Best Telly 2025

 My favourite tv of the year,  following my rules which may not make sense to anyone else...

Best Drama

A lot of female led drama this year which is good news. 

The Morning Show:  This show, produced and led by Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, but with plenty of other women in leading roles, now in its fourth season.  It has been interesting from the start, taking on different real life topics from the perspective of a US news organisation, starting with Me Too, but also looking at the January 6 riots and the political state of the US nation alongside corporate intrigue.  This season was particularly interested in AI and technology, although there were multiple other subplots and sub-Succession style wheeling and dealing wrapped into this, which made the end result a bit messy as they tried to cram everything in.  This was the weakest season so far, but I will still be watching season 5. (AppleTV+)

Film Club: This drama focuses on mental health although in a fairly soft way.  It's  co-written by and starring Aimee Lou Wood, and I really liked her character who is an agrophobic film buff, creating elaborate sets in her mum's garage for the film club, held every Friday night.  The supporting characters are all great, starting with her best friend and love interest Noa, played by Nabhan Rizwan, and we also have Suranne Jones as an overprotective mother.  It is a strange mix of meaningful wrapped in layers and layers of whimsy, but I liked it anyway.  (iPlayer)

Riot Women: A bunch of menopausal women decide to set up a punk band while they are dealing with all the shit that life throws at them. This could be patronisingly awful, and in fact some of the marketing wasn't that great, but we can relax as it is written by the great Sally Wainwright, so every one of these characters is well drawn.  This appears on the surface to be just a bit of fun, but it deals with misogyny and violence without pulling any punches, and I am definitely looking forward to more.(iPlayer)

The Bear: This show, in its fourth season, is ostensibly about running a restaurant, and yes, there is loads of beautifully intricate detail on how to do that, from the food and service to the challenges of making money, but actually it is about a family and a community, dealing with all sorts of things that life throws at them.  There weren't many set pieces in this series, but each episode is a little self contained film, honing in on one detail or another, and I am enjoying how the characters are being given room to develop, even though Carmy (JeremyAllen White) continues to drive me mad.  I wasn't convinced at the first watch of the series but I did go back to watch some of it again. (Disney+)

The Handmaids Tale:  As one review in the Guardian put it, this series continues to bludgeon hope to death, and I think that's pretty accurate.  The final series showed the authoritarian Gilead trying to present a softer face to the world, and politicians around the world keen to find reasons to believe them.  June continued to make the personal political, finding ongoing reasons to go and butt heads with the regime, despite all of her history.  I liked that she is a difficult woman, and I liked that there was closure of pretty much all of her key relationships even though her struggle continues.   I didn't always enjoy watching this, but I always found it worthwhile in the end. (Channel4)

The winner is: Riot Women because of the great cast, writing and subject matter, and it's also so much fun whilst being shocking too.

Romcom or Romance

I didn't really watch any pure romances or romcoms this year, so I have listed the dramas that have a heavy romantic content instead

Miss Austen:  A historical fiction with Cassandra, Jane Austen's sister (an excellent Keeley Hawes) at family friends, trying to protect Jane's letters from her grasping sister in law (played beautifully by Jessica Hynes).  Austen (Patsy Ferran) is suitably sharp and not insipid, which leads me to appreciate this more.  The romance is between Eliza, a young family member and the local doctor, and is handled pretty well (if a bit obviously) as the story comes to a close.   The main thing it made me remember was how Cassandra destroyed so many letters that would have provided insight into Austen's real thoughts, an act of vandalism that I still struggle with, however well intentioned it was (iPlayer)

Fellow Travelers: A history of American LGBTQ persecution and protest from postwar up to the nineties, incorporating elements of the Civil Rights movement and particularly the McCarthy years.  Entwined in this history is a lush but sad romance between Matt Bomer's Hawk, and Jonathan Bailey's Tim.  They meet in Washington, on opposite political sides. The romance which spans over 40 years is at the foreground in this, and I thought it was very well written and performed, the lushness and melodrama of it all helping the politics to go down. (Paramount or Prime)

Film Club: This is a romcom, but it spends more time yearning than actually romancing, partly because it is much more interested in the mental health of the main character, played by Aimee Lou Wood.   But, by the end those little hints have added up to a romance, and so beautifully done with the references to the classic romance movies of the past.(iPlayer)

Trespasses:  A forbidden romance set in 1970s Belfast, with all of the trauma that you would expect.  It spends a lot of time exploring what it meant to be on either side of the divide during that period, and then what that meant to personal lives.  The central characters played by Tom Cullen and Lola Petticrew really bring it to life and manage to avoid the handwringing becoming too trite, instead giving us a gut punch, which still hits hard even though I think we are expecting it.  (Channel4)

The winner is: This was a really close one, Fellow Travelers edges it today over Trespasses just because it was so big and lush and I am in the mood for a bit of melodrama 

Action/Thriller

Down Cemetery Road: Mick Herron of Slow Horses fame is also responsible for the source material of this fab black comic action thriller.   Emma Thompson plays Zoe Boehm (a stylish version of Jackson Lamb) and continues the thread of women taking no shit, along with Ruth Wilson's Sarah Tucker, and I am there for both.  There is a strange uneven tone to this series, which bizarrely reminded me of C4's Utopia, with shambling but terrifying villains and overwrought violence interpersed with occasional blackly funny laugh out loud moments.  I love Darren Boyd as a conscience free political operator too.  It is a different beast from Slow Horses, and I found the mix of comedy and violence difficult to parse at the start, but I have grown to love it. (AppleTV+)

Slow Horses: This has become a staple of great telly in the past few years, and it continues on in the same vein.  It rarely surprises now (except for that standout moment with the paint pot!) but it is all so beautifully done, and the intrigues continue to intrigue so I don't really mind that too much.  (AppleTV+)

The Beast in Me: Another wild ride of a thriller series, this time very firmly in the psychological thriller category.  The plot was a touch clunky in places, particularly at the end, but Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys established such a great dynamic that I was prepared to forgive it quite a lot.  (Netflix)

Prime Target: With Leo Woodall as a maths genius who has discovered a theory which will mean the end of internet and banking security, trying to survive and make sense of what has been happening to him and the people around him.  I am not sure how valid this is as a concept (although I listened to something on R4 talking about how quantum computing might also do this too), but once we are past the reason for this, it turns into a classic thriller with intense talky bits interspersed with action and chase scenes.  (AppleTV+)

Department Q: The only downside to this series is that I guessed pretty quickly who the baddies were and so I got a bit impatient at all the messing around.  Apart from that, this was an excellent crime thriller, with a crime busting team being put together out of misfits and misshapes in the best tradition of cop shows.  I loved the visual dynamic of this too.  (Netflix)

The Diplomat:  Although this does have action, it's also a lot more of a thoughtful political drama, considering the underlying plots and assumptions and realpolitik that make nations and politicians behave as they do.  Whilst this isn't at the same level, I love the tiny call back to the West Wing that we get from having both Allison Janney and Bradley Whitford in this on the US side.  And Rory Kinnear as the UK Prime Minister is a brilliant mixture of astute cunning, machiavellian scheming and bumbling emotional idiot which makes him incredibly watchable. (Netflix)

The winner is Down Cemetery Road just because it feels a bit different

Science Fiction

Severance: I am so glad this is back, after a really long wait, even though half the time I am not sure what is going on any more.  This is still weird in a trippy way, and the plot is getting more and more convoluted, and the characters growing more depth so I find that it is worth the while to sit and think about it for a while, sometimes searching the wilder ends of the internet to try to understand what is happening.  We are still dealing with corporate intrigue and misbehaviour but we also have some lovely development of the characters too, as well as the introduction of some new people.  A highlight this season was Gwendoline Christie's appearance and the return of the baby goats ( I loved that a baby goat was also significant in the finale of PlurIbus too).  I hope season 3 arrives more quickly than season 2 though (AppleTV+)

Stranger Things:  Season 5 arrived in the last few weeks of 2025 and the final series just dropped on New Years day, and I have only just watched it, so I am still digesting.   A bit uneven in tone, but it generally wrapped up most of the storylines to my satisfaction, and I still enjoyed the 80's vibe.  There was a focus on resolving the relationships as the show comes to a close and I like the resolution of Jonathon and Nancy's relationship which felt just right, whilst Will's coming out made me a bit sad remembering that we were still in the dark ages in the 1980s in terms of attitudes to LGBQT+ relationships.  In that context I think it was valid to make it a big deal, even though, according to my brief look on the internet, the younger generation thought it was a bit naff.  I am not sure that the story properly made sense in terms of the science/magic/whatever, but I decided to just go along for the ride.  The final episode was two hours long, and I enjoyed the action, but found the constant pausing to have emotional chats with each other a bit annoying.  Also the last half hour was an extended goodbye in the worst tradition of Lord of the Rings - we could have covered more story in that time!  Was it the best thing I saw this year?  Probably not, but did it give me a lovely trip down memory lane to when music was still analogue and hair still fluffy and messy. (Netflix)

Murderbot:  This was an absolute treat, based on the books by Martha Wells and with Alexander Skarsgård as the titular character.  It's funny and sneaks in lots of the usual sci-fi considerations around ethical use of technology and what it means to be human under the radar. Skarsgård is properly funny but he also helps us to feel Murderbots burgeoning humanity under his logical approach to everything. After the series I went and read all of the books and now I really hope we are going to get more.  (AppleTV+)

The Last of Us:  Long awaited, this is complex long form storytelling, and this was just one leg of the journey.  I haven't played the game and have stayed away from spoilers, so the twists and turns of the story hit me pretty hard.  Some new characters, and some returning, which enables reframing of the history we already know.  I will carry on watching any future series but I still feel pretty sad about some of the characters and will need time to grieve before I am ready to move on (Now/Sky)

Plur1bus:  Leaving aside the clever use of the figure one in the middle of the title, I am sure the amount of people searching the meaning of this word would have peaked over the past couple of months - according the internet, in Latin it means 'many' or 'from many'.  The premise of this one is that an alien mind virus has integrated all human consciousness into one worldwide hive mind, except for 12 people who are immune.   The hive mind will not kill or eat anything alive, including plants, which leads to some bizarre consequences, but equally they are very polite to the outsiders of their new group.  Our main character is Carol, who is a cynical, mysanthropic romance writer, who doesn't take kindly to the situation, and is keen to find a way out/save the world. It's funny, but it's full of tiny detail, and often quite complex storytelling which means that you have to be paying attention. The cinematography and visual storytelling often leaves me sitting in admiration, and so I watch a lot of episodes more than once. Along the way, the series explores the benefits of individuality vs a collective consciousness - what do we lose or gain with each?  Is happiness valuable in itself if we lose our individuality?  Should we stand against something we think is wrong even if we are in the minority, or go along with it? And woven into this is an exploration of modern culture, politics, media, and even gaslighting and abusive relationships.  I admire very much. (AppleTV+)

The winner is Plur1bus  for its originality, which, although it isn't as visually striking,  I think has now stolen the crown from Severance for thoughtful tv sci-fi

Comedy

Fisk: This Australian comedy is now on season 3, and Helen Fisk is now a partner in the legal firm and she continues to be put upon by everyone else as well as being our everywoman.  This is a pretty classic half hour sitcom set-up with a self contained plot each episode as well as a longer story arc.  It's dryly funny all the time, then with some larger laugh out loud moments each episode too.  Kitty Flanagan both co-writes as well as takes the titular lead, and that might be one of the reasons it feels so well put together. (Netflix)  

Bonded: A sitcom about a gay man who becomes an assistant to his best friend who works as a dominatrix, this is more silly than sexually explicit, although there is a lot of kinky sex all the same as we get to meet a lot of the clients.  I really enjoyed the first series.  The second series started taking itself a bit too seriously and so, although I still watched it through to the end, I probably wouldn't bother again.  Series one is worth it though. (Netflix)

The Studio: A big budget comedy about running a Hollywood Film Studio, full of backstabbing, insincere flattery and incompetence at the top.  It's also full of cameos of directors and actors playing versions of themselves, so it is also a massive in joke, which could be a bit smug, but for the most part I think it avoids that.  Each episode is pretty much a self contained farce, with Seth Rogan as the studio boss trying so hard to be ethical and make movies for the art rather than the money and failing every time.  I particularly loved the episode which was done in one take and also had Greta Lee in a cameo.  Surely you have to admire the quality of the show, even if you find it a bit too incestuous.  Love it. (AppleTV+)

The Change: Season 2 came out this year and continued on a similar track as the first.  Bridget Christie writes and stars in this as Linda, who has decided to take back all of the wasted hours she has spent as a wife, mother and housekeeper, and spend it going back to where she spent her youth.  This is a really original comedy drama, and a mix of farce, witty dialogue and downright weirdness too.  The second season leans a bit more heavily on calling out misogyny, with a battle forming between 'Linda's Ledgers', the women who have decided to follow her approach,  vs the men who decide to dig into extreme masculinity, led by The Verderer (a very tightly wound and angry Jim Howick).  The head to heads between Linda and Tony (Paul Whitehouse) where they debate a tenet of masculinity and Linda always wins are a little highlight for me, just stuck in random places across the series.  Witty, intelligent comedy, but also surreal and silly, I really like this.(Channel4)

The winner is: The Studio, mainly because it is new and different, but The Change is a very close second

Real life stories

Boots:  A comedy drama based on the memoir 'The Pink Marine' by Greg Cope White.  It documents his time in the marines as a gay man before the introduction of 'Don't ask, don't tell' for the US military.  It's pretty clear eyed about the brutal homophobia, and has an excellent storyline about a closeted career marine.  It had the opportunity to go a bit 'Orange is the New Black' but didn't really commit to that approach - its pretty clear that despite the definite downsides, Cope White actually enjoyed at least some of his time there, and the appalling culture is, in the end, excused on the basis of creating a camaraderie and band of brothers and I found that a bit of a cop out, letting the bad stuff off the hook.   (Netflix)

Big Boys: The final series hit C4 early in 2025, and it completed Jack Rooke's semi fictionalised memoir of his university years.  A comedy-drama, with some lovely characterisation as well as a lot of sillyness,  this season rounded off all of the storylines very nicely.  Although the final episode made me cry as much as laugh as it rounded off the story of Danny (Jon Pointing), based on a real person.  I loved Dealing with friendship, loss, and navigating the process of learning who you are.  It has a lovely coming out scene with a mum, which is a sort of partner piece to the Heartstopper one.  And I love Camille Coduri as Jack's mum, in fact I enjoy all of his family in this, messy but loving.  Warm hearted but also great as a coming of age piece, standing well alongside Sex Education in being pretty open and funny about sex.  (Channel4)

Madam:  Based on the memoir of Antonia Murphy who decided on a career change from journalism to running an ethical brothel in New Zealand.  Rachel Griffiths plays the fictionalised 'Mack' who sets up her brothel after finding her husband has been visiting a sex worker and finding out about the way they are treated.  It's a comedy drama, and most of the comedy comes from the sex, whilst the drama comes from the relationships, but they do mix it up a bit.  It's not hard hitting, but it is entertaining - particularly in the characters she employs.(Netflix)

The Hack: Another Jack Thorne tv series, and this has an excellent cast in this retelling of the story of the phone hacking scandal.  The venality and corruption of the players, including journalists, police and politicians is appalling, although it now feels pretty par for the course, given the later tory years.   Alongside Nick Davies' story (David Tennant)  there's also the (probably less well known) story of David Cook (Robert Carlyle) who gradually uncovered the messy relationship between the police and the media.  Phone hacking itself might be a bit old hat now, but I bet those dodgy relationships and behaviours still exist, just in a different form.(ITV)

What it Feels Like for a Girl: Based on Paris Lees' memoir, this is Byron's(Ellis Howard) coming of age story, based in Hucknell, Nottinghamshire is funny, shocking and sad as he tries to understand his sexuality, gender identity, whilst getting involved in sex work and drugs.  Byron finds friends and family they can trust along the way and has a fairly sweet ending, particularly given the wild ride we have been on.  Definitely worth a watch (iPlayer)

Disaster at Sea: The Piper Alpha Story:  A documentary based around original footage and interviews, with some dramatisation where needed but never used to sensationalise, this is excellent documentary making, and a masterclass in showing corporate and governmental failings in an accessible way.  Highly recommended (iPlayer)

The winner is Disaster at Sea: The Piper Alpha Story

Best of the Best telly 2025

This limited series on Netflix was stunning in concept, writing and execution, and deserves to win everything, hence putting it in a smaller category of its own.  The writing team including Stephen Graham alongside Jack Thorne, really pulled together something special here.  Graham also stars as the dad of a sweet looking schoolboy accused of murdering a girl.  The series is built around the schoolboy, whilst the incident and impact is considered from all angles, but this meant that the actor playing the boy at the centre had to manage a really tricky balancing act, and Owen Cooper stepped up to this in style.  But there are so many layers to this, with the theme of what does it mean to be a man in today's world, looking specifically at toxic masculinity, and the culture and society, including social media which surrounds, supports and doesn't counter it, asking many questions without good answers, and so sparking exactly the right sort of debate.  Alongside this was the technical panache on display, with each episode a single take, and every performer at the top of their game.  If there's anyone left out there who hasn't seen Adolescence, drop everything and find four hours to watch, plus another couple to digest.  (Netflix)

The winner is Adolescence