1. FAMILIAR FACES
Some of yesteryear's TV favorites came back strong in 2025. Noah Wyle was once again medical appointment–viewing in Max’s The Pitt, just as Michael C. Hall reinhabited his murderous maven on Showtime’s Dexter: Resurrection. A younger but still nightmare-inducing Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) returned to Maine for HBO’s IT: Welcome to Derry, while on Netflix’s The Beast in Me, Claire Danes might not have been solving Homeland-esque threats, but she was piecing together clues about Matthew Rhys, as elusive in this as he was in The Americans. King of the Hill set ratings records when it popped up on Hulu after 15 years, and Project Runway strutted onto a new platform, Freeform, after an eight-year hiatus. Heidi Klum, what’s the opposite of auf Wiedersehen?
Kristen Bell and Justine Lupe as sisters Joanne and Morgan in Nobody Wants This / Erin Simkin/Netflix
2. SISTERHOOD
Sisterly bonds were powerful … and everywhere this year, which was a relief to those of us in withdrawal from Sharon Horgan’s Bad Sisters finale last December on Apple TV.
Meghann Fahy and Milly Alcock sparred as sibs Devon and Simone, who got caught up in a problematic Lilly Pulitzer–clad dynamic in Netflix’s Sirens. On Prime Video’s The Better Sister, estranged sisters Chloe and Nicky (Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks) reunited after a murder. And we couldn’t have loved the podcasting sisters of Netflix’s Nobody Wants This — Joanne (Kristen Bell) and Morgan (Justine Lupe), loosely based on sister-EPs Erin and Sara Foster — any more.
Might we suggest a crossover sister-verse? Because we’d really like to see them hang out with Brooks, Mary Holland, Grace Ann and Sarah Jane — the unfiltered sisters of Freeform and Hulu’s reality series Love Thy Nader — and singing siblings Toni, Towanda, Trina and Tamar of WeTV’s The Braxtons.
3. ICONIC DOCS
Even the most private of icons got the doc treatment this year. We were gifted a glimpse into the life and legacy of music powerhouse Sly Stone with Onyx Collective’s Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius) on Hulu and Disney+. On Netflix, Victoria Beckham tracked the former Spice Girl’s evolution into a fashion powerhouse, while comedy legends discussed the 50-year career of Eddie Murphy in Being Eddie.
Marty, as he’s known, had the director’s lens turned back at him by filmmaker Rebecca Miller for the five-part Mr. Scorsese on Apple TV. HBO’s Billy Joel: And So It Goes took a raw look at the hitmaker’s career highs and personal lows, while Hulu’s Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything traced a legendary career that paved the way for so many. And two years after the comedy icon’s death, HBO’s Pee-wee as Himself finally, painstakingly told the story of Paul Reubens and his beloved, playful alter-ego.
Teyana Taylor in All's Fair / Hulu
4. ON-SCREEN SONGBIRDS
Pop stars ditched the studio for the set this year. Kylie Minogue played a fictionalized version of herself who's caught up in a White House murder on Netflix's The Residence. Charli XCX spoofed diva behavior (also as herself) on Benito Skinner's Prime Video comedy Overcompensating.
Opting for an entirely different persona, Blackpink's Lalisa Manobal played Mook, a wellness guide tasked with encouraging the not-well-at-all guests on HBO's The White Lotus. Teyana Taylor joined Ryan Murphy's legal drama All's Fair on Hulu, while another Murphy alum, Lady Gaga, slayed as Nevermore Academy's deceased professor Rosaline Rotwood on the second season of Netflix's Wednesday.
5. DOUBLING UP
TV viewers saw double in 2025, as several actors showed up in not one but two hit series. On HBO, Carrie Coon ruled society in The Gilded Age if not friendship on The White Lotus. On Apple TV, Jon Hamm bent morality on both Your Friends and Neighbors and The Morning Show, while Sterling K. Brown was heroic in two Hulu series: Paradise and Washington Black. Megan Stalter was hilariously chaotic in both Max’s Hacks and Netflix’s Too Much, while Kaitlyn Dever played polarizing characters in HBO’s The Last of Us and Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar.
More twofers and a triple: Seth Rogen in Platonic and The Studio (both Apple TV); Ike Barinholtz in The Studio and Running Point (Netflix); Matthew Goode in Dept. Q and Zero Day (both Netflix); Stephen Graham in A Thousand Blows (Hulu) and Adolescence (Netflix); and Cynthia Nixon in And Just Like That… (Max) and The Gilded Age. Meanwhile, Julianne Nicholson was memorable this year in three shows: Dope Girls (Hulu), Paradise and Hacks.
6. TELLING TIME
It's hard to imagine three more different shows than the devastating Netflix limited series Adolescence, Apple TV’s hilarious Hollywood satire The Studio and Max’s stressful medical drama The Pitt. And yet they all played around with storytelling timing.
Adolescence amped up the intensity of a 13-year-old arrested for murder by filming each of its four episodes in a continuous shot. The Studio’s appropriately titled, meta episode “The Oner,” about a director (Sarah Polley) trying to shoot a single-take scene, is itself a “oner.” And while The Pitt is not all shot in one take, each episode covers a single hour of an emergency room shift. Hey, ER had a “oner” episode (directed by Quentin Tarantino, no less) in 1995, so maybe Noah Wyle’s latest will follow suit in 2026.
7. BEST OF THE '80S
You'd be forgiven for daydreaming about acid-washed jeans and massive shoulder pads after listening to all the 1980s tracks on TV this year.
Here’s a look at our throwback playlist: “Bizarre Love Triangle” by New Order (ABC’s High Potential); “Dancing in the Dark” by Bruce Springsteen and “I Want to Know What Love Is” by Foreigner (Netflix’s Wednesday); “Blame It on the Rain” and “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” by Milli Vanilli (Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story); “Manic Monday” by The Bangles and “Mr. Roboto” by Styx (FX’s English Teacher); “Shout” by Tears for Fears, performed by the Lumineers (The Institute on MGM+); “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds (Prime Video’s Gen V); “She Bop” by Cyndi Lauper and “Push It” by Salt-N-Pepa (FX’s Dying for Sex); “We Built this City” by Starship (Hulu’s Paradise); and “Take on Me” by a-ha, performed by Bella Ramsey (HBO’s The Last of Us). Music to solve a Rubik’s Cube by!
Solo Traveling with Tracee Ellis Ross / Emily V. Aragones
8. TRAVEL GAMES & TRAVELING GAMES
This year, actors added hosting to their talent repertoire. Joel McHale took over duties for The 1% Club on Fox, Martin Short flashed back to 1970s game-show double entendres on ABC’s The Match Game and Neil Patrick Harris puzzled players with Netflix’s new What’s in the Box.
Jimmy Fallon tasked contestants with making marketing campaigns on NBC’s On Brand, and Ken Jeong offered $1 million to the last person standing in Fox’s 99 to Beat. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Dean Morgan had contestants globetrotting and guessing which country they’re in for Peacock’s Destination X.
John Leguizamo documented Latinos’ contributions in MSNBC’s Leguizamo Does America, while Tracee Ellis Ross ventured out by herself in Roku’s Solo Traveling and Eugene Levy hung out with the future King of England on season two of Apple TV’s The Reluctant Traveler. Antoni Porowski guided six celebrities through their international culinary roots on Nat Geo’s No Taste Like Home, while on CNN’s My Happy Place, stars such as Taraji P. Henson, Simu Liu and Octavia Spencer brought cameras to personally meaningful destinations. Who wouldn’t wander-lust after gigs like these?
9. LOVE FOR LA LA LAND
Plenty of other cities have stood in for Los Angeles in TV productions, but 2025 was the year L.A. stood in for other cities and stood up for itself. The Pittsburgh setting of Max's The Pitt was actually Burbank's Warner Bros. lot, while Kathy Bates's Matlock reboot for CBS, set in New York City, actually filmed in Los Angeles.
The bunker of Hulu's Paradise was meant to look like underground Colorado, but it was shot on the Warner Bros. lot, the same place that ABC's Abbott Elementary pretended was Philadelphia. (Also using L.A. as Philly: the 17th season of FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.)
And then there were the shows set and filmed in the City of Angels. Government Cheese for Apple TV, starring Dayid Oyelowo, explored the San Fernando Valley, but with '60s clothes. Jensen Ackles played an LAPD detective on Prime Video's Countdown, while on Netflix's Running Point, Kate Hudson took over the Los Angeles Waves, a fictional basketball team.
Apple TV's The Studio was appropriately filmed on studio lots, and Netflix's Nobody Wants This shot in L.A., from a sex shop to a synagogue. Meanwhile, Rachel Sennott's new comedy for HBO sums up this trend with its title: I Love LA.
The cast of The Connors / Disney
10. THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES
It's never easy parting with characters we've loved for years and even decades. This year saw the final martini shot for Carrie and her crew from Max's And Just Like That..., the namesake family of ABC's The Conners, the dystopian heroines of Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale and the put-upon teens of Netflix's Stranger Things, which airs its final episode on December 31.
Other shows that said goodbye:
9-1-1: Lone Star (Fox), Bel-Air (Peacock), Big Mouth (Netflix), The Chi (Showtime), Cobra Kai (Netflix), The Neighborhood (CBS), The Righteous Gemstones (HBO), The Sex Lives of College Girls (Max), Squid Game (Netflix), Upload (Prime Video) and You (Netflix).
This article originally appeared in emmy Magazine, issue #13, 2025, under the title "The Year in TV 2025."
