Streaming columnist NICK OVERALL lists his top five shows of the year, with a few honourable mentions. 

From mind-bending dystopias to a drama series discussed on the floor of parliament, 2025 has served up a stacked year of TV.

Here’s my five of the best to catch up on over the holiday break.

Honourable mentions to The Studio, Dept. Q, Andor, Task, The Pitt, The Rehearsal, and The Girlfriend.

5. Your Friends and Neighbours (Apple TV Plus)

As the start of a show goes, Jon Hamm lying in a pool of blood spreading across the marble floor of a ritzy mansion is hard to top.

The star of Mad Men takes on the role of a rich financial adviser who loses everything overnight after he’s fired from his job. Now stuck in a vacuous suburban existence, he begins to find his thrills in a whole new way: stealing from his equally rich friends.

This quirky descent into kleptomania entertained and amused with ease but also has the ability to emotionally confound. Tie it in with a banger soundtrack and Your Friends and Neighbours cemented itself as one of the year’s most enjoyable new shows.

4. Severance (Apple TV Plus)

Truly TV’s most mind-bending series. Severance turned up its cerebral stakes with one of those killer cliffhangers that makes the next season feel like an eternity away.

The concept of office workers being able to surgically separate their work life from their home life has extended into the philosophical, the religious, the romantic and the humorous.

It feels like there’s still so much to explore as the world of Severance keeps building. It’s a show that makes a subscription to Apple’s streaming service worth it.

3. The White Lotus (Binge / HBO Max)

In its third season, The White Lotus shows no signs of slowing down in its ability to get people saying: “Oh, my god, did you watch last night’s episode?” Is there a better compliment than a show for that?

This season took a new roster of insufferable yet fascinating, cashed-up travellers to Thailand and made the most minute interactions of their holiday hilarious and jaw dropping TV.

It was a bit of a slower burn compared to the previous two seasons, but this time The White Lotus built up to its most catastrophic and tense ending yet. There are already rumours circulating that the fourth season will be set in the French countryside. Just imagine the faux pas.

2. Pluribus (Apple TV Plus)

Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan’s new foray into sci-fi makes for the year’s most fascinating TV thought experiment.

Pluribus tells the tale of a woman immune to a virus that makes everyone else incessantly happy and optimistic. It moves with a calculated slow pace, but this series asks its audience to peel back its mystery at their own pace and ponder the way it makes us feel.

There are so many ways Pluribus fascinates. It can be interpreted as an exploration of the cold danger of AI, a satirical takedown of crushing political correctness, a cautionary tale for a generation that’s always fighting to prove whose life is the most fulfilling via social media.

Where it goes next is the biggest question and that’s the best thing about it.

1. Adolescence (Netflix)

A show that swept awards season, changed the conversation, even made it on to the floor of British parliament. This Netflix mini-series about a family trying to come to terms with a young boy’s murder of a classmate was timely, disturbing and technically immaculate.

Each episode filmed in one continuous take created unparalleled tension that crackled thanks to a stellar cast, most notably Owen Cooper who became the youngest actor to win the Emmy at just 14.

It was only four episodes long but in that time Adolescence crammed more story into its plot than other shows can hope to in 10 seasons.

Adolescence will be talked about in years to come as a defining series of its time. Hard to watch yet impossible to look away from.