Out with the old; in with the new. True, we don’t yet know what the best TV shows of 2025 will be. Heck, we only just named the best TV shows of 2024. Yet next year’s slate seems to have an awful lot to which we can look forward, including buzzy, long-awaited new seasons of old favorites like The White Lotus, Severance, Yellowjackets, Poker Face, and Wednesday; intriguing newcomers from beloved TV vets like Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, Lena Dunham, and Jason Momoa; and highly anticipated conclusions for several of the best TV series of the past 10 years, including The Handmaid’s Tale, Stranger Things, Big Mouth, and You.
Ripped-from-the-headlines docudramas? Check. Big movie stars making a play for streaming eyeballs? Check. Carrie Coon relentlessly climbing the social ladder, with no care for whomever she steps over on her way to the top? Check, check, and check. Come, let’s look forward to the most anticipated TV series of 2025—in a year that’s sure to be weird at best and awful at worst, at least there will be plenty of worthy things to watch beyond the show to which numerous Americans desperately did not want a sequel.
Peacock
The Traitors, season three
Premiere date: January 9
Network: Peacock
Noteworthy cast: Alan Cumming, Chrishell Stause, Sam Asghari, Tom Sandoval
Though Donald Trump’s proposed Cabinet would make for a kind of killer Traitors cast—and we’d certainly rather ship all those people to a Scottish manse than watch them take over Washington—there’s still nothing like the real thing, baby. Peacock’s Alan Cumming–hosted, faux-murder-themed reality competition really can’t return soon enough. And while the show didn’t secure Sean Duffy or Linda McMahon this time around, it has assembled a tantalizing array of reality stars (and one apparent British royal), including the most hated man on Bravo. Well played! —Hillary Busis
Courtesy of Netflix
American Primeval
Premiere date: January 9
Network: Netflix
Noteworthy cast: Taylor Kitsch, Betty Gilpin
“We wanted to make a show that required us to go into the elements,” celebrated writer-director Peter Berg told David Canfield for VF’s recent first look at his gritty and graphic new survival drama, featuring Gilpin as a mother in the American West circa 1857 and Kitsch as the world-weary man trying to ensure her safety as she travels through hostile territory. “There’s a tendency to want to make female characters like Sara badass and fearless,” Gilpin told Canfield. “I think that just does a disservice to the history of what people went through.” —HB
