Mads Misasi’s Top 10 TV Shows of 2025

The TV landscape in 2025 had a wide variety of new shows, returning favorites, and nostalgic spin-offs. Narrowing down the best of the best from this year is no easy feat.

In fact, my own personal favorites had to be weighed carefully to keep the list within 10 shows. There was just so much meaningful TV to come across our screens this year. 

From old favorites like Ghosts and 9-1-1 to new stories such as The Pitt and Chief of War, TV this year showed us just why we tune in week after week. The level of storytelling and cinematography for so many shows left us breathless and anxious for more.

Without further ado, here are my top 10 TV shows of 2025, in no particular order.

1. The Pitt

Since the mid-90s, Noah Wyle has been known for his role on the highly successful ER. This year, we had the pleasure of getting him back on our TV screens in a medical setting.

Seeing him take on Dr. Robby, who helps run an ER in Pittsburgh, PA, is a master class of acting, precision, and attention to detail. No character on The Pitt is lesser than another, and each person makes up a part of the whole. 

The thing that sets this medical drama apart from the plethora of previous iterations is the style in which the season is set up. Each episode is one hour of a full shift, making the whole season only span one day. Which is crazy when you sit back and assess everything these doctors and nurses handled during Season 1.

2. Dexter: Resurrection

Michael C. Hall is back and more sinister than ever before as everyone’s favorite serial killer: Dexter Morgan. In 2025, we got two different shows covering two different eras of Dexter’s life: the start of his Miami Metro career and the aftermath of the events in New York from Dexter: New Blood. 

Dexter: Resurrection not only gave us a look at how Dexter navigates a life where he’s completely anonymous, but also how he fares as a father figure to Harrison, who seems to have a dark passenger of his own. The dynamic established between Michael C. Hall and Jack Alcott (Harrison) during the previous sequel series gets a chance to breathe and expand.

Add to it a slew of serial killers out to be friends with Dexter, and a strange billionaire played by Peter Dinklage, and this show is a hit on all counts. Fans were delighted to see Dexter really shift who he is to better fit his new life while holding tight to the lessons Harry taught him all those years ago.

3. Chief of War

Jason Momoa leads a stellar cast of native Hawaiians as they recreate the history of their ancestors before the white man colonized the islands. It’s a history that we aren’t likely to have learned in school, but should be known by everyone.

Chief of War focuses on a time when the islands of Hawaii were all different kingdoms, and none of these tribes really banded together or got along. That is, until one tribal leader starts fighting the other tribes, all the while ignoring the very real threat of the white man.

It’s an emotional limited series that will both rip your heart out and give you hope for the continued preservation of the Hawaiian way of life and culture. Momoa took extreme care when creating this show to ensure it stayed true to their traditions and beliefs while also remaining respectful of the land itself.

With the majority of the show spoken in native tongue, this is a history you don’t want to miss.

4. Matlock

Kathy Bates coming back to TV full-time was not on our bingo cards for the 2024/2025 and 2025/2026 TV seasons. However, her return is nothing short of a triumph thanks to her insane chemistry with Skye P. Marshall.

These two women lead Matlock with a strength that should be admired. In fact, the great thing about this show isn’t the legal cases or even the overarching deceit (though that is fun), it’s the respect given to females of all ages.

This is a show where the women shine, and all the men are depicted as being either a soft touch, like Billy, or sleezy and shady, like Senior and Julian. It’s refreshing in today’s world to have a legal drama centered on female friendships and success.

5. 9-1-1

Now, in the year 2025, 9-1-1 might be a bold choice for one of the top TV shows of the year. That said, despite the utterly devastating loss of Captain Bobby Nash back in May, RIP, the writing for Season 9 has never been stronger.

This show has been through so many highs and lows across its eight and change seasons on our TV screens. Even with the move to ABC, this show doesn’t seem to be slowing down. In fact, we could argue that 2025 has been its most outrageously entertaining year yet.

With a story about grief that manifests during an emergency in space (yes, you read that right), the show shifted its focus this season to be a bit more serious than it is known for. While some fans aren’t happy with this shift, we believe it was necessary to keep the show fresh and new.

6. High Potential

We all know Kaitlin Olsen can hold her own in a network comedy series; she’s been doing it for many, many years with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. However, with High Potential, she’s showing off her more dramatic skills.

High Potential uses the tried and true element of a civilian and a cop teaming up to solve crimes. In this particular case, though, Morgan has the ability to see things others don’t, and her brain works double time to make connections. 

That dynamic pairs well with the extremely by-the-book Karadec, who starts off the series frustrated with Morgan’s way of handling things. However, with the start of Season 2, these two characters have hit their stride so well that fans are begging for more.

7. Ghosts

Year after year, Ghosts remains a staple show for many TV viewers, all because the quirky dynamics between the ensemble of characters hit us in the funny bone every single episode. 

After five seasons, this show is still going strong and finds new ways to give these ghosts something to do. It never feels repetitive or boring because each episode gives a spotlight moment to a select number of the ghosts, keeping things interesting.

The talents of everyone on the show can’t be understated because without them, this show wouldn’t have become the phenomenon it is today. And just when it feels like the manor might have too many ghosts, one will leave or get sucked off, reminding us that the core ghosts are the most important ones.

8. Paradise

One of the surprise dark horses this year was the James Marsden, Sterling K. Brown, and Julianne Nicholson-led political thriller, Paradise. During a time when political stories aren’t necessarily a go-to source of comfort, this show rocked our world and kept us on the edges of our seats from week to week.

The clever use of the current timeline and flashbacks allowed this show to keep up the intrigue from one episode to the next. We weren’t afforded information we didn’t need until the moment we absolutely needed it. 

Just when we felt like we knew what had happened to the president, a new wrench was thrown into the narrative, forcing us to rethink everything. By the end of the season, we might know who killed the president, but that didn’t eliminate all the other questions we still want answers to.

Here’s hoping Season 2 will answer them.

9. The Sandman

Unfortunately, in 2025, the creator of The Sandman, Neil Gaiman, was revealed to have some questionable skeletons in his closet, putting a damper on the release of Season 2 of this beloved show. 

That said, the storylines developed during the final season gave our favorites from Season 1 more depth and further introduced us to Orpheus’s whole family. With the acting talents of Mason Alexander Park, Donna Preston, Barry Sloane, Esmé Creed-Miles, and Kirby Howell-Baptiste, we were taken deeper into the world of the Endless.

This show might only have two seasons, but its storytelling and cinematography put it towards the top every time. Sometimes less truly is more.

10. Yellowjackets

Season 3 of Yellowjackets made the summer of 2025 full of excitement and heartbreak. With multiple beloved characters meeting their end, this season is probably the most brutal of them all.

However, we get more information about how the girls manage to get rescued, and who might be the one blackmailing Shauna. In fact, the grown-up timeline brings the survivors closer together as they discover someone else might’ve survived that they hadn’t realized previously.

Meanwhile, in the teen timeline, alliances are splintering as the girls become more and more unstable the longer they are away from civilization. The paranoia between them reaches a boiling point as they start to chase and hunt their own for sport and revenge.

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What shows made your top 10 list for the year? Let us know in the comments below!

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