And here’s the dedicated article for my favorite shows from 2025! If you’re seeing this message for the first time, I decided to split my typical movie/show article into two distinct articles so I could talk more about the shows and movies I watched this year (since I watched a lot more than I normally do). The movie-focused article was posted a few minutes ago, and now its time for the shows!
As before, they might not have actually come out this year, I just simply need to have watched them for the first time (or experienced a transformative re-watch) in 2025.
Let’s get into it!
Honorable Mentions: Ranma 1/2, Jurassic World Chaos Theory, Ironheart
Special Additional Mention) The Expanse (Seasons One and Two)
I’m making a mild exception from my typical layout of a top ten/five article here by giving a special shout-out to The Expanse. Because, obviously, this show is fantastic. It deserves every bit of hype and praise that it gets, and it’s exceptionally enthralling. I feel like my eyes are just superglued to the screen each and every time I put on an episode. However, since I’m only two seasons in, I didn’t want to rank it any higher. Not because I think it’ll start going downhill, but because I just want to give it its own proper due once I’ve actually put in the effort to complete it! But if you love sci-fi (or just good tv), you owe it to yourself to check this show out!
5) Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous
I’m so glad I decided to give this show a try after seeing it pop up in my recommended Netflix feed for months and months. I’ve been a Jurassic Park fan for a long time, so how can you go wrong with more good old dinosaur content? The answer is that you can’t! This show is really solid! The animation is quite good for a tv show, the actors all give great performances, the characters are a lot of fun, and the dino action is still really entertaining even in a television format with a younger central audience (as in, expect plenty of poor saps to still get eaten). Toss in some good writing, a core cast of memorable kids trying their hardest to survive, and a few really cool dinosaur villains (looking at you Scorpios Rex), and you’ve got a hit on your hands.
4) Andor (Season Two)
Not really a surprise to Andor show up on this list for its second season, since it’s practically the greatest Star Wars media piece in the past decade. The only reason it isn’t scoring higher is because, by the nature of its dramatic prestige, Andor isn’t exactly the most traditionally “fun” or “rewatchable” show. Compared to the next three entries on this list, Andor is more of a show I’d binge from start-to-finish every few years rather than being down to watch anytime. That doesn’t diminish it’s near-masterpiece status of course! Everything you’ve heard about it is true. The acting, the writing, the intrigue, the drama, the action, the monologues…it’s all perfect!
3) The Night Agent (Season One)
On the exact opposite end of the spectrum from the ‘expected masterpiece‘ status of Andor, The Night Agent is a show I knew absolutely nothing about and watched completely on a whim, not having any expectations going into it. And by golly am I just such a sucker for thrillers! I was hooked, bingeing nearly the entire show in just a day or two. And while I’ve got my qualms with the second season (though I’ll still watch season three), season one is superb. Best of all, it’s standalone, so you don’t need to feel like you’d be missing out if you watched season one only, it’s a complete story. So please, do so! The tension, the acting, the shootouts, and the chemistry between the two leads…it’s all top-notch!
2) Hazbin Hotel (Season Two)
For reasons I can’t completely fathom, I tend to not watch very many musicals despite the fact that I’m a big fan of musicals and even used to participate in them back during the years I did school-and-community theater shows. So whenever I do actually get around to watching a musical, I nearly always end up loving it. That’s certainly the case with Hazbin Hotel, an animated show also buoyed by charming animation, funny jokes, a few surprisingly intricate action scenes, and awesome performances. But, yeah, the songs are the biggest highlight here, as the soundtrack is packed with some of the best musical theater tunes I’ve ever heard.
And, actually, I also want to give a shoutout to the main villain of season two, Vox. Hazbin Hotel makes the bold and slightly-risky decision to make its lead villain also one of the main characters of the season, giving Vox as much screentime as the protagonist, Charlie. The gamble pays off, as Vox is one of the most interesting, engaging, irresistible, and memorable villains of any television show I’ve ever seen. He’s such a strong character that he practically makes it worthwhile to watch the whole season for him alone. Thankfully, all the rest of the stuff is good too!
1) Cobra Kai (Season Six)
My apologies to every other show on this list, but being watched by me within the same year as a season of Cobra Kai (and the final season, at that) was a death-knell when it came to this particular article here. There was simply no chance anything else was going to claim the top spot.
Cobra Kai is, distilled to its very essence, the ultimate “comfort” show. It’s a show that I’d happily watch alongside family, friends, or just by myself, basically no matter what my mood is. It’s funny, it’s charming, it’s endearing, it’s exciting, it’s surprising, it’s ridiculous, it’s absurd, it’s sad, it’s emotional, it’s moving, it’s head-banging…and a bunch of other adjectives. It’s not exactly the pinnacle in any single one of those areas, but it’s this incredibly memorable fusion of all of these qualities. Cobra Kai is extremely hard to not have fun with!
Is its sixth and final season the best television around? No, maybe not, but it’s pretty darn close. These fifteen episodes pack an absurd amount of goodness into them. Some of the entire show’s most thrilling fights and most tear-jerking emotional beats fill the runtime of these fifteen episodes, interspersed with plenty of jokes, brawls, and entertaining character beats. The emotional climaxes in the final five episodes are particularly phenomenal, and I love basically every decision made with the characters.
Including, yes, Tory!
But hey, that’s just my opinion!
The Contrarian Corner 