Chapter 1: What cultural moments in television are highlighted for 2025?
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Welcome to the Sunday special. I'm Gilbert Cruz. We're spending this last several episodes of the year looking back on some of the big cultural moments of 2025. And today we are talking about TV. Here with me to consider some of the best shows of the year, as well as some of the most popular ones, are two of my colleagues who watch a ton of TV.
Jim Ponowozik is our chief television critic here at The Times. Pleasure to have you back with us, Jim. It's a pleasure to be back, so far. And Alexis Solosky is one of our culture reporters. Happy to have you also back here with us again, Alexis.
I could not be more delighted.
I can tell. Okay, so let's start out with a little fill-in-the-blank exercise, which I'm asking everyone to do. For TV, 2025 was a blank year. Fill-in-the-blank.
It was a year of mild improvement, I think.
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Chapter 2: Which shows were noted for their conspiracy themes this year?
Beautiful. From my standpoint. Okay.
Okay.
When I put together my, you know, end of the year best list, most years it is a wrestling match trying to eliminate the last few things to get the list down to 10 or some approximation of that. I would say last year... not to crap on 2024 too much, but was one of the few years where, you know, I just, I basically had 10 and I was good. And one of them was the Olympics.
You know, this year, I think we were, I'm not going to say that it was just a blow the doors off year for television, but... But it was a much more normal distribution of going down to the wire and cutting things off the list. So that's a positive note for me.
I think it is. I think it is. Alexis, you do not put together or you don't publish at least a best of the year list. But I'm sure in your own mind you have a sense of how this year was. What would you say?
Fine. Fine. Fine. Many.
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Chapter 3: What makes 'Severance' a standout show in 2025?
I mean, the rising inflection is key. It was fine. It was fine. It was fine. When you are out and about socializing with people and they say, what should I watch? I occasionally had some things to tell them, which is really, it's really all I want, you know, as opposed to sort of looking scared and cornered and forgetting my own name, which is a lot of how 2024 felt.
So both of you have been watching a lot of TV this year, and I know you've observed some trends, and I think we should start by talking about those. Jim, let's start with you. In your year-end list, you noted that there were a bunch of shows about conspiracies. What were they? Just rattle off some names here.
Oh, there was, where do I start? Common side effects, severance, the chair company, the lowdown, pluribus.
I'd love for you to talk about one because it feels not only appropriate for TV, but maybe also appropriate for the world. the country this year?
I mean, you know, I don't need to tell our listeners probably all the reasons that conspiracy theories have had great influence in the larger world, conspiracy theories and actual conspiracies. Conspiracy is a great engine for drama. There's somebody doing something, something is amiss.
But a lot of the best shows that I watched this year and the more interesting ones, in some way or another, involved often a lone or close-to-lone protagonist trying to unravel something that went way, way beyond them. And, you know, this was in animation, it was in science fiction, it was in mystery.
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Chapter 4: How does 'Common Side Effects' explore unique storytelling?
There was a lot of it in the water.
One of the biggest shows of the year, and we just touch on this one because I feel like everyone has heard a lot about Severance, is sort of conspiracy at its core in some way. This was a season that came three years after the first season, a very long time. And yet there seemed to be, at least at the beginning, a ton of excitement about this one.
Yeah, Severance is one of those streaming shows that comes around like Halley's Comet, and you need to do a refresher course whenever it comes back around. I very much liked the second season. I liked it enough to put it on my top ten list at the end of the year.
I suppose you're Mark S. I'm Mark W., Who are you people? Would you be open to using a different first name to avoid confusion? Welcome back, Marcus.
This, you know, truly is one of those series that's in the great TV tradition of shows like Lost, et cetera, where there is both a large conspiratorial element organization, in this case, Lumen Industries, and also just a big question of what is the conspiracy about and what is it for and why are they pushing these buttons on these computers all days?
So I was, you know, I would say not as stellar as season one, but like a welcome payoff that made me want more, hopefully in fewer than three years. Yeah. Did this stick with you?
If I can be mildly contrarian and only mildly because any show that makes such a place for goats is okay. Yeah.
with me okay we see what stuck with you yes uh i tend to find the mystery box element at least in the second season the least compelling thing about it which is where i often get to with mystery box shows i'm so engaged initially and then i just look i'm a person when i read books i often skip to the end and then go back so i just i just want to know i'm i'm no longer so interested in the dragging out of what is lumen industries what are they making what are they doing and
And I wish they would just solve that and then we would go back to the tension, the relationships, the comedy, the melon parties, the goats, more goats, more goats.
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Chapter 5: What elements contribute to the fun factor in 'The Hunting Wives'?
I mean, not to get all, you know, like TV history 101 on this, but I will agree to the extent that, you know, going back to Lost, if you were watching TV around that time, you recall that what we saw after Lost were like 5,000 shows that would involve some kind of convoluted mystery and puzzles and weird random details, but sort of forgot the fact that This show needs to make you laugh.
It needs to have engaging characters. It needs to, like, surprise and hit you emotionally. And for me, Severance is one of the few shows since In That Mold that has done that. It is about a mystery, but I enjoy watching it for the relationships between the characters. And, you know, to me, at least it did not lose that in the second season.
Jim, I'd love for you to talk a little bit about a show that I was less familiar with.
It was a show called Common Side Effects. This was an animated series on Adult Swim that came in part from one of the makers of an animated drama that I loved a couple of years ago called Scavenger's Reign. But this one is about a mushroom, right? There's a mushroom. Say more. There's a mushroom. I don't have you hooked on mushroom. You have my attention.
There's a mushroom in the rainforest that is discovered by this kind of kooky, amateur scientist, holistic healer.
An amateur mycologist.
Right.
Yes, an amateur my color.
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Chapter 6: Why is 'Andor' considered a mature addition to the Star Wars franchise?
That's 10 points for Gryffindor. The dream, the goal. It's amazing. Thank you. And it can cure anything, which sounds fantastic, except, and here the conspiracy element comes in, except for pharmaceutical companies who see a tremendous threat to their business and decide to shut this down.
Okay, Francis, can I... Can I tell you a secret? Uh, yeah, please. Okay, just go with me for a minute. What if there were a medicine that could heal, like, almost anything?
Well, yeah, that would be great, sure.
Yeah, right, but what if they didn't want you to know about it?
They? Sorry, who's they?
They is big pharma, it's the insurance companies, the government. Think about all the people who make tons of money just from keeping us sick by keeping us unwell.
That's the animating plot of the thriller. What gets me into it is it is simultaneously realistic and sort of hallucinatory. It also has kind of a quirky, offbeat sense of humor, which, you know, I think series like this really sort of need to avoid getting too stuffed up in their self-seriousness.
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Chapter 7: What trends are emerging in romantic comedies on television?
And also, I think, had a lot of relevant, seemingly timely ideas about how sick our society is and what... the condition of modern life has done to us, and should we all in some way be getting back to the garden? Like, it's really kind of a show that, like, you know, sort of had a little bit for Luigi Mangione and a little bit for RFK Jr. Yeah.
There was this kind of element of, you know, the sickness of society that I also thought made it intellectually interesting.
Alexis, what was a trend that came up for you this year?
A trend I noticed was a lot of shows trying to revive or complicate the idea of the romantic comedy. I think it's hard, I should say initially, to make romantic comedy for television. There have been romantic comedies on television. Of course, there have been relationship comedies. But romantic comedies have been filmic because there's an end point.
And that end point is typically marriage, right? The couple get married. They live happily ever after. There's some great TV about what happens. after the happily ever after, but it's hard to disrupt the perfection of that arc. And so it's always a challenge for romantic comedy. I think we're in a place where people are trying again, and I love to see it. Like all I want, I love love.
I want to think it's possible, not for me, but for others.
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Chapter 8: What are the major themes discussed in the show 'Pluribus'?
I think it's possible you're saying too much.
Yeah. I don't want it, but I love to see it. And I thought that this year there were some really good attempts. I enjoyed Too Much, which is Alina Dunham romantic comedy, which was on Netflix. I love Megan Stalter, who some of us... the star of that show who some of us will know from Hacks and some of us will know from her Demented, and I mean that in the most positive way, comedy videos.
And she plays an American who moves to England with all kinds of crazy romantic ideas of what England is, most of which are unrealized, but falls in love. I met someone.
Wow. You know, this is the only area where you waste no time. What does he do? Why is the first question always, what does he do? How about, how does he make you feel? What does he value? Okay, Jessica, I'm your mother, not your friend. Keep that in mind. So, he's unemployed? He's not unemployed. He's an indie musician. And where does he live? Well, he lives in an early Indian neighborhood.
You wouldn't know it. You don't know the London area, Mom.
And as with contemporary romantic comedies, there aren't problems of class or religion or other external exogenous things to keep people apart because... It's fine. We're fine. Anyone can date anyone. And so it's the characters sort of maybe dealing a little bit with the baggage that they bring into a relationship and trying to be better partners for each other. It's very sweet.
There were a couple of shows this year that actually sort of did deal with faith in relationships. We're going to talk about one of them later because Jim is a big fan of it. It's an animated series. But we also had on Netflix the second season of Nobody Wants This.
Yeah. Yeah, we did. What nice cameos, right? It's possible that Seth Rogen works too much, but I was very happy to see him and Kate Berlant show up as rabbis.
I love you, man. I love your work so much. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I saw the sermon you gave at Tu B'Shvat at Temple Chai. Sure. It blew my mind. It completely changed the way I mourn. I was mourning all wrong. We got you on our vision board here. Oh,
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