My Top 5 of 2025 | Television tonight

It’s time for my yearbook again Top 5 performances of the year.

As always, these are from brand new titles in 2025, no second/third seasons etc.

In 2025, there were quite a few shows that I just couldn’t get around to, as a result of so much content and the demand to maintain an output of news stories.

As a reviewer, there are ones that you just can’t finish (honestly, that’s most series) and that you gave a positive review after two episodes, but they couldn’t maintain the quality the entire time.

Or vice versa.

So this list comes with some hindsight.

The 5 are listed in order of premiere, along with an excerpt from the site review.

And no, it’s not all drama.

Adolescence Netflix
Episode three features a powerful interrogation room scene between Jamie and psychologist Briony Ariston (Erin Doherty). To write a review, Briony sits face to face with Jamie during some of the drama’s most compelling conversations. If you saw it Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez, and were stunned by a single take episode with actor Cooper Koch, now try to imagine the same with a 14-year-old actor. I can only assume that young Owen Cooper has a wealth of theatrical experience and has memorized about an hour’s worth of dialogue to perform alongside Erin Doherty. Both provide a masterclass in acting. I won’t reveal the final episode, again filmed as one take, but there are compelling performances, confrontational themes and heartbreaking drama. What the series says about society, the family unit, masculinity and morality will leave you squirming on the couch.

The piano ABC
Make no mistake: the real power in this series is the individuals sitting at the keys. The styles range from Chopin and Beethoven to Taylor Swift and John Williamson. They play from 5 years old to 103 years young. There are original compositions. A quartet. A young man who, remarkably enough, even plays with one hand. For 17 Dom van Naraween it is a very personal matter. “It’s not very masculine… so I tried to hide it,” he says, adding, “The piano gives me purpose.” For 103-year-old Bill, it brings back memories and memory muscles. “When I play the piano, I have something to hold on to,” he says. Andrew, 29, spent time in a mental health unit…he gravitated toward a lonely piano every day, while Michael, 76, is grateful to play for his wife in her nursing home because music makes her smile. It’s a story that brings tears to the eyes of Amanda Keller, who reveals her own challenges with husband Harley. “You feel like you’re losing them step by step.” Damn, I just want to give her a hug. The piano delivers so much power from screen to bench. You laugh, you fight back tears with Keller as the perfect host, warm, spontaneous, down-to-earth and sincere.

This city is ours Stan
At its core, this is a dysfunctional family drama, where gangsters and criminals lie, sacrifice and kill their own people for the ultimate prize. The most scintillating scenes, which occur in the early episodes, amount to gripping, high-stakes death rattles. These also draw the viewer into his world so addictively that you want to devour them in a binge. Sean Bean always dominates in these types of roles, but this is the story of James Nelson-Joyce as the ‘boy’ with the tender heart. He always looks cold and clenched and is magnetic to the screen. He is more than matched by Hannah Onslow as Diana, who has her own backstory that adds layers to their relationship. It can be difficult to catch some of the dialogue due to the thick accents, so I recommend using subtitles here. These are never available in previews, but I still found myself invested in the crap that was going on.

The family next door ABC
It’s wine o’clock in Pleasant Court, Osprey, when Ange (Bella Heathcote), Essie (Philippa Northeast) and Fran (Ming-Zhu Hii) set up their plastic chairs in their street. The sun is blazing and casts an orange hue over the seaside resort. And there is deep suspicion about their newest neighbor, Isabelle (Teresa Palmer), who is renting a house while researching a travel article about the Great Ocean Road community. Or so she says. Welcome to The family next door, a new 6-part series based on the book by Sally Hepworth. But while this may seem like another famous Australian TV street, there’s nothing cozy or soapy about this drama. Writer Sarah Scheller doesn’t show her full hand as the episodes of “Bella,” “Essie” and “Lulu” unfold, deviously teasing out motivations as part of a complex mosaic.

For many AppleTV
For Carol, the manifestation is cataclysmic. Everything she has ever known is shattered and her life becomes like a bad science fiction movie. bodies writhe on the ground, cars crash, cities are on fire, hospitals have also fallen victim to the inexplicable disaster. Until those same bodies then begin to rise… Carol flees to her home and turns to TV news, only to discover that the only channel is C-SPAN, where a government spokesperson in the White House speaks directly to her and offers her help. Revealing much more would spoil the alarming fun of this wild idea. “Carol, when you’re ready, you can reach us at this number, we know you have questions.” And that also applies to the audience. Gilligan is the king of unleashing mind-bending scenes where the audience has no idea where we are, why we’re here, or how they connect to the central story (opening scenes of episode 2, for example). From the Middle East to Spain and New Mexico… but he also deserves trust as all these questions are answered in a timely manner with a satisfactory outcome. In Rhea Seehorn, who was so brilliant in it You better call SaulCarol is fearless and combative, in a desperate fight for self-preservation and clinging to the common sense she knows. But who can you turn to when the world has essentially left you to fend for yourself? Will you surrender willingly or will you enter the fight of your life?

Honorable mentions (no specific order):

Happiness (HBO Max)
Good night, good luck (Foxtel)
Reckless (SBS)
IT: Welcome to Derry (HBO Max)
Top End Bub (Prime Video)
Invisible boys (Stan)
An evening with Dua Lipa (seven)
Pee Wee as Himself (HBO Max)
Your friends and neighbors (Apple TV)
The Studio (Apple TV)
Louis (seven)
The Pitt (Foxtel/Binge)
Lockerbie: a search for the truth (Foxtel/Binge)
Mixtape (Foxtel / Binge)
Paradise (Disney+)
Australia: An Unofficial History (SBS)
Revealed: Survivor Malka Leifer (Stan)
Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story (Disney+)

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