23 TV Shows We're Excited to Watch in 2025

Another new year is upon us, and as terrifying as that may be, at least we'll have plenty of good TV to watch. The 2025 TV calendar is absolutely packed with new and returning shows that will no doubt dominate the discourse once they arrive — and you won't have to wait long to get started, because the much-anticipated new season of Severance premieres on Apple TV+ just over two weeks into the new year.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg, as 2025 is slated to bring new seasons of many other acclaimed series, like Yellowjackets and Wednesday. The new year will also bring the final seasons of some beloved series, including Stranger Things and Andor. And that's not even mentioning the new shows that will be our next favorites. 

Here are the TV shows we're most looking forward to watching in 2025.

This complex series, about a company that forces its employees to separate their work lives and personal lives to an extreme degree, was a smash hit from day one, but there's been a number of behind-the-scenes obstacles to getting Season 2 out — including, but hardly limited to, the writers and actors strikes interrupting production in 2023. And with an exciting new group of actors, including Merritt Wever and Gwendoline Christie, joining an already stacked cast that includes Adam Scott, Christopher Walken, Patricia Arquette, and John Turturro, it's tough not to get excited about Severance Season 2 finally seeing the light of day. In fact, we've already seen it, and it's awesome. [Trailer] [Everything to know about Severance Season 2]

After a very strong first season of this series about a group of high school girls whose plane crashes in the wilderness, forcing them into the sort of situation in which cannibalism becomes very tempting, Season 2 of Yellowjackets exposed some of the issues with the show's structure — namely, that it's really difficult to tell a story over time with parallel timelines like this when the one with cannibalism is so much more exciting than the one without it. Can Season 3 get this hit series back on track? We're excited to find out. [Trailer] [Everything we know about Yellowjackets Season 3]

The third season of Reacher is so close we can taste it, and it promises to tell a very different story than what we've seen so far — this time, Jack (Alan Ritchson) will have to go undercover to take down an old enemy, whom he thought he killed a long time ago. An adaptation of the novel Persuader, Reacher Season 3 will pit our hero against a whole new set of challenges, including a giant meathead who's somehow much larger than Reacher is. [Trailer] [Everything we know about Reacher Season 3]

This political thriller limited series kicks off with a global cyberattack that results in thousands of deaths, and Robert De Niro — in his first regular TV series role — is a former U.S. president who's tasked with figuring out what's going on and stopping any further attacks. That's a unique premise, and the teaser trailer is so cryptic that we don't know what to make of this thing, but it's got a hell of a cast, with Angela Bassett, Jesse Plemons, Joan Allen, Lizzy Caplan, Connie Britton, Dan Stevens, and Matthew Modine to go along with De Niro. [Trailer]

Created to capitalize on the massive surge in popularity USA's legal drama Suits got when it hit Netflix, the spin-off series Suits LA will cross the country to California. This show will have little to tie it to the original series, aside from a brief arc for original cast member Gabriel Macht, who played Harvey Specter. Can another show that's like Suits — as opposed to a proper new season of the original Suits — attract the sort of audience NBC is looking for? Star Stephen Amell sure hopes so. [Trailer] [Everything we know about Suits LA]

The popular Marvel series from the studio's Netflix era is back with this Disney+ revival, which will see the whole core cast return, including star Charlie Cox as the titular hero and Vincent D'Onofrio as his nemesis Kingpin. While it's hard to imagine this series mattering in the large scope of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we've got high hopes for more of the thing we liked the most about the original run of Daredevil: all those dope fight scenes. [Trailer] [Everything we know about Daredevil: Born Again]

The newest irreverent series shepherded by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg will tackle subject matter that's near but maybe not so dear to their hearts: a Hollywood movie studio. This will be must-see TV for those of us who have spent our professional lives dealing with Hollywood — I've been an entertainment blogger for nearly two decades, so that definitely includes me. With Rogen and Goldberg involved, our best guess is that The Studio will be similar in subject to Entourage, but with a lot more jokes and pointed cynicism. [Trailer]

The Disney era of Star Wars had been so frustrating that I wondered if it was even possible for the Mouse House to produce a Star Wars thing I liked. And then Andor Season 1 came out, and it told an intimate and personal story about a regular guy whose only destiny was to be abused by a fascist state and forced into rebellion against it. It was a rare Star Wars story that felt real and relatable, and we can only hope that Season 2, which will end the series, as it takes us right up to the events of Rogue One, manages to pull that off again.

The zombie apocalypse game The Last of Us is a rare video game that already has a good story, so to adapt it to TV, HBO mostly just needed to remove the video game parts — it stuck with the meaningful plot points, and got rid of the 20 hours of shooting guys and crafting knives, and that worked very well. Pedro Pascal's Joel and Bella Ramsey's Ellie are back in Season 2, and they'll be joined by some new faces playing characters from the second game — including Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, another point-of-view character, and Isabela Merced as Dina, a romantic interest for Ellie in the game. [Trailer] [Everything we know about The Last of Us Season 2]

This very dark, dystopian series about life in a fundamentalist Christian dictatorship and one woman's quest to escape it continued to take its viewers to new dark places in Season 5. But that was all the way back in 2022, and the wait for the strike-delayed sixth and final season has been kind of excruciating. But since production got underway back in September 2024, Season 6 is becoming realer by the day. Stars Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski, O-T Fagbenle, Bradley Whitford, Max Minghella, and Ann Dowd all return. [Everything we know about The Handmaid's Tale Season 6]

The 2023 Emmy winner for Outstanding Comedy Series, about the stressed-out kitchen staff of a Chicago sandwich joint-turned-fine dining establishment, is coming back for a fourth season. While the debate continues about whether the show is really a comedy, there's been no real dip in quality at any point for The Bear during its first three seasons, and we've got high hopes that creator Christopher Storer and stars Jeremy Allen White, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ayo Edebiri, and company will be able to pull it off again in Season 4. [Everything we know about The Bear Season 4]

The next iteration of the Alien franchise — a prequel set two years before the events of the original movie and taking place, as the title suggests, on Earth after a mysterious ship crash-lands on our home planet — is coming this summer from Legion and Fargo creator Noah Hawley. It's a strange premise, since "we can't let these things get to Earth" is sort of the over-arching plot of the core franchise, and yet seemingly they had already been there. Will it try to somehow connect directly with Ridley Scott's original classic? For a franchise with a history as weird as this one, it's hard to guess what's a good idea and what isn't at this point. But we can't wait to find out this summer. [Everything we know about Alien: Earth]

Director James Gunn is rebooting the DC movieverse this summer with his new Superman movie, but he's apparently bringing one piece of the old version of the franchise with him — Peacemaker Season 2 will, somehow, be a part of the new timeline, even though it began as a spin-off from Gunn's The Suicide Squad. That's exciting for two reasons: Peacemaker, played by John Cena, is an absolutely delightful character that we enjoy watching, and his inclusion in the new movieverse indicates that Gunn and co. may be resetting this universe inside its stories, similar to the way the DC Universe has rebooted itself in the comics every so often. [Everything we know about Peacemaker Season 2]

The Diplomat on Netflix tells the delightful story of a no-nonsense diplomat being appointed as U.S. ambassador to Great Britain just as a big mystery and conspiracy is getting underway. This dryly funny thriller is great for three main reasons: its stellar cast, anchored by Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell; how believably its characters react to everything that's going on; and the absolutely insane plotting, which brought us to a Season 2 twist ending that was as shocking and entertaining as anything that ever happened on Game of Thrones. Season 3 can't come soon enough. [Everything we know about The Diplomat Season 3]

While It: Chapter Two was pretty disappointing after the nearly perfect first movie, director Andy Muschietti is back with this prequel series at HBO, which plans to explore the previous times that Pennywise terrorized the residents of Derry, Maine, starting in the 1960s for Season 1, with plans to move backward in time in Seasons 2 and 3 if the show is renewed. It's impossible to tell from here if Welcome to Derry is actually the best idea, but It was so good that we're happy to have the chance to find out. [Everything we know about It: Welcome to Derry]

This excellent British action thriller series, starring Joe Cole and Sope Dirisu, found a whole new audience when the first two seasons hit Netflix in 2024, and Season 3 is just months away now — which is a very good thing, since Season 2 ended with a big cliffhanger. This series is one of the best pieces of AMC+'s lineup. Come for the Walking Dead universe, stick around for one of the best action series you've ever seen. [Trailer]

Outlander may be nearing its end, but historical romance is forever. While the original series gears up for its eighth and final season, Starz is exploring a new corner of author Diana Gabaldon's universe with the prequel series Blood of My Blood. In true Outlander style, the show is split between two timelines, following Jamie's parents during their younger years in 18th century Scotland and Claire's parents in World War I-era England. Jamie's mother and father are played by Harriet Slater and Jamie Roy, while Claire's are played by Hermione Corfield and Jeremy Irvine.

While we continue to wait for George R. R. Martin to finish The Winds of Winter, this Game of Thrones prequel series will chronicle the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) and young Aegon V Targaryen (Dexter Sol Ansell), also known as Egg — the younger brother of Maester Aemon of the Night's Watch, whom Aemon referenced on his deathbed during Game of Thrones Season 5. Based on the Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, this story takes place about midway between House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones, so don't expect to see any familiar faces — though familiar names, like Aemon, are likely to pop up. [Everything we know about A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms]

Stranger Things has gotten pretty long in the tooth as its ensemble cast of children has grown into an ensemble cast of adults since the series premiered back in 2016. But this nostalgia-driven smash hit show is finally coming to an end with Season 5, which may be for the best — it would be tough to continue escalating the situation with the Upside Down without continuing to broaden the scope of the story overall, so it's best to wrap up before things get completely out of hand. But we're certainly excited to see how things end up going for Mike, Eleven, and the rest of the gang — it'll be a doozy, no doubt about it. [Teaser] [Everything we know about Stranger Things Season 5]

Years ago, actual quarterback Eli Manning did a skit on ESPN about a star football player adopting a fake persona to walk on to a new college football team after being kicked off his last one. And now, for some reason, Glen Powell has used his rising stardom to turn that skit into a whole TV show based on that premise — which Powell also co-wrote. Presumably, Chad Powers will be similar in concept to Ted Lasso, but in reverse — his team will teach him wholesome lessons. [Trailer]

Netflix's Addams Family spin-off, about the adventures of Wednesday Addams at Nevermore Academy, was the streamer's most watched new show of 2022, and everyone knew a second season was going to happen — but it's taken a lot longer to bring it to life than we could have expected. Fortunately, Season 2 has now completed filming, with stars Jenna Ortega, Emma Myers, and Hunter Doohan all returning for this round — and with newcomers Steve Buscemi and Lady Gaga among this season's many interesting additions. [Everything we know about Wednesday Season 2]

Tim Robinson is swapping the sketch comedy of Netflix's I Think You Should Leave for serialized storytelling with HBO's The Chair Company, a comedy series in which Robinson plays a regular guy who discovers some sort of vast conspiracy at his job. It's a big change of pace for Robinson, who cut his teeth writing for SNL and has stayed within the sketch comedy niche for most of his career — aside from the utterly charming sitcom Detroiters. But if he's going to make that leap, HBO is the place to do it.

Apple TV+ is continuing its obsession with producing expensive sci-fi television — you'll hear absolutely no complaints from me about that — with an adaptation of Martha Wells' Hugo Award-winning The Murderbot Diaries, about a sarcastic and socially anxious android, played by Alexander Skarsgärd, who's trying to figure out how to deal with having free will. You're not crazy if you think that sounds a little bit like the movie Chappie — Murderbot is, at least on the surface, as if Chappie lived in a fully fleshed-out sci-fi universe. But the books are way better than that idea probably sounds.

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