Heroic Mentions: “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “Last Week Tonight” did their absolute best to wake up the people of this country–no small thing, and even harder to do while being entertaining, making their success even more Herculean. Also, “The Studio” was more hilarious and even more concerned with being entertaining, but still managed to score salient points about the demolition of art in the face of a typhoon of commerce, and the fight to make something even good, let alone great.
10. (Tie) “The Chair Company” and “The Lowdown”…Two very different shows about conspiracies in the heartland. The Oklahoma-set “Lowdown” would’ve seemed pretty weird if I hadn’t watched “The Chair Company” first, but is relatively-straightforward in its timely exploration of white supremacists using clueless politicians and capitalists to realize their dark heart’s content. The ending might’ve felt like “wishful thinking” in the age of Trump, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t aspire to make it true.
“The Chair Company” is possibly the funniest show of 2025 in the strangest way possible. If David Lynch decided to direct a Will Ferrell movie, the end result would be something like “Company,” which isn’t as invested in its conspiracy as it is in showing the extreme lengths characters will go to for their pet obsessions. The end of the fifth episode “I won. Zoom in” (involving a bar brawl, a chase, a bizarre tit-for-tat, and a porno version of “A Christmas Carol”) is one of the most deliriously enjoyable episodes of TV all year. Even if “Company” has a season finale that crossed over into “too weird” sci-fi, the first seven episodes were so good, they’d probably be ranked higher on this list if by themselves.
9. “Squid Game”...The zeitgeist has long ago passed “Squid Game” by as its final season didn’t receive the love (or attention) of the first. That’s too bad, as it included a sinister commentary on Democracy itself, and how the nefarious Powers That Be trick poor people into voting against their own interests. “Game” is one of the few shows to literally represent Trickle Down Economics and savagery of rigged “voting” in a way that’s so thrillingly entertaining.
8. “Chief of War”…Rigorously-sincere, possibly-over-earnest historical dramas built around marginalized communities can occasionally come across as snooze-worthy “good intentions” more than worthy drama, but “Chief” gets past some of its sporadic hokiness with a genuinely frightening villain, thrilling battle sequences, tense plotting, and gorgeous scenery. The year’s most worthy historical epic, and one that too many critics have slept on.
7. “Death By Lightning”…Another genre that felt previously played out is the four-square “American Greatness” political drama usually centered around Founding Fathers or Abraham Lincoln. Luckily, “Lightning” takes on the more obscure figure of President James Garfield and the complex sycophant-turned-assassin who did him in. Matthew Macfayden’s Charles Guiteau is a cross between Tom Ripley and Mr. Bean, as he’s almost as goofy as he is striving with something off-putting you can’t quite put your finger on. But “Lightning” doesn’t weigh down its drama by doing a deep-dive into Guiteau’s warped psyche; in fact, the assassin is almost an afterthought to the life-and-death political struggle between President Garfield and corrupt Senator Roscoe Conkling (Shea Whigham), who wishes Michael Shannon’s Garfield was as stupid as he believed him to be. [Initially, Conkling is trying to prop up a puppet like Ulysses S. Grant into another term so they can keep the machine politics going.] As an example of another period in American history where things looked bleak until they didn’t, “Lightning” just might inspire you.
5. (tie) “Adolescence” and “The Pitt”...Two additional shows that found new ways to explore old formats. You might think you’ve seen every possible version of the stereotypical “medical show,” so “The Pitt” blows the door off the hinges with an action-packed, real-time set single shift that keeps you so riveted with myriad problems that it feels like something you’ve never seen before. I didn’t know a hospital could feel as tense as a “24” episode, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t–like the standout episode involving a mass shooting where the system is so over-whelmed it feels like it’s on the verge of collapse.
“Adolescence” also manages to find a miraculously new way to explore the “Whodunit?” murder mystery. The episodes also take place during real time (although on different days) and throw in the added complication of all looking like they’re shot in one take. Riveting television that will scare you one moment (a shocking temper tantrum revealing the true essence of out-of-nowhere male rage in the 2020’s) and break your heart the next, like there are two scenes in the first and fourth/final episode of Stephen Graham giving a silent, sad look that are impossible to shake even half-a-year later.
4. “Rehearsal”…Nathan Fielder’s wildly experiment show was back for a superior second season that focused around one single thread that doesn’t sound like it would produce great television (that co-pilots are too scared to speak up to their lead pilots during crucial moments to save the plane) but manages to with some of the most bonkers scenes I’ve witnessed on television, like having a team of extras mimic a boring man’s gestures on a date to give him confidence or Fielder living as a baby around gigantic puppet parents so he can recreate the childhood of a pilot. The lengths that Fielder eventually goes to in order to find a way to fly a plane full of people is Werner Herzog-level madness that I wish more creators attempted. For him, “good enough” isn’t an option, and it’s almost eerie the way his mild, nearly-dull Canadian demeanor clashes with the obsessions he’s trying to bring to life.
3. “The White Lotus”…For some reason, the third season of this series wasn’t as beloved–even though it was actually the best they’ve had to date. I’ve been skeptical of the praise “White Lotus” has received in the past (the first season was basically a glorified travelogue and possible excuse for the cast and crew to go to Hawaii for a few months), but season 3 became the rare drama to look at the spiritual dimensions of its characters–or lack thereof. Is there anything deeper to these wandering Americans in search of money, sex, fame, more money, and even vengeance? Maybe not, but it was thrilling to see them push themselves past their well-heeled limits–like Jason Isaacs financier actually contemplating familial annihilation rather than let them face reduced means. For me, the most thrilling was a long tracking shot via boat following Walton Goggins before he’s eventually standing outside the home of the never-met man he believes ruined his family, a clash almost mythologically-long in the making. That he becomes yet the latest character to be thoroughly surprised by his circumstances fits with the rest of the season.
2. “Severance”…Similarly to the “White Lotus”‘s overly cool reception was the somewhat-muted reaction to “Severance” (which I heard too many people say was “overrated” in season 2) even as it entered a creatively fertile second season before blowing us away with a second season finale “Cold Harbor.” The entire episode just works, giving us a frustrating conversation between “innie” Mark and “outie” Mark, the reveal of what they’ve been working on for years, the thrilling fight between Mark S. and the hulking Mr. Drummond, and a covered-in-blood Mark trying to coax his missing wife out of the Lumon building in a way that’s impossible not to feel for him. “Severance” can sometimes feel a bit cerebral and too-cool, but the ironically named “Cold Harbor” brought things to flesh-and-blood life.
Best TV Show of the Year: “Andor”…What else could I pick? Anyone who follows the Alabama Liberal YouTube channel knows I find this the TV show that speaks the loudest to our current moment–which is kind-of funny considering its set into the far-future and based on a property that originally started in the 1970’s. Still, scenes like Cassian Andor devastated at the leveling of Ghorman (not that different from things you could witness on the international news) and using the height of his powers to rescue a resistance-leader senator before she can be arrested (then executed) on the senate floor felt thrillingly relevant. The show is so of-the-moment, certain lines like “I have friends everywhere” have become rallying cries as our own civilization seems to be sinking into the abyss. “Andor” is a testament to what pop art can do when it’s determined to push back.