It’s been another strong year for television, chock full of quirky and compelling stories… You may just not be aware of it. Sure, Adolescence erupted with its frightening, urgent story of teenage misogyny and violence, Andor made waves with its parallels to real-life genocide, and Fallout again hit a home run with its capitalist wasteland mayhem, but this is far from an exhaustive list of the better, or even the best TV of 2025.
The problem, of course, is not these impressive shows, most of which rightfully achieved incredible levels of hype. It’s the algorithms and the closed-circuit social media culture. The echo chamber and the feeding into one’s perceived online preferences have become ruthless, effectively drowning out everything but the most prominent (i.e., usually the most profitable) representations in any medium. While you’d indeed be crazy not to talk about Severance or The White Lotus, there have been many more TV releases to marvel at in 2025.
So, if you are looking for ways to kill time in the dead of winter smartly, look no further – our traditional Best TV You May Have Missed digest is here to guide you to some of the finest shows that may have slipped under your carefully curated digital radar.
The Lowdown – FX
It might be overkill to start a digest with a show I already reviewed in full, but The Lowdown is so damn fine, and so damn neglected, that I will not pass on the opportunity to underscore its glory.
Helmed by the Reservation Dogs creator Sterlin Harjo, The Lowdown stars a pitch-perfect Ethan Hawke in a bonkers adventure loosely inspired by the life of historian Lee Roy Chapman. Hawke’s Lee Raybon is a typical middle-aged white man in shambles: a smart bookshop owner with a non-existent career, a go-getter with dwindling income, and a loving father who happens to be divorced and never there for his teenage daughter, Frances (Ryan Kiera Armstrong).
As any self-respecting middle-aged man would, he finds himself a bizarre pastime that goes horribly awry. In his native Tulsa, Oklahoma, Lee proclaims himself a “truthstorian”, that is, a freelance scribbler looking to expose the misdeeds of the local oligarchs. Soon, he finds himself in a pickle, as the local Washberg dynasty starts plotting his demise to protect their secrets.
Impossibly, ludicrously funny, but thematically surprisingly dark, The Lowdown is among the absolute best releases in a long while. Luckily, it has recently been renewed for a second season.
Toxic Town – Netflix
One of the best miniseries to ever come from Netflix, Toxic Town is another shocking true story immortalized in fiction by the hyperproductive Jack Thorne, most recently of Adolescence fame. Thorne is already recognized as a screenwriting giant, but it is his desire to tell the stories of the marginalized, the victims, and those let down by the system that earns him kudos before any dialogical chops.
Toxic Town is a true account of the Corby, Northamptonshire, toxic waste case, the first court decision in the world to establish the link between toxic waste and birth defects in 2009. Starring a spellbinding ensemble led by Jodie Whittaker, Aimee Lou Wood, and Robert Carlyle, it is a difficult yet heartwarming watch about a small town ravaged by negligence and greed, and a band of mothers desperately seeking justice for their families. Whittaker, especially, burns through the celluloid as Susan McIntyre, an unrelenting single mother who will stop at nothing to bring those who poisoned her and her neighbor’s children to justice.
Described as the “British Erin Brockovich”, Toxic Town deftly examines the real-life consequences of broken economies and senses of honor, reminding us that a fight for justice is not just an act of courage, but of moral necessity as well. Make sure to see it and let yourself be inspired.
A Thousand Blows – Disney+
No Jack Thorne this time, but his Adolescence star Stephen Graham paired up with another prolific British author, Steven Knight, the creator of Peaky Blinders and Taboo. Cue a typically high-octane period romp with A Thousand Blows, a macabre but snappy quasihistorical drama about boxing and female gangs.
With a phenomenal Erin Doherty (also transplanted from Adolescence) and a jacked-up Graham in lead roles, A Thousand Blows trails the Forty Elephants, a late 19th-century female shoplifting and con gang blazing through the streets of modernizing, but gritty and violent London.
Elephants’ chief, Mary Carr (Doherty), navigates crime and danger with a Jamaican immigrant trying his fortune, Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby), while getting into all sorts of trouble. On the other side of the same outlaw coin sits Henry “Sugar” Goodson (Graham), an ill-tempered boxer and self-proclaimed king of East London, whose thirst for violence covers up his wounded soul (sigh).
You won’t be surprised to hear that A Thousand Blows is blown through with exaggerations, romanticizations, and retcon visions of a more progressive (and more violent, for dramatic effect) English society. Themes of lion-taming and bare-knuckle fights mix with those of racism, classism, and exploitation of the most vulnerable, but make no mistake – this isn’t one preachy outing, rather scattershot mayhem loosely strewn together to form a story.
The second season is already out on Hulu since January 9th, so hurry up and treat yourself.
Your Friends and Neighbors – Apple TV
Apple TV’s latest sleeper hit only became that when, toward the end of the year, a GIF of a carefree middle-aged man (Jon Hamm’s Andrew Cooper) dancing in a nightclub emerged as one of the year’s most popular memes. Still, there’s more to Your Friends and Neighbors than meets the scrolling eye.
On the surface, a tale of bored rich folk fishing for the common person’s empathy, Your Friends and Neighbors is, in reality, a fun, empathetic depiction of how a midlife crisis can destroy a (relatively) decent person, their marriage, and even their relationships with loved ones. From the jump, we are plunged into the world of Andrew “Coop” Cooper (Jon Hamm in his best turn since Mad Men), a loaded finance go-getter whose life comes apart when he loses his job, so much so that he starts… stealing from his rich neighbors.
The premise is solid enough for a comedy – and it’s not lost on the creator Jonathan Tropper that the blasé rich should be satirized – but it’s the more intimate, solemn moments that make Your Friends and Neighbors a worthwhile watch. Amanda Peet as Mel, Coop’s ex-wife and therapist, and Lena Hall as Coop’s troubled younger sister, Ali, imbue the otherwise repugnant world of the upper caste with humanity and dramatic flair.
The dialogue is also top-notch, and while Coop’s friends and neighbors fail to meet the standards for decent humans, by the end of the season, you will grow to care for some of them. Hell, you will likely see yourself in some of their outbursts and fears.
The second season will premiere on Apple TV on April 3rd.
Murderbot – Apple TV
The ghost in the shell can apparently be both thoughtful and funny, says Murderbot, Apple TV’s latest niche sci-fi outing, based on the book series The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Following the success of Severance, Silo, and now Pluribus (though the latter carries a disproportionate amount of cultural cachet because of its legendary creator, Vince Gilligan), Murderbot is another uncanny story with a mad plot, but with heart to spare.
The ever-dependable Alexander Skarsgård is Murderbot, a humanoid robot in the distant future that is designed to protect humans. It doesn’t much like them, which we find out in uproarious ways from its continuous inner monologue. After hacking its own code, the bored, humiliated bot frees itself from the program that made it obey humans’ every command, naming itself “Murderbot” in the process. That’s because it would happily kill most of the shitty, selfish, abusive humans.
Things quickly change, however, once Murderbot, who now hides its autonomy, is made part of a mission featuring some truly nice people. What’s more, they’re hippies! If this sounds like peak black comedy, rest assured, it is. Skarsgård is an absolute marvel, an actor traditionally unencumbered by the conventions of genre or etiquette, and Murderbot emerges as a fascinating tale of community and solidarity where you least expect it.
What’s more, the episodes (all but one) run under 30 minutes. A rare delight in the sea of overlong exposition. The series has also been renewed for a second season.
Riot Women – BBC One (UK) BritBox (US)
It’s high time we started talking more about menopause. Now that I’ve got your attention, see Riot Women and learn about the countless habitually overlooked woes of middle-aged women.
Sally Wainwright cemented her status as a TV legend with Happy Valley, one of the most celebrated cop shows in UK history. Her storytelling features outstandingly complex, yet painfully recognizable female characters, and her newest series, Riot Women, follows in this tradition.
Set in Wainwright’s native West Yorkshire, this darkly comical (loose) riff on the 1990s riot grrrl movement follows a group of five women who found an amateur punk-rock band to enter a local contest, but quickly realize that their rage is more than just a performative gag. The bend thus becomes their way of reclaiming agency and demanding visibility.
Joanna Scanlan, Lorraine Ashbourne, and Rosalie Craig lead a stellar ensemble of “middle-aged” women whose characters’ arcs aren’t afraid of exploring the most challenging aspects of the human, and especially female, experience. Aging parents, problematic adult children, and the extreme topics of gendered violence all play a major role in how these women’s lives unfold.
Riot Women is, in typical Wainwright vein, at times brutal, macabre, and borderline intolerable in its raw narratives of pain. Still, it is also a relatable, honest story about urgent but neglected issues women “of a certain age” face in their daily existence. The series has been renewed for a second season.
The Chair Company – HBO
What if The Office, Severance, and whatever it is that Nathan Fielder does had a baby? “Impossible” or, better yet, “what the hell”, you might scoff, but this is what Tim Robinson’s The Chair Company is, mostly. It’s about an – take a deep breath – unremarkable paper-pusher who thinks he has discovered a far-reaching conspiracy after his complaint about a faulty chair goes haywire in ways you cannot imagine.
Robinson, a former Saturday Night Live writer and performer and a famed cringe comedian, follows the success of his workplace horror sketch comedy, I Think You Should Leave, with Tim Robinson, with The Chair Company. Teaming up again with long-time collaborator and SNL writing alum Zach Kanin, Robinson here skillfully enters serialized TV long-form, with unexpectedly profound results.
The countless uncanny moments of this surreal comedy bordering on the absurd are best left unspoiled, but with eight episodes clocking in at about half an hour, The Chair Company flies by. It is a disturbing, but surprisingly humane watch that finds kindness and understanding for the horrors of being a worker in the 21st century in the most bizarre places. It’s a must-see for any chap who’s felt violated by the construct of contemporary office work, which is to say, the majority of us.
The Chair Company has been renewed for a second season in November 2025.