Welcome to The Beat‘s Best TV Series of 2025!
The way we watch TV may continue to evolve, but the markers we look for in good TV remain mostly the same: engaging, entertaining storytelling broken into episodic chunks. Whether we’re watching competition reality shows, adult animation, spinoffs of seminal sci-fi franchises, or medical dramas, and whether we watch week-to-week or in all-out marathons, we follow certain series for how they draw us in and keep us hooked.
Below, you’ll see picks from The Beat staff and contributors for the TV series that kept us going through 2025. Whatever your taste, you’re likely to find something you love (or maybe something you feel conflicted about) on this list, from headline-makers to sleeper hits.
Without further ado, here are the Best TV Series of 2025.
Alien: Earth
Studio: 26 Keys Productions, Scott Free Productions, FXP
Platform: FX on Hulu (US), Disney+ (Global)
No. of Episodes: 8
Creator: Noah Hawley
The perfect retort to the claim that it is impossible to make something interesting in the Alien universe. While the treasured IP creatures are definitely there, what truly makes Alien: Earth a fascinating bit of TV is how it explores the broader world implied to varying degrees in the movies. We see a corporatised future, a new kind of arms race, and explore the very idea of what makes (keeps?) us human. — Dean Simons
The Bear Season 4
Studio: FX
Platform: FX on Hulu (US), Disney+ (Global)
No. of Episodes: 10 (Season 4); 38 (Total)
Creator: Christopher Storer
Following a slight slump in quality with its third season, The Bear comes out swinging for an interesting, emotional Season 4, predominantly focused on healing and the various responses to trauma we all face. Excellently directed all around—particularly the wonderfully heart-warming and moving wedding episode “Bears”—it remains possibly my favorite show airing right now, a hectic and often beautiful look at mental illness that feels emotionally realistic at every turn. Ebon Moss-Bachrach remains the highlight of the show, consistently giving the best performance of his career. — Jared Bird
Common Side Effects
Studio: Produced for Adult Swim by Bandera and Green Street Pictures
Platform: Adult Swim/HBO Max
No. of Episodes: 10
Creators: Joe Bennett, Steve Hely
Marshall Cuso (Dave King) and Frances Applewhite (Emily Pendergast) knew each other in high school, but went their separate ways after graduation. That is, until Marshall bursts back into Frances’s life, carrying with him a mushroom that seems capable of curing, well… anything and everything. At least, provided you don’t overdose! But it goes without saying that big pharma is not exactly thrilled with the potential of Marshall’s discovery.
Balancing out the cast are DEA Agents Copano (Joseph Lee Anderson) and Harrington (Martha Kelly), and while yes, ACAB, you’ll be hard-pressed not to be won over by this badge-toting duo, the most charismatic pair of feds since Mulder and Scully did their thing. Finally, there’s Rick Kruger (Mike Judge), Frances’s incompetent farm game addict boss. With an unique aesthetic and fantastic psychedelic visuals, Common Side Effects is an animated thriller with loads of potential for continuation. — Avery Kaplan
The Devil’s Plan: Death Room (Season 2)
Studio: TEO
Platform: Netflix
No. of Episodes: 12 (Season 2); 24 (Total)
Creator: Jeong Jong-yeon
Korean competition show The Devil’s Plan had a great debut season, but in Season 2, Death Room, it really comes into its own. Featuring multi-hyphenate, super-smart contestants who are asked to compete in high stakes, highly complex games to not only add money to a prize pot, but defeat the rest of their opponents to win that prize pot, every episode is a study in manipulation and skill.
Contestants cannot cheat or steal, but there are no other rules; they’re free to do whatever they need to get to the finale and take home the championship. Along the way, the contestant pool is divided into those who are well-fed and can sleep in comfortable beds, and those who are sent to “prison” where they have fewer amenities and must compete in the titular “Death Room” to maintain their spot in the competition. This setup is delicious. No other shoe is doing it like The Devil’s Plan.
There was controversy after the finale about producers interfering, but after years of watching this kind of show, that doesn’t surprise me—and it definitely doesn’t take away from the nail-biting enjoyment of this unique and all-consumingly fantastic series. — Samantha Puc
Game Changer Season 7
Studio: Dropout
Platform: Dropout.tv
No. of Episodes: 11 (Season 7); 71 (Total)
Creator: Sam Reich
There are game shows, and then there’s Game Changer. One of the funniest shows airing, in Season 7, every episode is arguably the best episode. But the pinnacle is, of course, Samalamadingdong, wherein nearly a decade’s worth of buildup has resulted in an escape room going through the entire history of Game Changer and Dropout. Just a delight all around. — Sean Dillon
Hazbin Hotel Season 2
Studio: Spindelhorse, Bento Box Entertainment, A24, Amazon MGM Studios
Platform: Amazon Prime Video
No. of Episodes: 8 (Season 2); 16 (Total)
Creator: Vivienne Medrano
The sophomore season of Hazbin Hotel is at least as good as the first, if not better. After the events of the Season 1 finale revealed that angels were more vulnerable than they let on, Season 2 sees the power structure in Hell rapidly shifting as the Vees seize their chance to take over. Guided by Vox (the versatile Christian Borle), who enjoys a much expanded role this season, the Vees attempt to slander Charlie Morningstar (Erika Henningsen) and her friends into oblivion.
The returning cast members remain fantastic, and Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump is a particularly excellent addition. While no song matches Season 1’s pitch-perfect “Loser, Baby,” Kimiko Glenn gets this season’s gold prize for “Clean it Up,” a hilarious bilingual romp that just might feature the show’s filthiest lyrics (so far). One assumes that Alastor the Radio Demon (Amir Talai) is poised to make his play in the upcoming third season. If Hazbin Hotel can maintain the quality of these first two seasons, it will be one of the best television shows of the decade, millennia, or maybe just ever. — Avery Kaplan
King of the Hill Season 14
Studio: 20th Television Animation
Platform: Hulu
No. of episodes: 10 (Season 14); 269 (Total)
Creators: Mike Judge, Greg Daniels
Admittedly, I was skeptical going into a new season of King of the Hill, not just because of my frustration with the overabundance of rebooting and reviving classic TV shows, but how Hank Hill as a character would jive with modern audiences—particularly his conservative values. While original creators Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, along with showrunner Saladin K. Patterson, acknowledge the changing political landscape since the show was originally on the air, particularly the rise of far-right and fringe groups as exemplified by conspiracy theorist Dale Gribble, it does so in a way that feels alienating to viewers regardless of beliefs.
The show’s rejection of cynicism that has plagued much modern comedy and media in general makes King of the Hill practically a successor to Ted Lasso. Given the positive reception from both old and new fans, I’m not surprised that the series was not only renewed for Season 15 but an additional two seasons after that. — Taimur Dar
Peacemaker Season 2
Studio: DC Studios
Platform: HBO Max
No. of Episodes: 8 (Season 2); 16 (Total)
Creator: James Gunn
After knocking it out of the park with Superman, James Gunn hit another home run with the second season of Peacemaker. While the finale has been somewhat divisive among viewers, it’s hard to deny the immense engagement every week a new episode aired. While many fans called the Earth-2 reveal early on, the ending of Episode 6 still somehow managed to be a gut punch.
Peacemaker Season 2 basically became appointment viewing, something I haven’t experienced with a TV series in quite some time. If nothing else, I’m eternally grateful to the show for introducing me the music of Foxy Shazam. Gunn has teased the dangling plot threads will be addressed in future DC Studios projects. Hopefully, it figures into the upcoming new season of Creature Commandos, if only for fans to see GI Robot visit Earth-2. — Taimur Dar
The Pitt
Studio: Warner Bros. Television
Platform: HBO Max (reruns on HBO linear and TNT)
No. of Episodes: 15
Creator: R. Scott Gemmill
Way back in December of 2024, when I started watching this show, I yelled in my apartment REAL TV BACK! A show with a ton of characters you get to know over the season. A procedural with a plain concept—it’s an Emergency Room with all the staff and patients in it. It’s ER, but all the episodes are focused on one day and one shift in real time. They mixed ER and 24 and made PURE FIRE led by Noah Wyle as Dr. Robby (who’s very much a middle-aged Dr. John Carter) as the attending physician leading a group of resident physicians and medical students.
With so much change in how TV has shifted to short seasons with significant gaps or novelized shows, seeing a show you can just watch over and over and come in at any episode and be satisfied feels like a breath of fresh air. The fact that The Pitt is new and that there is still a place for this type of show to be made, interestingly, is incredible. On top of all that, the Emmy-winning best drama’s new season starts in a few weeks. Real TV, folks. Yearly seasons. — Julian Lytle
Pluribus
Studio/Platform: Apple TV+
No. of Episodes: 9
Creator: Vince Gilligan
For many people, actress Rhea Seehorn was an unknown revelation in the Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul. Going into Pluribus, audiences knew very little besides the fact that it would reunite Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan with Seehorn, which was worth the price of admission alone.
As of this writing, Pluribus hasn’t even finished its first season, and its sci-fi plot is still as mysterious as ever as a woman named Carol (Seehorn) faces a mysterious virus. However, audiences will be certain of two things as they watch. One: Seehorn is still a revelation. She’s a swiss army knife of on-screen emotion that can make one feel everything and anything and has been given a great lead role to do so. Two: Gilligan and his creative team are an incredible force making carefully crafted, must-watch TV. — Aaron Halls
Reacher Season 3
Studio/Platform: Amazon Prime Video
No. of Episodes: 8 (Season 3); 24 (Total)
Creator: Nick Santora
There’s no rhyme or reason for me becoming a huge Reacher fan. Trailers for the series, which began in 2022, gave me the impression it was grunting, wish fulfillment for dads starring a human tank of a man. But I got curious, and maybe bored, and within a few episodes, I realised that Reacher is actually for the girls.
With a brain like Sherlock Holmes and a body like Dwayne Johnson, Reacher is both simple and enigmatic, coldly psychotic and endlessly empathetic (mostly to the strong law enforcement women with which he teams). The show, consisting of self-contained seasons, is smartly scripted and ridiculously compelling. Based on author Lee Childs’s Persuader, Season 3 is the best yet, with a geniously twisty premiere and premise that really challenges Alan Ritchson’s stoic antihero. But to stop things getting too highbrow, he also has a fist fight with a 7’2” Dutch monster, and it’s great. — Hannah Collins
Resident Alien Season 4
Studio: USA Network, SYFY
Platform: Peacock (Final Season), Netflix (All Other Seasons)
No. of Episodes: 10 (Season 4); 44 (Total)
Creator: Chris Sheridan
2025 has been a sucky year for many—well, that’s the most understated description of this year ever, but it’s the only blog-appropriate one I can think of—and it’s been especially sucky if your identity lies outside what mainstream culture currently deems as “normal.” While the series has now come to an end (at least on screen), Resident Alien is the perfect show for those of us who are outsiders, who are aliens, because it tells a heartfelt, humanizing story about what it’s like to live life from the margins and how marginalization impacts individuals and communities—from the trauma of being different, whether visibly or invisibly, to the burnout caused by the daily barrage of microaggressions, to the seed of doubt rooting itself deeper each time others gaslight you about these lived truths.
And while every season of Resident Alien was better than its predecessor, the show fully realized its humanity in its fourth and final season, exploring the fallout from Darci, Kate, Ben, and others’ alien abductions, and the impact of not having your traumatic experiences believed by someone you trust (in this case, the government). — Ollie Kaplan
Riot Women
Studio: Drama Republic
Platform: BritBox (US), BBC One (UK)
No. of Episodes: 6
Creator: Sally Wainwright
Lifting and then translating the “formed a band” premise of Nida Manzoor’s brilliant We Are Lady Parts to a rural and overwhelmingly white cast could’ve resulted in a very dry, very cynical cash-in. In the event, Riot Women turns out six episodes of undeniably sincere and astonishingly brutal comedy drama. And like Manzoor’s exploration of racial and religious marginalisation, directors Sally Wainwright and Amanda Brotchie turn their lens very seriously on the intersections of ageism and misogyny.
The tensions of its origins can’t be resolved for me, but in its execution, Riot Women is a show with real heart, catchy songs, and thoughtful performances. — Adam Karenina Sherif
South Park Seasons 27 & 28
Studio: South Park Studios
Platform: Comedy Central
No. of Episodes: 5 (Season 27); 5 (Season 28); 338 (Total)
Creators: Trey Parker, Matt Stone
Much like The Simpsons and Family Guy, it’s no exaggeration to say that South Park has become long in the tooth. Though the last few years have still been enjoyable, after more than 25 years and 300 episodes, the seminal adult animated series hasn’t had the same bite as it did in its heyday. However, it came out swinging in July with its Season 27 premiere, which had everyone talking about its unfiltered attacks on the Trump administration.
South Park wasn’t afraid to take on Trump during his first term, which was comparatively tame in hindsight. Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s no holds barred jabs at Trump and his cronies take on greater significance given parent company Paramount Skydance cozying up to the current presidential administration. The creators recently signed a five-year deal for 50 new episodes, and Parker and Stone won’t have to look hard for topical humor. — Taimur Dar
The Studio
Studio/Platform: Apple TV+
No. of Episodes: 10
Creators: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory, and Frida Perez
In The Studio, Matt Remick (Seth Rogan) has just taken control of Continental Studios. But will he achieve his lifelong desire for quality filmmaking, or will he be forced to sell out Hollywood’s biggest auteurs in favor of AI-fueled corporate IP bullshit? Well, it’s a cringe comedy series, so I’ll let you draw the obvious conclusion.
Following in the footsteps of shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Studio features both fictional characters as well as famous actors portraying fictionalized versions of themselves. Co-starring Catherine O’Hara, Ike Barinholtz, Chase Sui Wonders and Kathryn Hahn, this consistently hilarious series is filled with occasionally mind-blowing oners (how did they do the climactic one in the season finale; please, I’m dying to know). It’s no wonder that The Studio was the most-nominated comedy debut in history at the Emmy Awards, ultimately breaking the record for most Emmy wins for a single season of a comedy series. It’s hard to argue that it didn’t earn a place on every Best TV Series of 2025 list on the Internet. — Avery Kaplan
The Wheel of Time Season 3
Studio: Amazon Studios, Sony Pictures Television
Platform: Amazon Prime Video
No. of Episodes: 8 (Season 3); 24 (Total)
Creator: Rafe Judkins
The Wheel of Time TV adaptation has progressed in leaps and bounds since its rather middling (yet promising) first season. After a sharp uptick in quality with Season 2, Season 3 started —quite literally —explosively with a jaw-dropping opening episode that saw the Aes Sedai break out into civil war (it was epic). The season had some brilliant character moments and sequences, ending on a rather exciting cliffhanger. Fantastic cast, costumes, and special effects; a surprisingly solid feminist reinterpretation of the source material; and not afraid to be camp. Unfortunately, the series wasn’t renewed by Amazon, but it remains one of the best fantasy shows of recent years. — Dean Simons
Don’t miss all of our Best of 2025 lists:
Anime | Comics & Graphic Novels | Kids Comics | Manga & Manhwa | Movies | TV Series | Video Games | Webtoons & Webcomics
