Hello, Yahoo readers! My name is Michel Ghanem, the television critic and writer also known as TV Scholar, and I’m back with a special edition of Trust Me, I Watch Everything featuring the best new shows of 2025. Although there were plenty of noteworthy returning series this year — Matlock, Severance and Andor, to name a few — 2025 also brought a new slate of promising freshman offerings.
Below is a list of some of the best shows 2025 had to offer when it comes to new programming — everything from critically acclaimed, poignant miniseries like Dying for Sex and Mr Loverman to laugh-out-loud comedies like The Studio and North of North. We’ve already covered a handful of the best shows this year in previous entries to this column, so check out the honorable mentions at the end of this list if your favorite show of the year isn’t highlighted here.
Let’s dive in — and hope for just as many great shows in 2026! Thanks for tuning in.
Critical darlings worth the hype
My recommendation: The Pitt
Why you should watch it: The Pitt single-handedly reinvigorated the medical genre with its fresh approach, and in the process, became one of the biggest shows of 2025. The premise of the show is straightforward: One shift at a bustling ER in Pittsburgh, but depicted hour by hour as a regular day spirals into catastrophe and breakdowns.
Starring Noah Wyle and created by ER writer R. Scott Gemmill, the sprawling cast comes in and out of the show throughout the season. It’s praised for a few different reasons, including its medical accuracy and compelling performances by lesser-known actors. My takeaway is that it signals our hunger for television that honors the episodic format and is something more akin to a network model: more episodes, yearly seasons and nostalgia for a genre we thought we didn’t need more of.
How to watch it: The first season of The Pitt is streaming on HBO Max. (And Season 2 drops Jan. 8!)
My recommendation: Dying for Sex
Why you should watch it: Based on the Wondery podcast of the same name, Dying for Sex is a heart-wrenching real story about a woman in New York City (played by Michelle Williams) who receives a terminal breast cancer diagnosis. Her first thought when she gets the news: She needs to leave her husband and seek her first-ever orgasm with another person.
Thus begins her sex-infused quest to unpack the trauma that has prevented her from experiencing it so far, with the help of her best friend, who steps in as her carer (Jenny Slate). Written by New Girl creator Elizabeth Meriwether, it’s a hilarious, moving story and one of the more nuanced depictions of sexual connection that has ever appeared on television. It absolutely deserves its spot on this list as one of the best miniseries of the year.
How to watch it: All eight episodes of Dying for Sex are streaming on Hulu.
My recommendation: The Studio
Why you should watch it: We were ripe for a satire about Hollywood in the era of endless reboots and IP. Seth Rogen (who also created the show) plays Matt Remick, a film producer in Los Angeles who is newly appointed as head of the fictional Continental Studios after years of loyal service. He’s a serious cinephile with 70 mm-sized dreams who has to balance Hollywood’s money-hungry perspective with his love for the medium. This means trying to get Martin Scorsese to direct his Kool-Aid film (“Ohhh yeah!”) and trying not to interfere in Sarah Polley’s vision even when he gets overly excited about the filmmaking process.
The show is chock-full of guest stars, most of whom play a heightened version of themselves, as Remick backseat-drives his projects to the point of stressing himself out so much he inevitably ends each episode crashing out (often quite literally, crashing into a piece of furniture). He and the strong supporting cast (Catherine O’Hara, Kathryn Hahn, Ike Barinholtz, among others) deserve all the Emmy recognition they received.
How to watch it: The first season of The Studio is streaming on Apple TV.
Heart-pumping thrillers
My recommendation: Dope Thief
Why you should watch it: At the outset, Dope Thief, adapted from a fictional novel of the same name by Dennis Tafoya, shares similarities with other crime thrillers that appear in my honorable mentions of the year (like Task and Adolescence), but I’ve highlighted it here in case it got overlooked. We follow Ray Driscoll (Brian Tyree Henry) and Manny Carvalho (Wagner Moura), longtime friends who have found a way to make a living by posing as DEA agents robbing drug dealers in Philadelphia. They stumble on the wrong house one day when they steal from dealers under surveillance by undercover DEA agents (one played by Marin Ireland).
Despite the intense subject matter, there is a sense of comedy and lightness threaded through these episodes that keeps it lighter on its feet than a typical crime drama. The performances are what sell it: Henry first rose to prominence for a comedic role on the popular dramedy Atlanta, and Moura is currently in the running for his first Oscar nomination in The Secret Agent. We’re in good hands.
How to watch it: All eight episodes of Dope Thief are streaming on Apple TV.
My recommendation: The Girlfriend
Why you should watch it: On the psychological thriller end of things, The Girlfriend is a standout. The premise is a little sudsy but a fun setup: A tight-knit relationship between Laura (Robin Wright, who also directs two episodes) and her son Daniel (Laurie Davidson) is upended when Cherry (Olivia Cooke), his new girlfriend, enters the fray.
Like Showtime’s The Affair did years ago, The Girlfriend plays with perspective by splitting episodes between Laura and Cherry’s points of view. Laura sees Cherry as an evil temptress who wants to steal her son away from her; Cherry sees Laura as an overbearing, borderline incestuous helicopter mother who won’t let go of her only son. There’s a seed of truth in both. It is probably the show I binged the fastest this year — pure entertainment with ballsy performances and enough of a hook to keep my eyes peeled for what might happen next.
How to watch it: All six episodes of The Girlfriend are streaming on Prime Video.
Breakout sci-fi hits
My recommendation: Alien: Earth
Why you should watch it: Leave it up to Fargo’s Noah Hawley to take an old piece of intellectual property and spin it into something new and marvelous. Alien: Earth acts as a prequel to the original film, when the Weyland-Yutani Corporation Corporation uncovers its first xenomorph and accidentally sends it — and a spaceship full of other scary creatures — crash-landing on Earth.
Although there is plenty of xenomorph action here (and it’s gruesome, to say the least), Hawley seems more interested in exploring the various iterations of robots and hybrids in this universe, especially through the lens of kids with terminal health diagnoses who are uploaded to synthetic young adult bodies. Alien: Earth is definitely the sleekest sci-fi show of the year and an imaginative addition to a canon that I wasn’t sure had more gas left in the tank.
How to watch it: The first season of Alien: Earth is streaming on Hulu.
My recommendation: Common Side Effects
Why you should watch it: Common Side Effects’s success and swift renewal on Adult Swim is a pleasant surprise after cocreator Joe Bennett’s previous series, Scavengers Reign, struggled to break out. This brilliant animated dramedy is about the discovery of a life-saving magic mushroom — one that can heal any ailment — and the various government and pharmaceutical forces that try to stop its discoverer, Marshall Cuso (Dave King), from making it accessible to the general public.
It does what most prestige dramas excel at: building out a compelling conspiracy while breathing life into characters that feel three-dimensional and easy to root for. Plus, it’s prompting us to ask critical questions: Would pharmaceutical companies want such a drug to be freely accessible? The animation — particularly the dreamscape that characters escape into when they consume a mushroom — is whimsical and, at times, sublime.
How to watch it: The first season of Common Side Effects is streaming on HBO Max.
Comedies with guaranteed laughs
My recommendation: Adults
Why you should watch it: I’ve really come around to rooting for Adults, the little FX comedy that follows a ragtag group of 20-somethings in New York City who all live in a shared house while they navigate those confusing post-college years of funemployment, dating and random, inexplicable health scares.
There were a few similar shows that premiered this year, like Overcompensating and I Love LA (both worth watching), but Adults is the only one that truly felt like being at the pub with good friends. It’s a hang-out comedy akin to Friends and Seinfeld with a cast of comedy newcomers. My prediction is that it will get better season by season, and it’s definitely worth a watch if chaotic misadventures are your thing. Just don’t let the pilot, which isn’t great, scare you away.
How to watch it: The first season of Adults is streaming on Hulu.
My recommendation: North of North
Why you should watch it: Heated Rivalry wasn’t the only Canadian success story this year. North of North, a CBC Original that made its way to Netflix, is a charming small-town comedy akin to Schitt’s Creek that takes place in the Canadian Arctic community of Ice Cove in Nunavut. We follow Siaja (Anna Lambe), a young Inuk mother who enters her career era to reinvent herself after exiting a marriage.
There are plenty of great, tight-knit community jokes here, but I was amazed by the visual language of the show: The colorful costume design, contrasting with the white, snowy landscapes, pops on screen, especially after watching one too many washed-out crime shows. Not to mention, this is a watershed moment for Indigenous representation on television — still an under-explored trove of stories, even after Reservation Dogs.
How to watch it: The first season of North of North is streaming on Netflix.
Shows you might have missed
My recommendation: Asura
Why you should watch it: Cinephiles might recognize Asura’s director, renowned Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda. He directs this family drama set in Tokyo in 1979, when four sisters find out their father has been having a years-long affair. Each member of the family is impacted in their own way — an existential crisis of faith stemming from their own affair, the pull to hire a private investigator to uncover every detail and the uncertainty about how much their mother really knows.
Like Kore-eda’s last show, The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House (one of my personal favorites), food plays an instrumental role connecting these characters. Family meetings take place across the dinner table, with hard conversations occurring over bowls of rice and broth. The show is shot gorgeously, and the performances are magnetic. I wait patiently for Kore-eda’s next project.
How to watch it: All seven episodes of Asura are streaming on Netflix.
My recommendation: Mr Loverman
Why you should watch it: Set over decades in London, Mr Loverman follows Antiguan-born Barrington Jedidiah Walker (Lennie James) and his closeted romantic relationship with his best friend, Morris De La Roux (Ariyon Bakare), unbeknownst to their wives — each who are unsuspecting of their affair but face a loveless marriage.
The miniseries drama is based on the novel of the same name by Bernardine Evaristo and tackles closeted sexuality at the intersection of religion and immigrant communities. These are award-worthy performances that have picked up a few trophies at the BAFTAs and the Royal Television Society, and a queer story from a perspective not often seen on television.
How to watch it: All eight half-episode episodes of Mr Loverman are streaming on BritBox.
Canceled too soon
My recommendation: Too Much
Why you should watch it: It wouldn’t be Lena Dunham’s glorious return to television without another polarizing entry to her canon. Too Much on Netflix felt like the natural evolution of her writing since Girls on HBO, exploring a romantic relationship between Jessica (Meg Stalter), an expat commercial producer from New York, and Felix (Will Sharpe), a musician in London.
While Girls was all about being a naive 20-something facing the world for the first time, Too Much is about the baggage you’ve accumulated on your way to your 30s — and what it’s like to bring those attachment-style peculiarities to sex and dating. Unfortunately, Netflix decided not to pick this up for a second season — but it works well as a limited run.
How to watch it: All 10 episodes of Too Much are streaming on Netflix.
My recommendation: Mid-Century Modern
Why you should watch it: Traditional multi-cam sitcoms with a laugh track can be a hard sell in 2025 — especially when all episodes are dropped at once on Hulu. Mid-Century Modern took a page out of Golden Girls’s playbook by following three middle-aged gay men who reunite after the loss of a mutual friend. They decide to hold onto their chosen family and move into the wealthiest friend’s (Nathan Lane) house, owned by his mother (Linda Lavin, who tragically passed away during filming), to experience their golden years together.
It hits all the best heartwarming and comedic notes. There are very few comedies that explore this generation of gay men, whose youth was riddled with AIDS trauma. It’s a shame it was canceled so quickly.
How to watch it: All 10 episodes of Mid-Century Modern are streaming on Hulu.
Honorable mentions
These new shows are no less worthy of a watch:
That’s the end of this week’s episode, but there’ll always be more TV to watch. Check back next week for some more new shows to watch as we enter 2026.
Think there’s something missing that deserves my TV time? Let me know what else I should have on my radar in the comments below!
