Sunday Special: The Best TV of 2025
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What cultural moments in television are highlighted for 2025?
This is Andrew Ross Sorkin, the founder of Dealbook. Every year, I interview some of the world's most influential leaders across politics, culture, and business at the Dealbook Summit, a live event in New York City. On this year's podcast, you'll hear my unfiltered conversations with Gavin Newsom, the CEO of Palantir and Anthropic, and Erica Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk. Listen to Dealbook Summit wherever you get your podcasts.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What cultural moments in television are highlighted for 2025?
0:00–1:31
2
Which shows were noted for their conspiracy themes this year?
1:31–2:39
3
What makes 'Severance' a standout show in 2025?
2:39–4:30
4
How does 'Common Side Effects' explore unique storytelling?
4:30–7:00
5
What elements contribute to the fun factor in 'The Hunting Wives'?
7:00–8:43
6
Why is 'Andor' considered a mature addition to the Star Wars franchise?
8:43–10:05
7
What trends are emerging in romantic comedies on television?
10:05–11:34
8
What are the major themes discussed in the show 'Pluribus'?
11:34–1:01:49
Speakers
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