as it did mine. But, at a time when original ideas appear to be endangered in Hollywood, Gilligan has delivered a sci-fi tale that feels truly singular.
4. “Too Much”
Netflix
Ever since its début this summer, I’ve been trying to convince skeptical friends and acquaintances that Lena Dunham’s latest series—a loosely autobiographical romantic comedy about an unmoored New Yorker (played by Megan Stalter) who finds love after moving to London—is nothing short of remarkable. I’ll concede that the first three episodes are weaker, but, by the phenomenal fourth installment, the show’s ambitions reveal themselves. Dunham’s distinctive voice and satirical eye are in full force, but “Too Much” also taps into her heartfelt side—a combination that yields some of the year’s funniest scenes and best-written characters.
3. “The Rehearsal”
HBO/HBO Max
The alt-comedian Nathan Fielder’s reality series is the rare program that feels impossible to categorize: a ludicrously elaborate prank show that purports to help participants prepare for difficult conversations or decisions through dry runs with actors and hyper-realistic sets. In the second season, Fielder channels his HBO colleague John Oliver by taking on the deeply unsexy problem of aviation safety, which he claims might be improved through his carefully choreographed “rehearsals.” The result is digressive, elliptical, and occasionally absurd—and yet also genuinely revealing of the mental-health challenges facing pilots and the sometimes brutal social dynamics of the cockpit.
2. “Pee-wee as Himself”
HBO/HBO Max
Paul Reubens, the actor who created and performed as the bow-tied, besuited clown Pee-wee Herman, wanted desperately to be famous but not known. Reubens, who remained in the closet for much of his life and died in 2023, makes for a cagey, ambivalent subject in Matt Wolf’s posthumous docuseries. The unseen Wolf is an open admirer and a frustrated collaborator, granting Reubens his artistic due while grappling with the decades-long aftereffects of the homophobic scandals that derailed his career. Despite Reubens’s reluctance to cede control of his image, Wolf delivers a deeply moving love letter that conveys both his subject’s eclectic vision and all that it cost him to pursue it.
1. “The Pitt”
HBO Max
In 2025, no other show felt as needed as “The Pitt,” a medical drama of hard-won warmth that stars Noah Wyle as an emergency-room doctor at an underfunded urban hospital. If that sounds a lot like “E.R.”—and, according to the estate of that earlier series’ creator, Michael Crichton, it does—“The Pitt” is the rare throwback done right. It’s a bastion of kindness in a year that’s felt astonishingly cruel, and a fantastic showcase for fresh faces, such as Taylor Dearden and Gerran Howell, in an industry that seems to have forgotten how to launch new stars. The dizzying pace and overlapping story lines add to the show’s real-time immersiveness. Since “E.R.” ’s heyday, television has advanced by rejecting convention, but there’s still juice left in the formula—at least when the squeeze is applied with such care.
