best of 2025: TV shows

 A few notes before I begin:

- This is a short enough list that it's in preferential order..

- Not all of these were first released in 2025, but that's when I watched them.

-Some of these are ongoing series, but I only included shows where I've watched at least one full season.  Our TV watching is on a bit of a hiatus at the moment since we're playing Persona 3 Reload and JRPG = 100+ hours of gameplay, so most other pastimes are back burnered for now.

- I made a parenthetical note of where I watched it, although some of these may be available other places as well.  

- And, as always, your mileage may vary.

1. The Good Place:  When Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) dies, she wakes up in the "Good Place", where she meets new friends and there's all the frozen yogurt she can eat.  Yes, I knew the most infamous plot point before we even started (I'm terminally online; there was no way to avoid spoilers for the S1 finale when it first aired), but I still loved this show. The cast is fantastic, and mixed in with the humor is heartbreak and some surprisingly deep philosophical discussions.  (Netflix until they lost the rights, and then we switched to Amazon Prime)

2. Evil:  A priest, a skeptical psychologist, and an ex-Muslim tech expert investigate potential supernatural occurrences at the behest of the Catholic church.  It's a deeply weird, often hilarious, and occasionally creepy show that I binged like potato chips.  (Netflix until I got to the final season, which they inexplicably DO NOT HAVE, forcing me to get the rest on DVD from the library)

3. Eastbound and Down:  Kenny Powers is a former MLB player whose drug use tanked his career.  Now working as a gym teacher, he starts to think about returning to baseball, which is easier said than done when he hasn't changed his ways.  Funny and foul mouthed.  (HBO Max)

4. Creature Commandos:  A black ops team made up of prisoners (think Suicide Squad with monsters and mutants) goes to a fictional country to help its princess fight a threat.  Reliably wild James Gunn fare.  (HBO Max)

5. Adolescence:  A 13-year-old boy is charged with murdering his classmate in this grimly relevant British series.  The cast is uniformly excellent, but Owen Cooper is a revelation as the troubled boy.  (Netflix)