Clockwise from top left: Gilded Age, Sirens, The Bear, The Rehearsal, and King of the Hill.
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: HBO (Karolina Wojtasik, John P. Johnson), Netflix, Mike Judge/Disney, FX
Great TV will not be confined or defined by genre. That’s true both for the medium generally and here at Vulture specifically, where we are proud to bestow the label on everything from grim-and-gritty prestige dramas to campy reality competitions to weirdo animation and all points in between. Even that dustiest of TV genres, the medical procedural, proved it can still deliver the goods in 2025. Each of this year’s early standout series are distinctive in their form, tone, and appeal and collectively showcase the breadth and depth of the best that television has to offer.
All titles are listed by season premiere date with the most recent shows up top.
Few settings are more soothing than the lives of white, upper-middle-class Angelenos, but that’s only one of Platonic’s many charms. Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen, reunited after playing a married couple at war with Greek Life in Neighbors and its sequel (both directed by Nicholas Stoller, who co-created this show with his wife, Francesca Delbanco), star as two estranged college friends who reconnect in the midst of their respective midlife crises. Zany yet surprisingly grounded, the first season offered plenty of delights, though it was weighed down somewhat by the conventional will-they-won’t-they expectations baked into its premise. The second season, freed from those constraints, takes a real leap, letting the show settle into being a splendid hangout comedy that gently layers in the quiet existential desperations of growing older. It also showcases some truly tremendous face acting by Byrne — among her generation’s most versatile performers — and equally tremendous choices by Rogen’s stylist, who dresses his character in outfits so comically loud it’s hard not to smirk at the sight of them. But even this feels like another expression of Platonic’s appeal: The show is assembled with such intentionality you can’t help but be pulled in.
➼ Read Nicholas Quah’s review of Platonic season two .
This could have been a disaster, because a lot of revivals are. Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, the fourth and fifth seasons of Arrested Development, And Just Like That … — none of them quite captured what made their originals so appealing. What a relief that King of the Hill is exactly what a revival should be, with one finger firmly on the pulse of the past (Hank being behind the times, his friends being a bit of a mess, Peggy having a mile-wide competitive streak) and another on the present day. These characters’ personalities are so hard-coded that King of the Hill has a blast updating them to the trends and phenomena of life in 2025, from a grown-up Bobby being a German-Japanese fusion chef struggling with claims of cultural appropriation to a retired Hank using his new free time to pick up odd jobs on a handyman app and realizing that what most of his employers really want is companionship. This ten-episode season has the same gentle openheartedness, Texan specificity, and satirical touches as the original run, and it’s nice to know that sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. — Roxana Hadadi
➼ Read Nicholas Quah’s review of King of the Hill.
The easy way to sell you on Chief of War would be to emphasize that Jason Momoa runs around pantsless a lot. The thoughtful way would be to say that Chief of War is a bit like a Game of Thrones–Shōgun hybrid, in that it’s both an action-packed and fantastical epic and a reframe of Hawaiian history told by the descendants of people who lived through it. Whatever argument is more persuasive for you, go with it! Because Chief of War is a fascinating star vehicle for Momoa, who co-created it with his recurring collaborator Thomas Paʻa Sibbett and also writes and directs. Set in the late 18th century and loosely based on history, Chief of War follows feuding Hawaiian tribes as they attempt to unify against the threat of colonization; Momoa plays Kaʻiana, a general who ends up traveling outside of the Hawaiian islands and realizing that capitalism and international trade will eventually come for his home. The historical epic is bloody, brutal, and sentimental, with an absolutely bonkers final battle set against an exploding volcano. And although the dialogue can be a little corny and the series’ narrative threads a little too diffuse, it’s also an incredibly bold undertaking that challenges viewers’ assumptions about Hawaiian culture and asks challenging questions about whether outside influence on the islands ended up being beneficial. Plus, scene-stealer Cliff Curtis! My captain, my king! — R.H.
➼ Read Roxana Hadadi’s review of Chief of War.
Although it won’t be a show for everyone, The Hunting Wives is the best possible version of this particular kind of show: soapy, violent, melodramatic, sexy, and just a touch deep, but only in ways you’re welcome to ignore if you prefer. It is also gay! These ladies are totally horny for each other, and while most shows of this genre coyly feint toward queer undertones, The Hunting Wives is full of sex scenes that are actually sexy while also being shaped by thoughtful, careful decisions about character development and mood and balances of power. Plus, Brittany Snow and Malin Akerman bring beautifully dialed-in performances — big and fun and messy, but always grounded enough that the stakes stay real. — Kathryn VanArendonk
➼ Read Roxana Hadadi’s take on The Hunting Wives’s double twist.
Photo: Patrick McElhenney/FX
The longest-running live-action comedy on TV could have run out of gas — and to be fair, some of its prior seasons have felt like the gang was cycling through the same old beats and story lines. But in this season, It’s Always Sunny feels creatively rejuvenated by its longevity and by how that lifespan gives it the freedom to consider its own place in the TV landscape. The crossover episodes with Abbott Elementary were basically brand management for the gang’s awfulness, while spoofs of The Bear, Succession, Is It Cake?, and The Rehearsal show how adaptable Dennis, Dee, Mac, Charlie, and Frank are to different genres and formats. The indignities they’re put through during “The Gang Goes to a Dog Track” makes for the most upsetting episode of It’s Always Sunny in years, and the crossover with The Golden Bachelor is a wonderful showcase for Danny DeVito. The series got a season-18 order all the way back in 2020, and hopefully it can keep this playfulness going. (Although, on the record: Seeing the unnecessary “Rob Mac” name change in the series’ credits is a real vibe killer.) — R.H
➼ Read the backstory of how the It’s Always Sunny and Abbott Elementary crossover came to be; Roxana Hadadi’s chat with star Glenn Howerton; and Rachel Simon’s list of essential episodes.
Photo: Karolina Wojtasik/HBO
In its third season, HBO’s big sumptuous American version of Downton Abbey has figured out how to turn the dial on actual drama just far enough without sacrificing the frivolity that makes it so delightful. We got actual stakes in the industrialist Russell family’s marriage of their daughter (Taissa Farmiga, getting to finally flex her acting talent) off to a British duke, alongside everyone’s favorite clock subplot, a random act of carriage-related violence, and more guest appearances from leading lights of the American theater than you can count (Phylicia Rashad! Andrea Martin!). In these mind-melting months, The Gilded Age’s unique alchemy of nonsense and total actorly commitment — thank God for Carrie Coon — has made it the must-watch show of the summer. — Jackson McHenry
➼ Read Kathryn VanArendonk’s review of the season; Jackson McHenry’s behind-the-scenes set visit; Alice Burton’s recaps of the season; and the backstory of how the pivotal wedding episode was made.
Though it still falls short of the cohesion (and heights) found in its first two seasons, The Bear’s fourth outing marks a clear improvement over last year’s batch of episodes. We rejoin the gang in the wake of a lukewarm Chicago Tribune review, which kicks off a ticking-clock scenario: Turn things around before Cicero runs out of money and pulls the plug. But before you start expecting a sports movie-style comeback tale — this is The Bear we’re talking about — what follows is a series of detours and departure episodes, as Carmy and company wrestle with questions of who they are and what they want. The season still indulges in the usual excesses (Faks, needle drops, more cameos), but it also has some truly standout set pieces, like a notably restrained episode, written by Ayo Edebiri and Lionel Boyce and directed by Janicza Bravo, that trails Sydney on an excursion to visit her cousin that turns into a babysitting gig where she gets the chance to work out her feelings about the restaurant. The Bear might have its rocky moments, but if you’ve grown attached to this world, there’s a lot to love here. —Nicholas Quah
➼ Read Kathryn VanArendonk’s review, Nicholas Quah on the finale, Marah Eakin’s recaps of the season, and Eakin’s ranking of every episode.
Photo: Paramount+ with SHOWTIME
At this point, calling out Couples Therapy as one of the best shows on TV has begun to feel a little bit rote, but the truth is still the truth: Few docuseries operate on its level, because almost no one else is even trying. Season four continues to lean on the show’s biggest and most apparent strengths, which are selecting interesting couples to follow and creating a platform for the show’s breakout star, Dr. Orna Guralnik. But the sneaky secret to the show is and has always been in the edit — it crafts remarkably clear narratives out of hundreds of hours of footage without ever feeling reductive. —Kathryn VanArendonk
Hangout comedies have almost no premise, and that reality is both a gift and a curse. They’re shows about people who spend time with one another, and they sink or swim entirely on whether there’s chemistry, an established tone, and a strong sense of why these people are good company. Like so many shows in this space, Adults is an occasionally uneven first season with plenty of room to grow, but it begins with strong performances, plenty of confidence, and sufficient joke density to make a convincing argument that it deserves time to get even better. There will always be new comedies about what young people are like these days; Adults is the best of the current crop. —K.V.A.
There are too many shows in the Sirens model (wealthy people in mysterious enclave led by charismatic woman), and too many of them also star Meghann Fahy, but the upside of that situation is that when one of them is actually fun and bizarre and well acted, it’s easy for it to stand out from the bunch. That is the case with Sirens, which rarely makes sense and often collapses under its own weight, and yet is so full of strong chemistry between its leads (Fahy, Milly Alcock, and Julianne Moore in what is traditionally the Nicole Kidman role) that it surpasses all the usual expectations. Kevin Bacon is occasionally there, too. —K.V.A.
➼ Roxana Hadadi’s review of Sirens and Caroline Framke’s recaps of the series.
Photo: Philippe Antonello/Amazon MGM Studios
Hot on the heels of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Amy Sherman-Palladino found an excuse to go en pointe. The Gilmore Girls creator cashed in her clout with Amazon to fund a deliriously niche and indulgent project: a transatlantic comedy about New York– and Paris-based ballet companies trading their star talent, led by Luke Kirby and Charlotte Gainsbourg, both excellent. The show’s both a satire of the world of ballet and a loving tribute to the art form, with extended sequences where you just get to watch dancers at work, all colored by Sherman-Palladino’s specific aesthetic, fondness for warp-speed dialogue, and the charming undercurrent of “Can you believe they actually let us make this?” —Jackson McHenry
➼ Read Jackson McHenry’s full review of Étoile and Oliver Sava’s recaps of the season.
Photo: Star Wars via YouTube
The most creative Star Wars project since the original trilogy (and those films owed a significant debt to Frank Herbert’s Dune), Andor has somehow gotten even better in its second season — more thrilling, more complicated, more talky. While the first season of Tony Gilroy’s prequel to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was about the arc of radicalization, the second is about the challenge of consensus-building and how to organize a rebellion when its myriad factions disagree on methodologies and means. That approach gives each of the four three-episode chapters an organizing construct, so that Cassian’s (Diego Luna) missions around the galaxy, Luthen’s (Stellan Skarsgård) lies and betrayals, and Mon Mothma’s (Genevieve O’Reilly) political maneuverings all feel like spokes on the wheel of Andor’s “What is freedom worth?” questioning. The answer, of course, is everything, and Andor never lets its viewers forget the weight of that sacrifice. Also, Luna’s cheekbones! —Roxana Hadadi
➼ Read Nicholas Quah’s review of the season, Roxana Hadadi’s interview with star Diego Luna, Jesse Hassenger’s recaps, our debate on the show’s Emmy chances, and James Grebey’s interview with star Genevieve O’Reilly.
Nathan Fielder returns with his singular social experiment meets radical public therapy session meets performance-art piece meets comedy series. The second season is structured around Fielder’s (deeply researched) theory as to why a good number of plane crashes happen: communicative fissures between flight captains and their co-pilots owing to uneasy social dynamics. Naturally, he uses the extravagant means at his disposal, courtesy of HBO’s finance department, to construct Synecdoche, New York–style large-scale simulations meant to help him get closer to understanding human and pilot interactions. An array of Fielderean gags ensue — including constructing a simulacra of the Houston airport, staging a Canadian Idol–esque music competition, and a Captain Sully–related bit for the ages — that, ultimately and unexpectedly, builds up to an emotional payoff that’s quite beautiful. —N.Q.
➼ Read Scott Tobias’s recaps of the season, Jeff Wise’s interview with star and creator Nathan Fielder, and Wise on what real aviation experts think about the series.
Photo: Ingvar Kenne/Curio/Sony Pictures Television
Director Justin Kurzel’s cinematic filmography is like a kaleidoscope for various forms of masculinity. His interests run toward outlaws, mass murderers, doomed men like Macbeth, and white separatists trying to overthrow the American government. But instead of providing these figures with hagiographic portraits, Kurzel and his collaborator, writer Shaun Grant, prefer to interrogate what weaknesses and traumas lie at the heart of men and push them into aggression. Their ability to emphasize vulnerability without excusing monstrosity allows their films an always-impressive amount of depth. The pair bring all of that finesse to their first TV project, the miniseries The Narrow Road to the Deep North, an adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize–winning 2013 novel. Jacob Elordi and Ciarán Hinds star as the older and younger versions of surgeon Dorrigo Evans, whose time as a Japanese POW during World War II — forced to tend to his fellow soldiers as they toiled on the Burma Railway while starved, overworked, and tortured — transformed his entire life. The miniseries is brutal, gory, and bleak; there’s no romanticism here about the gratuitous cruelty of war, and the five episodes absolutely can’t be binged if you care about your emotional equilibrium. But what works so well in The Narrow Road to the Deep North is its elemental feeling, its suggestion that all these characters are motivated less by logic and more by primal instinct: the need to love, the need to ascend, the need to survive. The series refuses to overdo dialogue as narrative connective tissue, preferring to let its actors’ depictions of their characters’ lush internal lives drive the action. With a final devastatingly astute (and ominous) observation about how war annihilates us from the inside out, The Narrow Road to the Deep North is no less humane than any of Kurzel and Grant’s other works, but it might be the most heartbreaking. —R.H.
This animated series from Ramy Youssef and Pam Brady follows the Husseins, an Egyptian and Muslim family living in New Jersey, and how their conceptions of themselves change after September 11, 2001, thanks to increasingly racist neighbors, media, and politicians. It’s a dark subject, but one that #1 Happy Family USA lightens up with original songs (including a quite catchy one about “Spies in the Mosque”), absurd voice performances (including Youssef performing both the family patriarch Hussein Hussein and teen son Rumi Hussein), and a thrilling through-line of anger at how easily America slid into its current atmosphere of paranoia and bloodthirstiness. Maybe the season is too frenetically paced and too overstuffed with ideas. But there’s a devil-may-care quality to #1 Happy Family USA, like no one involved can believe they’re getting away with creating a series in which former president George W. Bush is portrayed as a lizardlike kidnapper, the FBI like a bunch of maladjusted adrenaline junkies, and a hijab-wearing male dentist as possessing beaverlike teeth that can gnaw through trees. (The level of absurdity, it varies.) The elasticity of the medium allows for the series to stretch to accommodate all its most provocative and insightful ideas, until it ends on a cliffhanger that will forever change the way you think about the term “spy kids.” Another season is already on the way, which means you have no excuse not to watch. —R.H.
➼ Read Roxana Hadadi’s review of #1 Happy Family USA.
Photo: Jasper Savage/Netflix
The equivalent of a warm bowl of soup on a cold day, North of North reminds you what a comedy can provide — laughs, obviously, but comfort, too. With Iqaluit, Canada’s northernmost city, standing in for the fictional Indigenous community of Ice Cove, North of North’s eight-episode first season focuses on 20-something Siaja (an extremely winning Anna Lambe). She’s outgoing, cheery, and determined to make something of herself after separating from her overbearing and emotionally abusive husband, Ting (Kelly William). There’s just one problem with her plan: Ting is beloved by the town for his athleticism and his hunting skills, and they all immediately turn on Siaja for leaving him. The plot pushes Siaja toward ambition both professional (can she hold down a new job at the community center; can she serve as a resource for a visiting polar research team?) and personal (can she take a chance on herself; can she avoid being pulled back under Ting’s sway?), and Lambe handles it with all relatable charm. The cast surrounding her has great comedic timing, and the subplot involving Siaja’s mother Neevee (Maika Harper) and a returning flame from her past (Jay Ryan) is one of the season’s most moving. An episode about a baseball-game rivalry between Ice Cove and its nemesis town that’s packed with Indigenous in-jokes suggests that North of North could have Parks and Recreation–style legs, too, if Netflix were to go ahead and renew it already. —R.H.
➼ Read Roxana Hadadi’s review of North of North.
It feels incredibly reductive to call Dying for Sex a limited series about a woman with cancer, even though that is technically accurate. That’s because it’s about so much more than just cancer, including reclaiming one’s sexuality in midlife, facing childhood trauma, experiencing deep bonds of female friendship, and, yeah, staring down the barrel of mortality. Anchored by a gorgeously understated yet deeply felt performance by Michelle Williams, Dying for Sex is also darkly and consistently funny, flipping the bird at every trope in every maudlin cancer story we’ve seen before. This isn’t a show about dying at all; it’s a celebration of all the things that make life so worth living that we fight to keep doing that as long as we can. —Jen Chaney
➼ Read Rachel Handler’s talk with Michelle Williams about the making of the series, Handler’s interview with star Jenny Slate, and Erin Qualey’s recaps.
Pity the … studio chief? Seth Rogen anchors this Apple TV+ comedy that follows a newly elevated head of the fictional film studio as he tries (and fails) to realize his dream of making great movies in a modern showbiz era that sees an IP-fixated Hollywood in uneasy decline. Rogen does impressive work performing multiple duties: In addition to starring in the lead role, he writes, produces, and directs all episodes with frequent collaborator Evan Goldberg. The resulting series is both an electrifying farce about the insipidity of the movie business and a loving testament to its enduring magic. It also looks incredible and features an absurdly extensive list of high-wattage cameos from the likes of Martin Scorsese, Charlize Theron, Ron Howard, Olivia Wilde, Anthony Mackie, and, shockingly, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos. —Nicholas Quah
➼ Read Nicholas Quah’s review of The Studio and Keith Phipp’s recaps of the season.
Photo: Ben Blackall/Netflix
If all that this British series did was technically succeed at pulling off four episodes that were each shot in a single take, that would have been impressive enough. But what makes Adolescence such vital television is the way it uses that continuous, unedited visual flow to underline the themes and character beats in this intense exploration of a preteen’s arrest on charges of murdering a fellow classmate. Director Philip Barantini, working alongside creators Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, often shoots tight close-ups that make it difficult for the viewer to see, quite literally, what’s coming around the next corner. That approach mirrors the shock and uncertainty now embedded in every second for the accused, Jamie, and his family as they confront the possibility that Jamie could be a killer. The camera’s unflinching point of view also allows for the actors to unleash some remarkable performances, particularly Owen Cooper as an untethered, sometimes aggressive Jamie and Graham as his distraught dad Eddie. In the final episode, when Eddie and his wife, Manda (Christine Tremarco, also excellent), contemplate their role in enabling their son to become an incel, Adolescence does the most difficult and powerful thing it can do. It refuses to let us look away. — Jen Chaney
➼ Read Marah Eakin’s Adolescence recaps, Shannon Keating’s essay on how the series fails to bring Katie’s perspective to the story, Nicholas Quah’s close read of the ending, Fran Hoepfner on the show’s one-shot takes, and Roxana Hadadi’s interview with star and co-creator Stephen Graham.
Photo: Jake Giles Netter/HBO
For four seasons, HBO let Danny McBride and his creative team cook with The Righteous Gemstones, and in the parlance of the God-obsessed titular family, bless the channel for doing so. McBride has a specific flair for honing in on American subcultures and unfurling the oddness at their cores, and as he chronicled the infighting and exploits of the famous Gemstones family, he charted a path to understanding what it is about American’s specifically abundance-based branch of Christianity that holds so many in its thrall. No matter what absurd things the Gemstones family did, from fighting ninja-trained orphans to building megasize time-shares, the series always offered them second chances — and opportunities for fantastic actors like Edi Patterson, Walton Goggins, and McBride himself to go absolutely berserk. Gemstones was never again as cutting and caustic as its excellent first season, but in every subsequent outing — especially the backward-looking, romance-focused fourth — it was reliably stupid as all get out and hilarious as hell. We’ll miss them misbehaving, and we’ll keep our fingers crossed for a Teenjus spinoff. —R.H.
➼ Read Scott Tobias’s recaps of the season; Brian Grubb’s Edi Patterson performance review; Roxana Hadadi’s essay on the series finale and Hadadi’s exit interview with stars Danny McBride, Edi Patterson, and Adam DeVine.
Photo: Robert Viglasky/Disney
Because sometimes you just want to watch someone get punched in the face. Those longing for Steven Knight’s Peaky Blinders movie will be well sated by this series, which has the same roiling energy, propulsive scoring, and heavily accented gangsters as the British filmmaker’s most popular work. Set in London’s East End in the 1880s, A Thousand Blows triangulates on three figures in the city’s shady underworld. There’s Mary Carr (Erin Doherty), queen of the female gang the Forty Elephants, who’s sick of stealing from the poor and starts hatching a scheme to yoink valuables from the Queen of England. Coveting her is bareknuckle-boxing legend Henry “Sugar” Goodson (the insanely ripped Stephen Graham, who enlisted Doherty to join him in his series Adolescence), a man who only knows how to use violence to solve his problems and whose natural state is “teetering on the edge of an emotional cliff.” And getting between Mary and Sugar is immigrant Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby), who fled a massacre in his Jamaican homeland for a job in London, only to learn that the zookeeper wanted to put him in a cage and advertise him as a “wild man of Africa.” Hezekiah pivots to boxing, and his strength in the ring and romantic chemistry with Mary get him the wrong kind of attention from Sugar — who’s just itching to swan-dive off that cliff into self-destruction. A Thousand Blows pulls off a casting hat trick with this trio, whose magnetism elevates some of the first season’s cornier dialogue and sells the characters’ rapidly developed feelings. The fights are brutal, the schemes are clever, the six-episode drop is concise, and the “to be continued” ending promises more drama down the line. If you felt particularly burnt by The Nevers, give A Thousand Blows a try. — Roxana Hadadi
In this Adult Swim cartoon created by Joseph Bennett and Steve Hely, a kindhearted and noble naturalist discovers a rare mushroom that can miraculously heal any ailment … even death, under some circumstances. The discovery shoves him into the center of a conspiracy involving the American government and a big-pharma corporation, which both attempt to stop his efforts to produce the mushroom at scale in order to free the world of illness. King of the Hill’s Mike Judge and Greg Daniels feature as executive producers (with Judge turning in a reliably doofy performance as a pharma CEO), and the result is a wry, delightful, and poignant series that simultaneously feels like a Gen-X throwback and deeply modern satirical take on a broken world. Bonus points for the show’s psychedelic sequences, typically populated by strange miniature humanoids who look like twisted, western versions of Hayao Miyazaki’s weird little guys. —N.Q.
➼ Read Roxana Hadadi’s close read of the season finale and Hadadi’s interview with co-creators Steve Hely and Joe Bennett.
The first season of Severance ended on a cliffhanger so intense it temporarily halted the flow of oxygen to most viewers’ brains. Then the show did the cruelest thing possible: It did not come back for three years. When season two of this dense and deeply weird workplace thriller finally dropped on Apple TV+, expectations were understandably high. These ten new episodes meet and often exceed them.
Series creator Dan Erickson, director Ben Stiller (he handles half of the season’s episodes), and their colleagues have delivered a surreal, meticulously rendered odyssey that delves more deeply into the cultlike environment at Lumon, the shadowy biotech company that has a team of severed employees whose work and personal lives are fully divorced from each other. As the members of that team, Mark S. (Adam Scott, in a career-best performance), Helly R. (Britt Lower), Irving B. (John Turturro), and Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) continue to investigate what’s really going on at this freakishly controlling corporate enterprise. The craftsmanship on this show, from the idiosyncratic production design to the carefully composed cinematography, is sterling on every level. And while it may feel right to describe Severance as a drama, it’s got a really terrific, twisted sense of humor that feels especially suited to these dark times. If you didn’t guffaw during the office memorial service where employees were told to “each take nine seconds” to remember a former colleague, I’m sorry, but you may not be Lumon material. —J.C.
➼ Read Kathryn VanArendonk’s review of Severance, Erin Qualey’s recaps of the season, VanArendonk’s close read of the conversation between Mark’s innie and outie; Devon Ivie’s interview with star Britt Lower, and Roxana Hadadi’s interview with star Tramell Tillman .
Photo: Matt Kennedy/Neflix
No, Peter Berg and Mark L. Smith’s gritty-grimy-ugly depiction of the American West in American Primeval isn’t perfect. There are maybe too many moments that feel derivative of The Revenant, and Betty Gilpin could have had more to do. But there’s a pureness to how committed American Primeval is to its thesis of “American history bad, actually.” Our pop culture has been so stuck in a mode of romanticizing pioneers and settlers that American Primeval, with its insistence on diving into Mormon history and rejecting the idea that violence in the name of gaining power is justified, feels like a balancing of the scales. Taylor Kitsch gives one of the most textured performances of his career, Shea Whigham is having a ball going head-to-head with Kim Coates, and the series actually takes the time to depict the Shoshone with depth and context. All the beautiful shots of the sprawling American landscape are nice, but American Primeval never lets us forget that these lands are soaked in blood. —R.H.
➼ Read Roxana Hadadi’s full review of American Primeval and Keith Phipps’s recaps of the series.
Once again, Netflix has unceremoniously dumped a miniseries from the wonderfully empathetic Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda on its streaming service with no fanfare, and once again, it’s phenomenal. In 2023, it was The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House, an adaptation of a manga series; in 2025, it’s Asura, an adaptation of a 1979 TV series and its preceding novel. One of Kore-eda’s many superpowers is finding the core of friendship, family, and community in these sources and blowing them up into immersive proportions, and Asura is riddled with these kinds of connections. The seven-episode miniseries follows four sisters who suspect that their father might be having an affair — and might also have fathered a child with the other woman. The daughters range in their reactions to the possibility, which in turn alters their relationships between each other and their partners. But their varying responses aren’t finite. The women change their minds throughout the course of the series as they gather for meals to gossip, reveal their own hidden secrets to each other, and wonder whether the men they love could also be cheating on them. Does anyone really know anyone at all? The cast and Kore-eda address that question with humor and nuance, a lot of meal scenes (for all The Makanai nostalgists), and a finale that suggests love is a choice to be made every day rather than a certainty to take for granted. It’s a cheeky ending to one of the most thoughtfully rendered series of the year. — R.H.
Some elements of The Pitt feel surprising and refreshing because they’re a return to a kind of TV that streaming has been uniquely bad at making: a long season, a strong sense of individual episodes, and a straightforward and unfussy drama premise. Those features alone are so well executed that The Pitt would be worth notice. But The Pitt is astonishing beyond that baseline. Executed with a real-time logic and a bare minimum of emotion-juicing musical score, two things can stand out: the immediacy of the medical crises and the show’s stellar performances, especially from Noah Wyle, Katherine LaNasa, and Taylor Dearden. The Pitt would be a standout at any point in TV history. After years of streaming bloat, it seems nearly miraculous. —Kathryn VanArendonk
➼ Read Kathryn VanArendonk’s full review of The Pitt, Maggie Fremont’s recaps of the series, and Roxana Hadadi’s profile of star Noah Wyle.
Photo: Euan Cherry/Peacock
Honestly, Lala’s outfits are enough to get this show in our best of the year. Those little tutus! But even setting aside the continued sartorial magnificence of Alan Cumming and his stylish sidekick, The Traitors’s entertainment value as a social experiment keeps on rising. Since the series has fully reoriented itself around reality-TV celebs, it’s become a fascinating analysis of how this genre’s stars perform themselves, lean into their infamy, and align based on the networks that gave them fame in the first place; The Traitors now has a layer of meta-tension that makes all of the bickering between factions feel weighted by how these people define themselves, too. Reality-TV competitions like this are all about assumptions, how we size up strangers and decide to align ourselves, and that tribalism has an even sharper edge now that we think we know these people from their appearances on other series. That’s fun! And it’s only a bonus that this season has had so much mess, from bickering Traitors who spend most of their time backstabbing each other to Tom Sandoval somehow winning us over with his transformation into a walking banana peel. —R.H.
➼ Read Tom Smyth’s recaps of the season.
Photo: Gilles Mingasson/Disney
After a third season dominated by the will-they-or-won’t-they relationship between Janine and Gregory and a flurry of high-profile guest stars, Quinta Brunson’s public-school sitcom put its head down and got back to basics for its fourth season. With Janine (Brunson) and Gregory (Tyler James Williams) openly together and the cameos kept to a minimum (well, okay, there was the Always Sunny crossover), Abbott did what it does best: explore real issues (gentrification, low teacher pay) through the prism of relatable comedy. Abbott is still the most consistently funny show on broadcast television, with a cast that understands their characters so deeply they’ve made them feel like old, dear friends. Even the kids on Abbott raised the bar this season. Please, somebody give an Emmy to the little girl who played Margaret, the student who dressed up as Barbara to celebrate the 100th day of school because she assumed Mrs. Howard was 100 years old. (“You’re even older than Ms. Teagues, and she’s, like, 50.”) — J.C.
➼ Read Ile-Ife Okantah’s recaps of the season, Roxana Hadadi on the backstory behind the Always Sunny in Philadelphia crossover episode, and Devon Ivie’s interview with star Janelle James.
