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Some series make you passively watch, while others completely captivate you with an idea, execution, and a sense that someone behind the scenes is thinking, taking risks, and meticulously crafting every detail. 2025, nearing its end, delivered a bit of everything: big-budget productions, quirky hidden gems, heartwarming comedies, and dramas that don’t let go until the credits roll.
Here are the television titles that stood out this year, according to Entertainment Weekly critics.
“Severance” – Apple TV
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Keir Egan always wanted to erase pain from human life. But “Severance” taught us that science can’t separate a person from their wounds—any more than it can stop the moon from controlling the tides. In the long-awaited second season, this darkly funny and exquisitely strange drama finally delivers key answers about Lumon Industries, while simultaneously pushing its characters toward their most terrifying realization: accepting themselves—both in and out of the office.
Like the employees of the Macrodata Refinement department, “Severance” is a series of many faces: an office comedy, a sci-fi thriller, an artistic allegory for worker exploitation, a tragic romance, a family drama, and… well, the list goes on. According to Kristen Baldwin, “it’s a show that contains multitudes—and that’s why it works.”
“Task” – HBO
Brad Ingelsby, the creator of “Mare of Easttown,” plunges us back into the world of Philadelphia—this time for seven episodes of intense suspense. But this time, the story follows a priest-turned-FBI agent, flawlessly portrayed by Mark Ruffalo, as he attempts to take down a criminal with a big heart, played by Tom Pelphrey.
“Task” is bolstered by stellar performances, but its greatest strength, according to Samantha Highfill, is its writing and storytelling—because both men are grappling with grief that defies words. Ruffalo’s character has lost his wife—with the added layer that his adopted son pushed her down the stairs—while Pelphrey’s character mourns the loss of his brother. And somehow, against all genre conventions, these two fathers find a connection that makes the series much more than just another police procedural.
“Abbott Elementary” – ABC
Four years in, Quinta Brunson’s Emmy-winning comedy continues to raise the bar, and makes it look effortless. Many sitcoms stumble when trying to pair up potential couples, but according to Kristen Baldwin, “Abbott Elementary” doesn’t just navigate it—it soars. The characters deepen their connections without the series losing any of its “sweet silliness and buoyant energy,” according to the expert.
Season four sees the show taking bold swings—firing the indispensable principal, played by Janelle James, and launching a bizarre but somehow perfect crossover with “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”—and landing each time. With what many consider the best comedic ensemble on television, the series uses humor and hope to address the realities of racial and class inequality in public education—and never feels preachy while doing so. Perhaps, as Kristen notes, it’s because when you love the characters so much, their struggles become your own.
“Alien: Earth” – FX
“Give Noah Hawley access to every franchise in the world—seriously,” declared critic Dalton Ross.
After revitalizing the “Fargo” universe with his acclaimed series for FX, the author and showrunner was unleashed on “Alien: Earth” and, according to Dalton Ross, delivered the most refreshing update to the franchise in years (or even decades).
The series envisions a future Earth ruled by corporations battling for alien technology, attempting to create the next generation of hybrid beings—cyborgs, synthetics, or something in between. When an alien ship crashes on Earth, war erupts—and it’s not just against the creatures themselves. The performances from Sydney Chandler (as the leading hybrid, Wendy), Timothy Olyphant (as the synthetic scientist, Kirsch), and Babou Ceesay (as the cyborg security officer, Moreau) are exceptional.
“The Studio” – Apple TV
Ashley Busche literally wants to thank Seth Rogen for bringing us one of the funniest comedies in years. “The Studio,” Rogen’s Apple TV+ series, takes us behind the scenes of Hollywood through the eyes of Matt Riemnick (played by Rogen), the CEO of Continental Studios—a man obsessed with making movies. Well, technically, he doesn’t *make* them. He approves them!
A star-studded parade of actors and directors who play themselves constantly call Rogen, as if his phone were a call center, because after the impressive first season, his phone has been “ringing off the hook” with celebrities angling for cameos in season two. The show’s success at this year’s Emmy Awards only inflated the bubble: “The Studio” won 13 of the 23 awards for which it was nominated, including “Outstanding Comedy Series.”
“The Pitt” – HBO Max
No one dreams of spending their day in an emergency room, but as Kristen Baldwin puts it, “The Pitt” made those 15 hours (the total runtime of the episodes) not just fly by—they practically vanished. The real-time medical drama offers a relentlessly honest look at America’s broken healthcare system—and the doctors, nurses, and hospital staff who refuse to be crushed by it.
Everything is anchored by a phenomenal performance from Noah Wyle as Dr. “Robbie” Rabinowitz, surrounded by a strong supporting cast. Taylor Dearden is beautifully vulnerable as second-year resident Mel King, while Catherine LaNasa is mesmerizing as the unflappable senior nurse, Dana Evans. Michael Hyatt brings heart to the role of Robbie’s budget-conscious boss, Gloria Underwood.
Like all great hospital dramas, “The Pitt” raises your pulse with urgent medical crises. But it also offers hope—that when our own life-or-death battle comes, we won’t have to fight it alone.
“Andor” – Disney+
The “Rogue One” prequel kicked the hyperdrive into its exceptional second season, jumping forward one year every three episodes to bring us right to the precipice of the standalone “Star Wars” film. And according to Dalton Ross, the clearest sign of creator Tony Gilroy’s epic world-building is that the protagonist, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), is often the least interesting person on screen… and Cassian is compelling in his own right.
The supporting characters take center stage in a flawless three-episode run (eight through ten)—the misguided “fascist-in-training” Cyril (Kyle Soller) pays the price for his actions, the undercover idealist Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) delivers a fiery speech to the Senate, and the season 2 MVP—Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau)—embarks on a daring mission to save her mentor by ending his life.
Rebellions may be built on hope, but this one, as Ross writes, is built on incredible vision and execution.
“Dept. Q” – Netflix
“As a certified scaredy-cat, I wasn’t sure I could handle ‘Dept. Q,’ but this gripping crime drama from Scott Frank, the man behind ‘The Queen’s Gambit,’ grabbed me with the twist in the first episode, so bravery became mandatory.” That’s how Kristen Baldwin describes her experience.
Based on the series of books by Jussi Adler-Olsen, “Dept. Q” follows Chief Inspector Morck (Matthew Goode)—an aggressively unpleasant British detective who returns to his department in Edinburgh after being shot on the job. Determined to escape the trauma of nearly dying, Morck takes on a new assignment: to head up a cold case unit, alongside a team of “misfits” from the precinct—Akram Salim (Alexej Manvelov), a Syrian refugee and brilliant investigator, Rose (Leah Byrne)—a troubled officer battling OCD and PTSD, and Sergeant Hardy (Jamie Sives), paralyzed in the same shooting that wounded Morck.
Blending dark humor with classic police procedural work, strong performances, and a twisted central mystery, “Dept. Q,” according to Baldwin, manages to find hope and healing amidst horror inspired by human relationships.
“Beyond the Gates” – CBS
“Soap operas do the impossible. With a fraction of the budget of primetime series, they churn out 260 episodes a year, without stopping the story. For those of us who grew up with a love for the genre, it’s been painful to watch television gradually abandon it over the last decade,” says Kristen Baldwin,
That’s why, according to her, it’s a genuine pleasure to see the arrival of “Beyond the Gates”—the first new daytime drama since 1999.
Created by soap opera legend Michelle Val Jean, “Beyond the Gates” follows the saga of the wealthy Dupree family—pillars of society in an elite (and drama-filled) Black enclave near Washington, D.C. It’s impossible to summarize everything that’s happened in the 180 episodes since its February premiere. But the most soapy highlights include: a revealed love child, a marriage crumbling, a steamy (and strictly secret) romance between a former supermodel and a playboy photographer, and a promising young politician haunted by an incident from his past.
And Baldwin quotes the late, great Garry Marshall from “Soapdish”: “Now that’s a soap opera!”
“Pluribus” – Apple TV
Even with established franchises like “Alien: Earth” and “It” delivering quality episodes in 2025, the best horror episode of the year, according to Dalton Ross, came from this new idea from Vince Gilligan, in which nearly all of humanity becomes infected with a virus that connects them into one perpetually happy collective consciousness.
Carol, played by Rhea Seehorn, is one of the few who retain their free will, and the first episode, in which her friends and neighbors turn into uniformly thinking zombies, is a terrifying delight. What follows, however, is something entirely different. By the second hour, the show’s tone flips and becomes a simultaneously funny and sad dissection of the human—Carol’s yearning for individuality pitted against her basic need for connection.
And if the brilliant story and leading performance aren’t enough, “Pluribus”—like “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” before it—“serves” a pure visual feast, because it’s the most beautifully shot show on television.
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