TV 2025: What we liked ('The Pitt,' 'Andor') and what we didn't ('Colbert' controversy; 'All's Fair')

There was much to like in 2025. That little streaming revolution we've all been reading so much about finally slowed down to take a breath, which allowed the rest of us to take one as well. The British TV invasion continued, and the Taylor Sheridan one ("Landman," Season 2), too. Billy Joel finally got the TV embrace he deserved (as did Jayne Mansfield). The Emmys and Oscars yielded memorable telecasts. Meanwhile, one genuinely great and underappreciated series ("Andor") got the wrap it deserved.

This Year of the Tube was a quiet, if not quite meditative, one, as it continued to recover from two wrenching strikes and mass layoffs. TV was forced to slow down, turn inward, take stock, or at least grapple with the pressing question of what people (you and me) actually want to watch. In this unsettled, and unsettling, era of artificial intelligence, that search often took novel and unforeseen turns, too.

Here then is my "like" list. Hardly substantive, and far from a "Best of 2025," it's a late-year reminder to myself that TV — in spite of everything — remains the world's most exciting form of screen entertainment. That alone is well-worth liking, too, right?

"ALIEN EARTH" (FX) 

After (nearly) 50 years, who knew there could still be an exciting and provocative twist on xenomorphs? Noah Hawley ("Fargo") obviously did. As with "Fargo," he understood a full-on embrace of beloved cinematic IP was full of perils, so he struck out in new directions with new characters and new stories. The result — one of the year's best new series.
"ANDOR" (Disney+) Even if the Emmys declined to give this second season prequel to the movie "Rogue One" the outstanding drama statuette, there's no reason I can't. "Andor" was the most thrilling TV spectacle since "Game of Thrones," and a deeply intelligent exploration of what the "Star Wars" universe — and our own little universe on Earth — actually means.

BRITISH TV INVASION (CONT.) There was a bounty of first-rate British drama this year, and not just "Adolescence." Let's not forget "Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light," "Miss Austen" and "Down Cemetery Road."

HBO DOCUMENTARIES: "BILLY JOEL: AND SO IT GOES," "PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF," "MY MOM JAYNE"

This year served up three outstanding biopics on three luminaries, with each offering something new and revelatory. Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin set Joel's life within the context of his relationships, most notably his first wife, Elizabeth Weber; Paul Reubens (Pee-wee) posthumously came out in this film; Mariska Hargitay produced a beautiful and moving film on her mother while reclaiming her dignity in the process.

"LANDMAN" (Paramount+) 

Overviolent, oversexed and over-the-top, "Landman" is — of course — enormous fun, as fans well know. But I think what has officially hooked me this season is Billy Bob Thornton. There's no actor on TV right now who holds the screen as tightly and as persuasively and as thrillingly as this 70-year-old pro who knows how to do that better than anyone (except, perhaps co-star Sam Elliott and a couple other scene-stealers here).

"MOUNTAINHEAD" (HBO) This Jesse Armstrong ("Succession") annihilation of four vainglorious tech edgelord weenies managed to strike a lot of urgent, cautionary notes, above all about the A.I. disinformation wave now washing over us. Like all fine satires, "Mountainhead" especially reveled in language: scabrous, wild-haired, hilarious. The cast — Ramy Youssef, Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman — was fine, but mostly served as a reminder of just how good a comic actor Carell truly is.

"PLURIBUS" (Apple TV) 

Albuquerque bestselling novelist Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn, "Better Call Saul") confronts (just about) the entire population of planet Earth, which has been turned into happy-talk A.I. automatons. My favorite new show of the year has it all — great cast, showrunner (Vince Gilligan) and a massive brain twist demanding a personal answer to this question from all of us bewildered Sturkas out there — what have we gotten ourselves into?

"SNL50: BEYOND SATURDAY NIGHT" (Peacock) "SNL's" exhaustive 50th birthday salute to itself in February was full of callouts, callbacks, rewinds, tributes and honor rolls. Much better was what actually lead up to this in the weeks before, this four-part docuseries.  These gifts to fans captured both the spirit and greatness of this 50-year-old classic.

"THE CHAIR COMPANY" (HBO) Tim Robinson's ("I Think You Should Leave") latest adventure lies at the intersection of David Lynch Boulevard and Franz Kafka Parkway: A mild-mannered suburban dad (Robinson) wakes up one fine morning to learn that a chair company has conspired against his dignity and quite possibly his very existence. Part comedy, part farce, part tragedy, this is also a closely observed examination of insanity (or is it?). It's definitely one of the strangest series in modern TV history. Of course, I loved it.

"THE CONNERS" FINALE (ABC) Back in April, a TV journey that began 37 years earlier came to an end — absent that former lead (Roseanne Barr) who tended to soak up all the oxygen on-screen and off. The other Conners were finally allowed to breathe — and still manage to give Roseanne (the character, not the star) a warm, compassionate send-off.

THE EMMYS This year's telecast of the 77th Emmys in September wasn't the usual clunker, even if the choice of Nate Bargatze was an adventurous ill-advised flop. (Nothing against Bargatze, who's an excellent stand-up; this simply wasn't his swimming pool.) The Emmys voters got almost everything right, or at least anointed some well-deserved crowd-pleasers (Noah Wyle) without turning this into the People's Choice Awards.

"THE LOWDOWN" (FX) Ethan Hawke as Lee Raybon — a rare book store proprietor and gumshoe muckraker, or "truthstorian," who pursues leads down one rabbit hole after another in this "Tulsa Noir" murder mystery — created yet another indelible character (lost count how many by now). "The Lowdown" was one of the year's best shows, and most entertaining.

THE OSCARS Who won last year's best picture? Who cares! Conan O'Brien won as best host. If Conan really does need a friend, he made a lot of them in March, with a pitch-perfect performance, and a pitch-perfect response when asked to return in 2026 — to see Adrien Brody finally finish his acceptance speech.

THE PITT (HBO Max) 

Noah Wyle finally — finally! — gets that Emmy for best dramatic performance, and the show he championed gets the big award, too. There were certainly better shows ("Andor"), and smarter shows ("Severance") and buzzier shows ("The White Lotus") but none of 'em had Wyle, with a performance that demanded attention, awards and redress, for all those excellent (and overlooked) years on "ER."
TUBI FAST — or free-advertiser-supported streaming TV — is the slightly grubby, slightly less-reputable, slightly overcommercialized corner of the sprawling streaming world. But FAST got better in 2025, or at least indispensable. My favorite FAST is Tubi. Ad eruptions are not terribly disruptive, while Tubi's content load is vast (and Vast FAST has a nice ring to it). Tubi is now a valuable resource.

WHAT DIDN'T I LIKE IN 2025? WHERE TO BEGIN?

"ALL'S FAIR" (Hulu)

 Every year brings turkeys but few can boast a turkey as glorious as this Hulu series from Ryan Murphy. There's actually a few ways to approach this way-over-the-top girlboss legal drama, with Kim Kardashian (in the lead), Naomi Watts, Niecy Nash-Betts, Sarah Paulson and Glenn Close. First, as a comedy (works as that), or as a meta-sendup of legal dramas (that, too.) Or best of all, as a bona fide hate-watch. In any event, gobble gobble.

CANCELLATION OF "LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT" AND THE SLOW DEATH OF LATE NIGHT 

The end of any long-running series is obviously bad for staffers who have spent careers with them, but this is a cancellation that is truly terrible for viewers. Whether you agreed with Colbert politically or did not, television will lose an indispensable voice next May. That voice will likely go somewhere else, but "Late Show" — home of David Letterman for 22 years — is gone forever. That's a TV tragedy. (At least "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" survived a short suspension, for now. And he just signed another year's extension.)

DECISION FATIGUE We all have too many choices to make when deciding what to watch (TV critics, too!) but streaming algorithms have not exactly helped. The more shows that get stuffed into the pipeline, the greater the feedback loop, and the noisier the echo chamber. We all seem to spend more time sorting through lists than actually watching — hence decision fatigue. This got worse (much worse) in 2025.

PUBLIC TV SLASHING In July, Congress cut $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes funds to hundreds of public radio and TV stations. (CPB subsequently shut down.) PBS was also forced to make cuts. You won't notice any of this right now, but you will in 2026 when some beloved shows begin to disappear altogether. Many small stations dependent on these funds may disappear, too.

QUEASY CORPORATE OPTICS In mid-July, CBS — whose parent, Paramount, needed an FCC blessing before Skydance could absorb it — was forced to settle a frivolous "60 Minutes" lawsuit with President Donald Trump; a few days later, CBS canceled Trump's noisiest critic, "Late Show"; a week later, the FCC gave its blessing to the merger, which then closed on Aug. 7; and while CBS blamed the "Late Show" cancellation on financial losses, the first big deal of the Paramount Skydance era was a $7.7 billion package for the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). In official pronouncements, CBS said none of these developments were related. Duly noted.