This year, there were five or six TV shows I absolutely loved, and then a handful more I enjoyed, but didn’t have as strong feelings about. So even though this is (ostensibly) a food blog, I’ve been ranking my favorite shows of the year since 2018, and I’m not about to stop now! Let’s do this.
10. Bosch: Legacy, season 3 (Amazon Prime Video) – This was the final season of an excellent, low-key neo-noir detective show that ran for ten seasons: seven as Bosch, and three as Bosch: Legacy (after title character Harry Bosch quits the LAPD and works as a private detective). While the newer show felt like a way to trim back the cast and cut the budget, I still always enjoyed it, especially since it was filmed on location in Los Angeles and I have started recognizing locations on my L.A. trips. Bosch and Bosch: Legacy never felt like blatant copaganda like so many other “dad shows,” and it helped that Titus Welliver played Bosch with world-weary gravitas and a reassuring hyper-competence and commitment to justice. He always felt like an uncorruptible force for good in a corrupt city, even when faced with corrupt cops. 2025 also brought us a spinoff of a spinoff, Ballard, starring underrated actress Maggie Q as a different kind of LAPD detective specializing in cold cases, with Bosch and some of his supporting characters making guest appearances. Ballard got off to a strong start as well, and I’m glad we haven’t seen the last of the Boschverse.
9. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 3 (Paramount+) – This season didn’t dazzle me as much as the previous two, but it remains my favorite Star Trek series of all time, with my favorite fictional boss of all time, Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike. As always, this show excels at fun stand-alone gimmick episodes, and Patton Oswalt playing the most literal Vulcan ever was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, but this season also delved into some straight-up cosmic horror. I’m so glad we are getting two more seasons of this delightful cast.
8. The Bear, season 4 (Hulu/FX) – I really didn’t care for season 3 of The Bear, and it did not make my Top Ten list last year. It felt like it was wearing out its welcome, treading water with its plot, and relying too heavily on big name guest stars and wacky side characters. Luckily, the producers course-corrected, and this season reminded me why I liked it so much in the first place. I’ve never worked in a restaurant, but I love them with all my heart, and I have nothing but respect for the hard-working, stressed-out people making my food. The Bear captures that love and that stress like nothing else, and it was full of cathartic, feel-good moments that balanced out all the intensity and chaos. If you feel the same way about restaurants and you’ve never seen this show before, what are you waiting for?
7. Plur1bus, season 1 (Apple TV+) – This was a new series from Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, starring one of the best actresses I’ve ever seen, Rhea Seehorn from Better Call Saul. Plur1bus delivered science-fiction, horror, drama, and very dark comedy. It’s about an alien invasion, the end of the world (as we know it), and what one disagreeable woman does to cope, survive, and push back against the inevitable. It’s also about grief, loneliness, and possibly an allegory for humanity’s overreliance on artificial intelligence (but not me, I hate that shit). The story is told slowly and methodically, to the point where entire episodes pass and feel like not much is happening, but every episode leaves you with moral quandaries and thoughts about how you would react in such a situation. It wasn’t always fun or pleasurable to watch, but it was engaging. Gilligan sure knows how to tell a story, and Seehorn is one of our finest actors who deserves praise for this performance. Season 2 is probably years away, and I have no idea where they are planning to go after that finale.
6. Daredevil: Born Again, season 1 (Disney+) – People might be surprised this wasn’t my #1 show, since I am probably the biggest Daredevil fan there is. I was so happy that Marvel Studios revived this show as a continuation of the Netflix series that aired from 2015 to 2017. Despite the Born Again title coming from a mid-’80s Daredevil story by Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli, this new season was heavily inspired by more recent DD comics written by Charles Soule and Chip Zdarsky. That said, this season moved slowly and seemed disjointed, possibly due to behind-the-scenes drama. Despite the shocking status quo shift of the premiere episode, it felt like pieces were being moved into place to really slug it out in season 2. But I am thrilled that Charlie Cox is back as Matt Murdock and Vincent D’Onofrio is back as Wilson Fisk, now mayor of New York City with his own brutal police force answering only to him, giving the show a real feeling of art imitating life. The two leads even got a memorable “Pacino and DeNiro in Heat” scene in a diner. (And if you don’t realize that there was a movie called Heat with both actors in it, that must have been a really odd sentence to read.) I’m looking forward to the next season of Daredevil: Born Again going harder, to even darker places.
5. Death by Lightning (Netflix) – Maybe the most pleasant surprise of the year for me, a four-episode historical miniseries about the abbreviated presidency of ahead-of-his-time progressive James Garfield (the always-great Michael Shannon), his unscrupulous and unprofessional vice president Chester A. Arthur (the always-great Nick Offerman), and Garfield’s assassin Charles Guiteau (the always-great Matthew MacFadyen, the perfect person to play ambitious strivers and losers). This is a fascinating period of U.S. history that even my high-level history classes mostly skipped over, so I learned new things, and it was much more entertaining and funnier than one might think.
4. Long Story Short, season 1 (Netflix) – Another pleasant surprise, an animated series about a Jewish family that bounced around between multiple decades and points of view, singling out specific moments and showing how people changed over time, for better and for worse. It had so much heart, humanity, and humor, but there was also a strong sense of poignancy and wistfulness to all of it. I related so much, even though my family was never observant. This show introduced me to its creator, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, which led my wife and I to discover his previous animated series, Undone and the awe-inspiring BoJack Horseman, which was one of the funniest and saddest shows I’ve ever seen. Few things have made me laugh harder, but it was also so insightful and spot-on about depression. Long Story Short was great, and I recommend it, but I am so grateful that it led me to belatedly binge BoJack.
3. The Lowdown, season 1 (Hulu/FX) – This felt like one of those rare shows that was made just for me, a neo-noir about a tenacious Tulsa “truthstorian” (not professional enough to consider himself a journalist) investigating the conspiracy behind a wealthy, eccentric, reclusive man’s suicide (or was it?). The mystery aspect of this show was terrific, and there was plenty of humor and local flavor to keep it fun. It is my favorite thing I’ve ever seen Ethan Hawke in, Keith David was great as always, and Kyle MacLachlan continued his streak of playing chilling villains. Best of all, The Lowdown introduced me to its creator, Sterlin Harjo, which led us to belatedly binge his previous show Reservation Dogs, a slice-of-life series about four indigenous teenagers and the other colorful characters on an Oklahoma reservation. I highly recommend both shows. If it helps sell Reservation Dogs, the closest thing I can compare it to is Atlanta, which should come as high praise. Skoden!
2. Andor, season 2 (Disney+) – Probably the most important show of the year, and maybe the best thing to ever come out of the Star Wars universe. Definitely the most mature and sophisticated. I liked the first season of Andor when it aired in 2022, but season 2 improved on it in every way possible. More than ever before, it felt like a product of our time and a necessary panacea for the dread, unease, and lack of hope so many of us have been feeling lately. It was an epic saga about how people can fight fascism, both separately and even more effectively together, and it was full of rousing speeches, daring escapes, and heroic actions. It leads directly into the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and many of my readers already know that movie leads directly into Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, so the events of Andor are pretty important. But I swear, Andor is the perfect show for people who don’t like Star Wars, and you can watch it alone without seeing all the other movies. That’s my solemn promise to the skeptics and haters! It isn’t wacky space hijinks for kids. It’s a story about life and death, authoritarianism and rebellion, the struggles and sacrifices that freedom requires. It’s about doing what we can when we can, making hard choices, and how small actions can end up doing exponential amounts of good.
1. The Pitt, season 1 (HBO Max) – This was far and away my favorite show of the year, a medical show about one intense, traumatic 15-hour shift in a busy Pittsburgh hospital emergency room. Despite the stress, danger, blood, and gore, it was a soothing show to watch because it was “competence porn,” focusing on brilliant, skilled, compassionate professionals working as a team to heal patients and save lives, despite being understaffed, underpaid, and underappreciated. While it strains credulity that so many crazy events could happen in one hospital shift, it made for compelling drama, and each new crisis led to more moments of character development where we got to know and care about the doctors and nurses. It was amazingly well done, but it makes sense, because it came from John Wells, the showrunner of ER and The West Wing, and starred ER mainstay Noah Wyle, who spent 15 seasons on ER going from hapless medical student to seasoned attending physician. He plays a completely different character in The Pitt, where he is even more of an experienced, world-weary doctor who has seen it all, but is hampered by PTSD. You might end up with some PTSD of your own after binge-watching season 1 of The Pitt, but it is so worth it, especially with season 2 dropping in January 2026. You won’t regret it. (Also, one of my friends, an actress, showed up as a patient! Congratulations, Julia!) By the way, we loved this show so much that we binge-watched all 15 seasons of ER too. No regrets there either!
Here are all my past lists, because I’m sure all of you care so much what I think about things:
Top Ten TV Shows of 2024
Top Thirteen TV Shows of 2023
Top Fifteen TV Shows of 2022
Top Twenty TV Shows of the Decade (2011-2021)
Top Ten TV Shows of 2021
Top Twenty TV Shows of 2020
Top Twenty TV Shows of 2019
Top Ten Movies of 2019
Top Ten TV Shows of 2018
Top Ten Movies of 2018
The Saboscrivner 