The best TV shows of 2025, using Metacritic’s ranking of qualifying new U.S. series, are led by Adolescence with a 91 Metascore. The lowest-scoring qualifying new show is All’s Fair at 17. Returning seasons, audience opinions, and shows without enough reviews are handled separately.
This list is deliberately narrower than a general “everything that aired in 2025” roundup. Metacritic’s main ranking measures first-year series with at least seven professional reviews, while its negative list uses a four-review minimum. That difference matters when interpreting both the top 10 and the five lowest scores.
Key takeaways
- Adolescence is Metacritic’s number-one qualifying new TV series of 2025, with a Metascore of 91 and episodes filmed in one continuous take.
- Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light and Long Story Short tie for second among Metacritic’s qualifying new series, with scores of 89.
- Pluribus is a darkly comic science-fiction thriller from Vince Gilligan about a society united by enforced happiness, and it scored 87.
- All’s Fair is Metacritic’s lowest-scoring qualifying new series on the negative list, with a Metascore of 17.
- The ranking covers new series rather than every season released in 2025; Andor season two scored 92 but belongs to the separate returning-series category.
How were the best TV shows of 2025 ranked?
The best TV shows of 2025 below follow Metacritic’s year-end ranking of qualifying new series that debuted in the United States between January 1 and December 31, 2025. Metacritic required at least seven professional reviews, excluded one-off specials and made-for-TV movies, and recorded the scores on December 19, 2025. The Metascore is an aggregate of professional critics’ grades on a 0–100 scale. Metacritic’s 2025 ranking methodology and scores provide the primary basis for this list.
“New series” is the important qualification. The list is not a ranking of every season that aired during 2025. Metacritic separately highlighted returning seasons, including Andor season two at 92, Hacks season four at 91, The Righteous Gemstones season four at 89, The Rehearsal season two at 88, and Severance season two at 87. If returning seasons were included, Andor would rank above every new series listed here.
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The 10 best new TV shows of 2025 at a glance
| Rank | Series | Metascore | Format or genre | Why it stands out |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Adolescence | 91 | Four-part psychological drama | Each episode was filmed in one continuous take. |
| 2 | Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light | 89 | Historical drama | Continues Thomas Cromwell’s story and adapts the final Hilary Mantel novel. |
| 3 | Long Story Short | 89 | Adult animated comedy | Follows a Jewish American family across multiple periods of time. |
| 4 | Pluribus | 87 | Science-fiction thriller | Turns universal happiness and shared consciousness into a disturbing social premise. |
| 5 | The Lowdown | 85 | Tulsa-set neo-noir | Ethan Hawke plays an obsessive citizen journalist. |
| 6 | Alien: Earth | 85 | Science-fiction franchise drama | Expands the Alien universe for television, two years before the 1979 film. |
| 7 | Best Interests | 85 | Legal and family drama | Parents challenge medical advice about their daughter’s care. |
| 8 | Forever | 84 | Teen romance | Reimagines Judy Blume’s 1975 novel as a Black romance set in 2018 Los Angeles. |
| 9 | Mr. Scorsese | 84 | Five-part documentary | Rebecca Miller’s portrait draws on interviews with Martin Scorsese, collaborators, family, filmmakers, and performers. |
| 10 | The Narrow Road to the Deep North | 83 | Five-part World War II drama | Adapts Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning novel across different periods of one life. |
Which 2025 shows are worth watching?
Adolescence is the clearest choice for viewers who want a compact, formally daring drama. Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light is the strongest fit for historical drama, while Long Story Short offers the most distinctive animated family storytelling. Viewers seeking science fiction can choose between the social allegory of Pluribus and the franchise mythology of Alien: Earth.
The list’s strongest shared quality is ambition rather than genre. Adolescence makes a continuous-take structure central to its tension; Wolf Hall compresses a major historical life into controlled political drama; Long Story Short uses animation to move through generations; Pluribus turns collective happiness into a speculative question about individuality; and Alien: Earth attempts a television reinvention of a familiar film property.
What makes Adolescence the best new show of 2025?
Adolescence is Metacritic’s official number-one new TV show of 2025, with a Metascore of 91. The four-part British psychological drama was created by Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, and every episode was filmed as one continuous take. The formal choice makes time, movement, and performance part of the drama rather than invisible production mechanics. Metacritic’s description of Adolescence identifies both its score and its one-take structure.
The show is a particularly strong recommendation for viewers who value concentrated storytelling and dramatic technique over a long episode count. The Guardian’s critic Carol Midgley summarized her response in the quoted judgment: “Adolescence (Netflix) is brilliant. I can put it no other way.”
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Why are Wolf Hall and Long Story Short tied?
Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light and Long Story Short each earned a Metacritic score of 89 in the 2025 qualifying new-series ranking, making them the joint second-highest entries. Their similarity ends largely at the score: Wolf Hall is a six-episode historical continuation, while Long Story Short is an adult animated comedy.
Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light returns Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell and adapts the final novel in Hilary Mantel’s trilogy. The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan described the writing this way: “The script is a miracle of compression and architecture, bearing loads that ought to be impossible.”
Long Story Short comes from Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the creator of BoJack Horseman. The animated series follows a Jewish American family across multiple time periods, making family history and changing perspective central to its structure. The two shows are therefore different recommendations: choose Wolf Hall for political and historical drama, or Long Story Short for animated storytelling with a multigenerational scale.
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What kind of show is Pluribus?
Pluribus is a darkly comic science-fiction thriller created by Vince Gilligan and starring Rhea Seehorn. The premise imagines a world in which almost everyone becomes happy, conflict-free, and part of one common mind. With a Metascore of 87, Pluribus ranks fourth among Metacritic’s qualifying new series.
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What are the other best new shows of 2025?
The Lowdown — 85: Sterlin Harjo’s Tulsa-set neo-noir stars Ethan Hawke as an obsessive citizen journalist. The series suits viewers who want investigative tension rooted in a specific place and character rather than a conventional procedural.
Alien: Earth — 85: Noah Hawley’s first television entry in the Alien film franchise is set two years before the original 1979 movie. The story begins with a crashed research vessel, giving the series a way to expand the franchise’s mythology while functioning as a new television drama.
Best Interests — 85: This four-part legal and family drama stars Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen as parents who challenge doctors’ advice about their daughter’s medical care. The premise places family loyalty, medical authority, and legal conflict in the same tightly focused story.
Forever — 84: Mara Brock Akil’s adaptation of Judy Blume’s 1975 novel is reimagined as a Black teen romance set in 2018 Los Angeles. The setting and perspective distinguish the series from a direct period adaptation.
Mr. Scorsese — 84: Rebecca Miller’s five-part documentary portrait of Martin Scorsese includes interviews with Scorsese, his collaborators, family members, filmmakers, and performers. For DocumentaryTube readers, this is the most direct documentary recommendation in the top 10, although the overall ranking includes scripted dramas, animation, science fiction, romance, and crime.
Rank #3
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The Narrow Road to the Deep North — 83: This five-part Australian World War II drama adapts Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning novel. Jacob Elordi and Ciarán Hinds portray the protagonist in different periods of his life, giving the story a deliberately split temporal perspective.
What are the 5 worst TV shows of 2025?
The worst TV shows of 2025, in the narrow sense used here, are the lowest-scoring qualifying new U.S. series in Metacritic’s negative ranking. Metacritic required at least four professional reviews for this list, rather than the seven-review threshold used for the best-series ranking, and calculated the scores from critic data recorded on December 16, 2025. Metacritic’s negative ranking also warns that reality programs and poorly reviewed shows may be absent if they did not receive enough professional coverage.
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | All’s Fair | 17 | Legal procedural | Metacritic’s official worst new TV show of 2025. |
| 2 | Monster: The Ed Gein Story | 28 | True-crime anthology installment | Critics cited tastelessness, overacting, and a lack of illumination. |
| 3 | The Hunting Party | 34 | NBC crime procedural | Critics described the series as generic and derivative. |
| 4 | Simon Cowell: The Next Act | 36 | Netflix reality series | Critics called the boy-band search dated and derivative. |
| 5 | The Baldwins | 37 | TLC reality series | A cited New Yorker review criticized its staged-feeling presentation and limited revelations. |
Why did All’s Fair rank as the worst new show?
All’s Fair earned a Metascore of 17 from Metacritic, the lowest score on the qualifying negative list and the lowest safe named figure in this comparison. The legal procedural stars Naomi Watts, Niecy Nash-Betts, Kim Kardashian, Glenn Close, Teyana Taylor, and Sarah Paulson.
The response was unusually severe. The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan called the series “Fascinatingly, incomprehensibly, existentially terrible,” while Empire’s David Opie wrote, “No words yet invented can fully convey just how much you need to avoid this disastrous show.” Those are attributed critical opinions, not an objective measurement of every viewer’s response.
What are the other four lowest-scoring shows?
Monster: The Ed Gein Story — 28: The third installment of the Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan anthology centers on Ed Gein. Metacritic’s cited criticism focused on tastelessness, overacting, and the show’s failure to illuminate its subject.
The Hunting Party — 34: This NBC crime procedural follows a task force tracking killers who escaped from a secret prison. Critics characterized the execution as generic and derivative.
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Simon Cowell: The Next Act — 36: The Netflix reality series follows Simon Cowell as he searches for a new boy band with teenage contestants in Miami. Critics described the concept as dated and derivative.
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The Baldwins — 37: The TLC reality series follows Alec Baldwin, Hilaria Baldwin, and their family. A cited New Yorker review objected to the show’s staged-feeling presentation and limited revelations.
Does “worst TV shows of 2025” mean objectively worst?
No. “Worst” means the lowest-scoring qualifying and sufficiently reviewed new series under Metacritic’s methodology. The label does not establish that these were the five least-watched shows, the programs most disliked by all audiences, or the objectively worst shows released in every country.
The four-review minimum also affects what can appear on the list. A little-reviewed reality program or poorly reviewed series may be missing because it did not receive enough professional coverage, not because critics rated it favorably. The best and worst lists also cannot be compared as perfectly symmetrical datasets because their minimum review thresholds differ.
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Rotten Tomatoes offers a useful cross-check but not a replacement for Metacritic’s ranking. The Rotten Tomatoes 2025 guide presents Certified Fresh status, Tomatometer scores, audience scores, and critic consensuses, and its percentages can reflect a different number and mix of reviews than a Metascore. Rotten Tomatoes’ best TV shows of 2025 guide, for example, lists Pee-wee as Himself at 100% on the Tomatometer and 93% from audiences, alongside a consensus praising the documentary as a revealing portrait of Paul Reubens.
A percentage and a Metascore should therefore be labeled separately. A 100% Tomatometer result means the counted critics were positive; it is not interchangeable with a 100-point Metacritic score, and neither metric is an audience-size statistic.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Where can you watch the best TV shows of 2025?
Legal availability is separate from critical ranking and changes by country, licensing agreement, and date. Metacritic’s entries identify services including Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, PBS, Prime Video, Acorn TV, and FX for individual programs, but a service named in the broader research is not proof that the service carries every title. Check the current listing in your territory before subscribing or searching for a specific series, including where to watch Adolescence.
For readers deciding what to watch from 2025, the practical choice is to match the show to the desired experience: Adolescence for formal intensity, Wolf Hall for historical drama, Long Story Short for animated family storytelling, Pluribus for speculative science fiction, and Mr. Scorsese for documentary portraiture. Confirm the legal platform and regional access immediately before publication or viewing.
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Best and worst TV shows of 2025: the verdict
Metacritic’s strongest qualifying new series is Adolescence, whose 91 Metascore and continuous-take episodes give it both the highest score and the clearest formal identity in the ranking. Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light and Long Story Short follow at 89, while All’s Fair occupies the bottom of the separate negative list at 17.
The fairest conclusion is conditional: the “best” list identifies the most acclaimed sufficiently reviewed new series, and the “worst” list identifies the lowest-scoring qualifying examples. Neither list is a universal audience verdict, and returning seasons such as Andor season two must be judged separately from 2025’s new-series field.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best new TV show of 2025?
The best new TV show of 2025 in Metacritic’s qualifying ranking is Adolescence, which earned a 91 Metascore. The four-part British psychological drama is notable because each episode was filmed in one continuous take.
What is the worst TV show of 2025?
The worst qualifying new TV show of 2025 in Metacritic’s negative ranking is All’s Fair, which earned a 17 Metascore. “Worst” means lowest-scoring sufficiently reviewed new series under Metacritic’s method, not universally worst or least watched.
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Are returning TV seasons included in the best TV shows of 2025 ranking?
No. Metacritic’s main 2025 list covers qualifying new series, while returning seasons are separate. Andor season two scored 92, but it is not included in the new-series ranking.
Where can I watch the best TV shows of 2025?
Legal streaming availability depends on country, licensing, and date. Metacritic’s entries identify services such as Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, PBS, Prime Video, Acorn TV, and FX for individual titles, so viewers should verify the current listing for each show in their territory.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: Adolescence is Metacritic’s top qualifying new TV show of 2025 at 91, while All’s Fair is the lowest-scoring qualifying entry at 17. The rankings measure professional critical reception, not universal audience opinion, and they exclude returning seasons such as Andor season two.
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