Best Trend: Three-dimensional animated characters…Some of the best, most well-rounded characters of the year could actually be found on animated series like Pixar’s underrated “Win or Lose,” the “King of the Hill” reboot that defied the trend for awful series continuations of long-ago shows, the squabbling family dynamics of “Long Story Short,” or the thrilling conspiracy series “Common Side Effects.” In fact, there was so much quality animation, that it actually worked against those shows making the main countdown; still, appropriate respect should be paid.
12. “Asura”‘s four sisters (Rie Miyazawa, Machiko Ono, Yu Aoi, Suzu Hirose)…As adult women learning of their father’s secret, the four sisters show a range of emotions, and how that ripples throughout their own relationships. The series is a bit too traditional for some of the praise it’s been receiving, but the four main characters (and performances) pull you in.
11. Robbie Prendergrast (Tom Pelphrey) on “Task”…Robbie is the most well-rounded and developed “thug” on TV this year, a shockingly soulful and three-dimensional being. No offense to Mark Ruffalo’s empathetic FBI man (possibly the most caring dude to ever wear a badge, almost to a fault in the case of his forgiving nature), but when Robbie is barely in the miniseries’s final two episodes, you really feel the absence, and the series doesn’t recover the lost momentum.
10. Nina (Rachel Hilson) on “Duster”…Overall, “Duster” isn’t a good series, and will be largely forgotten after a season 1 cancellation. That’s a shame because the show’s real star isn’t Josh Holloway’s hair-flipping Jim (who is more of a shampoo commercial than lead character), but Hilson’s Nina, a confident FBI agent who is under-estimated in every room she enters before thoroughly owning it soon afterwards. If more people had seen “Duster,” this likely would’ve been a star-making turn for Hilson, channelling young Pam Grier with a cerebral, modern sensibility all her own.
9. Belle Gibson (Kaitlyn Dever) on “Apple Cider Vinegar”…Dever had an excellent 2025 TV year, scoring a prime role on “The Last of Us” (where she’s arguably more sympathetic than our lead character Ellie), and a career-best performance here on “Vinegar.” “ACV” gets at the heart of our “MAHA”-modern health quackery, but Gibson is no mere villain; she’s an anti-heroine so layered that you’re not even sure she knows she’s lying. In that, Gibson is a portrayal of something even weirder in the modern age: the professional liar so practiced that their artifice is internally indistinguishable from their sincerity.
8. Molly Kochan (Michelle Williams) on “Dying for Sex”…It says something about the strength of this list that Molly isn’t ranked higher; in a more so-so TV year, she surely would’ve been. We get to know her very well throughout the course of “Dying,” and it’s rare to see the thoughts, desires, and even contradictory impulses of a woman represented so well in any medium. It would be cliche to say Molly wants to “really live before she dies,” and something that would definitely make the sardonic Molly smirk.
7. Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgard) and Mensah (Noma Dumezweni) on “Murderbot”…As the leader of a futuristic commune, Mensah has to keep her community of not-quite-pragmatic space idealists together, and does so in a way that never looks ridiculous. Even more impressive, Skarsgard manages to make a character called Murderbot one of the most relatable machines to ever grace science-fiction. He only occasionally cares about the child-like human adults left in his care, as he secretly longs to do little more than stream his favorite tv shows.
6. Siaja (Anna Lambe) on “North of North”…Lambe’s delightful performance helps sell a series that would’ve been a big smash on ABC only a few years year ago, but is now just part of the algorithm on Netflix. Siaja is such a winning character, it’s nearly impossible not to like her as she sets about changing her life away from her arrogant, traditionalist husband and lack of professional fulfillment in a town that’s not exactly overflowing with new faces, easy conveniences, or overall opportunities. You see comedy characters reinvent themselves all the time in NYC or LA, but what about a tight-knit Canadian-indigenous community where going on a long walk might lead to terminal hypothermia? The word “original” is an understatement.
5. Carol (Rhea Seehorn) on “Pluribus”…The most unlikely savior of the world happens with Carol, a main character who no other living person on Earth can stand to be around. Yet she seems to be the last sane person alive when alien-DNA makes almost everyone part of an infuriating hive mind, and most of the other 12 “unaffected” people like her don’t seem particularly motivated to reverse “the joining.” Seehorn manages the incredible feat of making her main character likable and relatable even as she’s raging at the baffling dumbasses she’s surrounded by–possibly a representation of what living in 2025 is actually like. She would probably be even higher on the list, and possibly even the top spot except “Pluribus” is not yet finished, and still has several episodes left to go.
4. James Cromwell (Mark Rylance) on “The Mirror and the Light”…When it came out earlier in the year, “Mirror” didn’t receive the same amount of attention the previous adaptation of Mantel’s first two “Wolf Hall” books did. However, this is the superior work, as we see Rylance’s Cromwell have to cling onto his sanity while being afraid of revealing his true feelings at almost all times–least he incur the wrath of an unstable King who has already executed the mentor that helped Cromwell rise from his lowly birth in the first place. Rylance has a tendency to underplay certain parts with his occasionally mannered style, but that’s put to great effect here, as his emotionally-repressed Cromwell isn’t sure he even knows what his feelings are anymore, apart from King Henry’s wishes. [A good allegory for what the people with a brain still working in the Trump administration must feel day-to-day.]
3. Cordelia Cupp (Uzo Aduba) on “The Residence”…Is this series more frivolous than the rest of the list, and certainly the “Top 5?” Without question, but it’s important to show how even a great character can come out of a not-great show, and let’s not let Cupp die in the darkness now that “Residence” has been cancelled. Part of this high-ranking surely isn’t only for my affection for the quirky, bird-watching detective–although she never crosses over into whimsical, managing to avoid the cliche of most “quirky” detective shows, as she never loses her lacerating ability to dismantle others–but that I’m disappointed we won’t get further adventures with her.
2. Eddie Miller (Stephen Graham) and Jaime Miller (Owen Cooper) on “Adolescence”…Anyone who’s seen this miniseries doesn’t need me to elaborate much. Anyone who hasn’t seen it, should seek it out immediately. So as to avoid spoilers (especially for Jaime), I’ll keep things a bit vague here, but I only wish to say that Stephen Graham’s Eddie has a look in the first episode (where he’s watching the police undress his son) that is so heartbreaking I can’t shake it six months later. Graham has won so many awards because he does more with a handful of silent looks than most actors can with a 3-minute monologue. Eddie gets to play vulnerable, angry, defensive, and generally shocked at what’s actually going on with his son in a way that is timeless towards fathers and sons.
1. Mark Scout (Adam Scott) on “Severance”…In a way, everyone is playing two versions of themselves on “Severance,” as one of the great inside jokes of the entire series is that even the “un-severed” supervisors are playing a version of themselves in front of the child-like “innies” in order to disguise their true ruthlessness. Knowing I could easily fill up this entire list with just “Severance” characters I’d like to single out Mark S. for becoming the most unlikely action hero of the TV year, the television equivalent of Leonardo DiCaprio’s “One Battle After Another” character in that almost every “badass” action Mark S. takes is by accident. But there’s something undeniably thrilling about watching “outie” Mark try to reach his brainwashed, presumed-dead wife Gemma by coaxing her out of the Lumen building covered in blood and/or have a breakthrough by talking to the “innie” version of himself.