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Sunday Special: The Best TV of 2025

In these final weeks of 2025, The Sunday Special is looking back at the year in culture. Today, we’re talking about the TV we watched this year — the best shows, the most popular ones and the ones that allowed us to just enjoyably veg out. Gilbert Cruz talks with the TV critic James Poniewozik and the culture reporter Alexis Soloski about the year in television. TV shows discussed in this episode: “Severance” “Common Side Effects” “Too Much” “Nobody Wants This” “Dying for Sex” “The Hunting Wives” “The White Lotus” “Dr. Odyssey” “Long Story Short” “Heated Rivalry” “Andor” “The Lowdown” “Platonic” “Pluribus” “The Pitt” “Adolescence”
Duration
1h 3m
Broadcast on
21 Dec 2025
Audio Format
other

In these final weeks of 2025, The Sunday Special is looking back at the year in culture.

Today, we’re talking about the TV we watched this year — the best shows, the most popular ones and the ones that allowed us to just enjoyably veg out. Gilbert Cruz talks with the TV critic James Poniewozik and the culture reporter Alexis Soloski about the year in television.

TV shows discussed in this episode:

“Severance”

“Common Side Effects”

“Too Much”

“Nobody Wants This”

“Dying for Sex”

“The Hunting Wives”

“The White Lotus”

“Dr. Odyssey”

“Long Story Short”

“Heated Rivalry”

“Andor”

“The Lowdown”

“Platonic”

“Pluribus”

“The Pitt”

“Adolescence”

On Today’s Episode:

James Poniewozik is the chief TV critic for The New York Times.

Alexis Soloski is a culture reporter for The Times.

Background Reading:

Best TV Shows of 2025

The Best TV Episodes of 2025

Photo Credit: Apple TV+; Netflix; Lucasfilm/Disney+; HBO

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.


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This podcast is supported by TikTok. Sometimes the most interesting discoveries are the ones you weren't looking for. That happens every day on TikTok. A science experiment can spark a whole new interest. A recipe you stumble upon can become a meal you make for the people you love. And a restaurant you've never heard of might become your new favorite spot. That's the thing about TikTok. Follow your curiosity and see where it leads. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. (upbeat music) - Welcome to the Sunday Special. I'm Gilbert Cruz. (upbeat music) 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 Panowazik is our chief television critic here at the Times. Pleasure to have you back with us, Jim. - Yeah, it's a pleasure to be back so far. (laughing) - And Alexis Soloski 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, 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. - Beautiful. - From my standpoint. - Okay. - When I put together my 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, I just, I basically had 10 and I was good and one of them was the Olympics. (laughing) You know, this year I think we were, I'm not gonna say that it was just

Transcription truncated.

In these final weeks of 2025, The Sunday Special is looking back at the year in culture. Today, we’re talking about the TV we watched this year — the best shows, the most popular ones and the ones that allowed us to just enjoyably veg out. Gilbert Cruz talks with the TV critic James Poniewozik and the culture reporter Alexis Soloski about the year in television. TV shows discussed in this episode: “Severance” “Common Side Effects” “Too Much” “Nobody Wants This” “Dying for Sex” “The Hunting Wives” “The White Lotus” “Dr. Odyssey” “Long Story Short” “Heated Rivalry” “Andor” “The Lowdown” “Platonic” “Pluribus” “The Pitt” “Adolescence”