What's IGN's pick for the best TV show of 2025?
Just about every TV series on our list this year feels socially and politically relevant, in both big and small ways. And since art is a reflection of the era and its people, then it makes sense for our current anxiety and turmoil to show up in our entertainment – whether it's a future run by five greedy tech corporations, a mass shooting event at a music festival, a nightmarish workplace that splits your identity and keeps half of you in prison, an entire world becoming void of free will, or the literal life and death battle against tyranny.
In 2025, we saw Breaking Bad's Vince Gilligan return to TV in a triumphant way, bringing Better Call Saul's secret weapon, Rhea Seehorn, along for the ride. We also saw the debut of a fantastic new medical series from ER's R. Scott Gemmill and John Wells, and witnessed the Alien franchise switch gears and soar to new heights on TV (bringing Xenomorphs to our world in a way the movies have promised since 1991 when teasers told us Alien 3 would be on Earth). We also got stunning second seasons from both Severance and Andor. So which was the best? What series will take home Best in Show? Let's find out…
Honorable Mentions
There was no shortage of great TV in 2025. So much so that impressive oner-fueled projects like The Studio and miniseries Adolescence didn't even make our nominations list. Of course, those two shows are on polar opposite ends of the feelings spectrum — one being the ultimate in Hollywood-skewering cringe comedy and the other a dire, dramatic look at dangerous online teenage manosphere indoctrination.
It's also worth mentioning Netflix's excellent, insightful Death By Lightning, about the assassination of President James A. Garfield, as it was one of the year's best series. Gen V offered up a continuation of The Boys universe. And while the first batch of Stranger Things episodes has already been released, we've yet to see the rest of the season so really couldn't include it on this list.
Runner-Up: Pluribus
Vince Gilligan cleverly calls upon his X-Files past for a delightfully disturbing twist on Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The superb Rhea Seehorn stars as a curmudgeonly romance author, Carol, who becomes one of the few people left on Earth after the rest of humanity joins together in a happy hippie hive mind. Pluribus is a witty, probing dramedy that simultaneously acts as a grand sci-fi thought experiment, with a style that scratches many a Breaking Bad itch. It needed no time to hook viewers and it's continued to mesmerize on a weekly basis as Carol finds herself simultaneously surrounded by everyone on the planet while also becoming the most lonely person in existence.
Read IGN's review of the Pluribus premiere. (Note: IGN staff have seen the entire season of Pluribus, making it eligible for consideration in this category.)
Runner-Up: Severance
Severance's second season was one of the most anticipated follow-ups in recent TV history, and after three long years (and a WGA/SAG strike) it finally arrived, delivering in big big ways on its promise of stylish, twisty, and emotionally devastating sci-fi. Season 2 gifted us with some answers to core mysteries while also honing in on the conflict between each character’s Innie and Outie self, as Lumon scion Helena (Britt Lower) worked to manipulate both versions of Adam Scott's Mark, who we learned is the company's most important severed worker. Severance continues to be a scathing commentary on corporate culture through the lens of liminal space dystopia.
Read IGN's review of Severance: Season 2.
Runner-Up: The Rehearsal
The Rehearsal, comedian/madman Nathan Fielder's fascinating experiment about controlling your life narrative, returned for an acclaimed second season this past spring, providing courageous viewers with more more cringey scenarios and audacious laughs. Stirring up more real-world controversy, just like he did in Season 1, Fielder ramped up The Rehearsal's jarring meta-aspects in 2025 by exploring (or ignoring) his own personal difficulties with human connection. The jaw-dropping season finale is not to be missed.
Runner-Up: The Pitt
Combine the best of ER and 24 and you get the ridiculously riveting new series The Pitt, where we follow both tenured doctors and first-day postgrad residents over the course of 15 hours (many of which are harrowing) in a Pittsburgh trauma center emergency room. The Pitt is a premium medical drama that harkens back to the heyday of appointment television, starring one of must-see TV's most beloved stars, Noah Wyle. It's kooky one moment and soul-crushing the next as Wyle's Dr. Robbie and his team deal with crises big and small, all while he tries to manage his own painful memories of working during the COVID-19 pandemic. It's smart, spectacular ensemble television.
Read IGN's review of The Pitt.
Runner-Up: Alien: Earth
Noah Hawley, the mad genius behind FX's Fargo anthology series (and the beloved batshit X-Men-adjacent series Legion), was the perfect pull to make the first-ever Alien franchise TV series, filling our home screens with not just ferocious Xenomorphs and precocious Synthetics, but also throwing in cyborgs, hybrids, life-sucking space flies, blood-draining space ticks, and a crowd-pleasing, body-snatching space eyeball that stares into your soul. Add some '90s rock and a recurring Peter Pan theme and you've got the impressive, oddball Alien: Earth. Does Alien: Earth fit seamlessly into the Alien Timeline? Not entirely, but in what world would Hawley ever 100% play ball? And it what world would we want him to?
Read IGN's review of Alien: Earth and check out our full Alien franchise Guide/Wiki too!
Winner: Andor
Given how fantastic the first season of Andor was, fans were confident about the second, and final, season being an event to behold. And it was. It was unparalleled storytelling. But also, nestled within it, was the narrative miracle of converting three seasons into one. Andor was originally envisioned as a five-season series, with each season covering a year in the rebellion through the lives of its ensemble. The challenge then became to cover the four years that remained, leading up to Rogue One, in 12 episodes.
Creating three-episode blocks for each rebel year — mini movies, in a way, building the full season — Andor was able to soar in scope, triumph in theme, and demonstrate why it towers as superior sci-fi. From Mon Mothma's dance spiral to the reveal of Luthen and Kleya's backstory to the entire Ghorman travesty and tragedy, Andor was exceptional on all levels. Should all Star Wars be like Andor? No, not really. But we needed Andor to be Andor to tell this story. To remind us that Star Wars, even as space fantasy, is about toppling fascism. It's truly the first time that these characters from a long time ago, in this galaxy far, far away, felt like us.
Read IGN's review of Andor: Season 2.
What do you think? Was Andor the best TV show of the year? Should the win have gone to something else? Let’s talk in the comments, and don’t forget to vote in the poll above. And make sure to check out all our IGN Awards for 2025 across film, TV, gaming, anime, and comics!
