Now that we’ve reached the end of 2025, I wanted to look back at this year in television. Obviously I don’t have time to watch all of the biggest shows, and this isn’t a complete list of everything I watched, but these were my favorites.

Andor

A lot of movies and TV shows give us the myth of The Chosen One who goes on The Hero’s Journey. But it’s called a myth for a reason. The truth is that if you actually want to build a rebellion, you need an organized grassroots effort with a lot of people working together toward a common goal. And you need that organization so that you can elevate someone to the position where they can become a hero. Most of those people will not be remembered, but they’re just as important. As Nemik said, “Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.”

This is a show about what it actually takes to fight back against a fascist regime. It’s going to be difficult, it’s going to be ugly, and a lot of people are going to die without ever getting the credit they deserve. But it’s always worth fighting and we must always have hope. After all, rebellions are built on hope.

The Rehearsal

Once again, Nathan Fielder is doing things that have never been done before on television. In some ways, this season was weaker than the first because it had less of a consistent storyline throughout. Each individual episode was great, but sometimes I felt that it wandered a bit from the central premise of the season. However, this season reached even greater heights (literally and figuratively), and the finale was extraordinary. This man is a genius with a level of commitment to the bit that is unmatched.

Pluribus

There’s been a lot of conversation about what this show is about. I’ve seen people argue that it’s about COVID, AI, or even colonialism. The great thing about this show is that I think everyone is kind of right. There are so many interesting ideas packed into this one season that it’s very open to interpretation. One of the themes that resonates the most with me is loneliness, including a specific kind of loneliness: this is what it feels like to be the only sane person in an insane world.

Severance

Looking back, I’m not sure how well this season holds together as a complete work. I think the story had a couple of unnecessary detours or things that never really payed off, at least not yet. This felt like a season that was very heavy on lore and emotion, and a little light on making progress within the larger story.

All of that being said, this was a ton of fun to watch week-to-week and the quality of this show is still very high. The premise is fantastic, and I’m totally captivated by the possibilities of where this could go. I think this season was a lot of character exploration and setup for what comes next, but the finale delivers an incredible point of no return. Now all the pieces are on the board, the battle lines have been drawn, and there’s no going back.