The White Lotus season 1.
Wondering what we’re going to be watching in 2025? Here are the television shows everyone’s going to be talking about.
The most compelling dramatic characters are always obsessed with something, and if that something is as horrific and emotionally resonant as the true story of the person’s quest for justice following the death of their child in one of the world’s most infamous plane crashes, even better.
If their obsession leads to a terrifying meeting with one of the world’s most unpleasant dictators, friendship with the man convicted of killing his child and a head-on conflict with the United States Government, you’ve got a surefire hit.
Lockerbie: A Search For Truth stars Colin Firth as Jim Swire, father of Flora, who died in the Lockerbie crash. He has never given up searching for justice, even when everyone else believed justice had already been done. Airing in early January in the UK, and in February here, this will be one of the first must-watch shows of the year.
Where to watch: TVNZ1 and TVNZ+
Anticipated release date: February 2025
Season one was entertaining, tense and emotionally satisfying, but what really set it apart was its fierce intelligence and the way in which it used that intelligence in service of its point about the times in which we live.
It’s hard to think of a show from the last decade that has been simultaneously so smart and such a pleasure to watch. Despite being nominally science fiction and set in a dystopian future, it delivers by far the most perceptive on-screen depiction of the meaninglessness of the modern office experience. Season one couldn’t have been further removed from the safe, formulaic Netflix-bait that dominates our algorithms, and season two promises more mind-bending genius.
Where to watch: Apple TV+
Anticipated release date: January 17
As good as the first two seasons were, and as brilliant as creator Mike White is, the question remains: can our collective love for The White Lotus survive another trip to the well? Let’s hope so, because this season stars Morgana O‘Reilly, one of New Zealand’s greatest acting and comedic talents, and it’s time the world discovered her genius.
The great, delicious thrill of The White Lotus has been the mix of comedy and schadenfreude it has extracted by peering in at the aspirational-but-desperate luxury lifestyles of the rich and awful. It’s possible there will come a point when our sense of self-satisfaction at their suffering starts to sour, but hopefully not this year.
White has made it even harder for himself by starting afresh each season, with all new stories, settings and characters, and the hard work of building viewers’ affinity, pity and loathing for them. The first two seasons have featured two of the greatest comic performances in television history from Jennifer Coolidge and Murray Bartlett. With both now departed, will someone else step up? Or is it time for White Lotus to step off?
Where to watch: Max on Neon
Anticipated release date: February 17
The first season of this series hewed closely to the perilous quest narrative template, full of long action sequences, jump scares and terrifying mushrooms. It was uninspired but massively popular, presumably because it so perfectly understood its zombie-mad target market and the fact that the only thing they love more than video games about zombies is television about video games about zombies. Season one followed a girl with special gifts and her hot, tough-ass protector, as they tried first to avoid and then to eff up fungal zombies. Both were brilliantly cast and their performances were excellent and potentially even career-defining, but still not enough to save the show from its baked-in inanity.
Where to watch: Neon
Anticipated release date: First half of 2025
The first season was both cultural landmark and cultural touchstone, riding to success on its heady cocktail of 1980s nostalgia, cute kids in jeopardy and first love. It was a great story well told, but now, four seasons in, those kids are all adults and the stores of jeopardy have been severely depleted.
Nevertheless, this is the final season of a cultural landmark and touchstone, and we’re pretty invested in these characters now and we’re all hoping they can put this whole Upside Down nonsense behind them once and for all.
Where to watch: Netflix
Anticipated release date: Sometime in 2025
Arguably the finest anthology series of all time, Black Mirror has not just maintained its high standards but still feels fresh after 13 years of making surprisingly good predictions about how technology and humanity can come together to do truly horrendous things. Creator Charlie Brooker is a master storyteller, which is a job that may soon be destroyed by AI and if Brooker isn’t already working on an episode about exactly that, it’s only a matter of time before an AI forces him to.
Where to watch: Netflix
Anticipated release date: Sometime in 2025
The show that brought Meghan Markle to the attention of the world and, more importantly, Prince Harry, is back, albeit in spinoff form. The original show finished its television run in 2019 but then Netflix acquired it and made it available to subscribers in 2023, and it immediately and depressingly became one of its most successful shows ever. That success ensured some kind of cash-in would ensue, and Suits LA is that cash-in. The Duchess probably won’t be starring this time, but if the producers are savvy, they’ll ignore that fact and make extensive use of her in the marketing anyway.
Where to watch: Unconfirmed
Anticipated release date: February 2025
Not much is known yet about this Netflix limited series, which as of this writing has only just finished filming. But it’s set in New York City, in and around a nightlife hotspot owned by a character played by Jude Law, co-starring Jason Bateman and Oscar-winner Troy Kotsur, with episodes directed by Bateman and Laura Linney, and it’s written by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Zach Baylin (King Richard), so it will be a pretty big disappointment if it’s anything less than one of the best things on TV in 2025.
Where to watch: Netflix
Anticipated release date: Sometime in 2025
The original Alien movie and its sequel have been so beloved for so long, spawning so many imitators and inspiring so many sci-fi creators in film, television and beyond, it’s hard to believe this is the franchise’s first television spinoff. It’s a pretty safe bet it’ll do big numbers and while it will probably never achieve the cultural impact of the first two movies, it’s being written and directed by the hugely talented Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley, so there’s a good chance it won’t be as bad as the third.
Where to watch: Disney+)
Anticipated release date: Mid-2025
It’s strange and a little suspicious that the first Blade Runner TV spinoff is airing in the same year as the first Alien spinoff. The parallels between the two are too obvious to be ignored: both are sci-fi movie landmarks, both were released more than 40 years ago, and both have inspired rabid multi-generational fandoms that can’t believe you didn’t really love either movie. Regardless of the quality or otherwise of the television remakes, the mere fact they are not the movies is going to make a lot of nerds angry.
Where to watch: Prime Video
Anticipated release date: Sometime in 2025
'I forbade my mother from seeing it. There's a lot of sex talk in the show.'