25 TV shows everyone will be talking about in 2025, from Severance to Lena Dunham’s Too Much
There’s plenty to get stuck into over the next 12 months, whether it’s Irish comedies, biting wealth satires, gripping true-crime series or lid-lifting documentaries. Ellie Harrison and Katie Rosseinsky take a look
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Your support makes all the difference.Start planning your viewing schedule now, because 2025 promises to bring us plenty of brilliant, gripping television.
Colin Firth will be back on our screens in Lockerbie: A Search for Truth, a moving drama about the worst terrorist attack in UK history. There are plenty of other shows rooted in real-life stories, too, with Jack Thorne exploring the Corby poisonings in Toxic Town and James Graham delving into a famous showdown between Margaret Thatcher and interviewer Brian Walden in Brian and Margaret.
A clutch of streaming heavy hitters are returning for new seasons: it’s very nearly time to check back into The White Lotus (which will be set at a luxury resort in Thailand this time around) and buckle up for another batch of existential dread-inducing Black Mirror episodes. And the much-anticipated (and much-delayed…) Stranger Things finale isn’t too far off, either.
If you prefer slightly lighter fare, look out for the much-anticipated comedy from Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee and a brand new millennial romcom from Lena Dunham. Oh, and if you’re in the market for a bonkers-sounding reality concept, Bear Grylls is chasing down famous faces in the jungle in a Netflix competition series.
Here are the shows that we can’t wait to watch over the coming year…
Lockerbie: A Search for Truth
Sky Atlantic, 2 January
A few days before Christmas in 1988, a bomb exploded on Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 259 passengers and crew members, as well as 11 people on the ground below. Now, 36 years on, Colin Firth is leading a drama about the worst terrorist attack in UK history. He plays Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter dies in the tragedy and who becomes the spokesperson for the families of victims, embarking on a controversial, decades-long campaign for truth and justice. The journey takes him to the deserts of Libya to meet Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and to the Netherlands for the trial of convicted Libyan national, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Ellie Harrison
Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action
Netflix, 7 January
Across 27 seasons of The Jerry Springer Show, chairs were thrown, secret siblings were discovered and… well… one guy opened up about being in love with a horse (that episode has since been banned). This new two-part documentary charts the show’s stratospheric rise, and its murkier depths, with firsthand testimony and revelations from insiders at the daytime talk show. It arrives just over a year after the death of its presenter, Springer, who embraced his “trash TV” reputation and proudly referred to himself as “talk show host, ringmaster of civilisation’s end”. EH
Molly-Mae: Behind It All
Prime Video, 17 January
It was the break-up that launched thousands of impassioned WhatsApp chats. When Love Island golden girl Molly-Mae Hague revealed that she had split from her fiancé Tommy Fury after five years together, the news left their fans alternately mourning and speculating over what might have caused the rift. Now, the 25-year-old is going it alone, and this Prime Video documentary will be taking us behind the scenes as she balances a professional high point (the launch of her fashion label Maebe) with a tricky moment in her personal life. The six-part series will surely only increase the collective fascination with the reigning queen of UK influencers. Katie Rosseinsky
Severance season 2
Apple TV+, 17 January
Expectations for the second run of this strange, inventive workplace thriller, where employees at a shady company “sever” their work selves from their real selves, could not be higher. The first season ended back in April 2022 with one of the most astonishing and nail-biting finales in recent television history. (The show has reportedly been delayed due to an alleged “falling out” between co-showrunners Dan Erickson and Martin Friedman.) The events of that last episode are too complex and mind-bending to go into within this 100-word paragraph, but we can’t wait to see what fresh hell the creators dream up next for Adam Scott’s grieving staffer Mark and his Lumon colleagues. EH
Prime Target
Apple TV+, 22 January
Leo Woodall is one of the most in-demand actors of the moment, with his star rising extremely swiftly from his cheeky chappie break-out role in The White Lotus to his moving performance as Dexter Mayhew in One Day, which cemented his heartthrob status. Now, before he pops up as a love interest called Roxster (!) in the new Bridget Jones movie, he’s leading the cast of Prime Target. In the conspiracy thriller, he plays a brilliant young maths postgraduate, Edward Brooks, who is on the verge of a major breakthrough. EH
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Paradise
Disney+, 28 January
The reliably compelling Sterling K Brown has teamed up once more with This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman, but the pair’s next TV project couldn’t be further from that wonderfully weepy family saga. In Paradise, Brown plays a security officer to a former president (James Marsden). When it’s discovered that he was the last person to see the ex-Potus alive, he becomes a suspect in a murder case. Did the bodyguard bump off his boss? Or is the investigation a fix? KR
The White Lotus season 3
Sky Atlantic, February 2025
Each series of Mike White’s spiky wealth satire opens with a shot of a dead body in a glamorous, sun-drenched holiday destination. (Warning: spoilers for seasons one and two to follow!) First, it was the remains of Murray Bartlett’s hotel manager being flown out of Hawaii. Then, it was the corpse of Jennifer Coolidge’s billionaire Tanya McQuoid floating in the Ionian sea. This time, we’re on our jollies with a group of rich, vapid tourists in Thailand. But who will snuff it this time? Jason Isaacs, Aimee Lou Wood, Michelle Monaghan, Parker Posey and Walton Goggins are all part of the cast, meaning any of them could be going on a one-way trip to paradise. EH
Small Town, Big Story
Sky Max, February 2025
Written and directed by IT Crowd favourite Chris O’Dowd, Small Town, Big Story zooms in on the chaos that ensues when a big-budget Hollywood TV show comes to a tight-knit Irish community. Christina Hendricks appears as a local woman who found success as a TV producer in Los Angeles and returns to her rural village (we are looking forward to hearing the Mad Men star’s take on the Irish accent), and Paddy Considine plays a doctor who’s been hiding a secret for decades. EH
The Studio
Apple TV+, 26 March
Expect things to get more than a little meta in The Studio, Seth Rogen’s upcoming comedy. Rogen plays a Hollywood exec who has just taken on what should be his dream gig as the head of a film studio. But the company is flailing, desperately attempting to stay relevant (and just stay afloat financially) in the streaming age. Schitt’s Creek’s Catherine O’Hara and Agatha All Along’s Kathryn Hahn are also on board, and a whole load of film industry faces – including Martin Scorsese, Zac Efron and Charlize Theron – are making cameos as… themselves. Here’s hoping for some Call My Agent!-style insider-ish fun. KR
Miss Austen
BBC One, early 2025
2025 marks 250 years since Jane Austen’s birth, so this adaptation of Gill Hornby’s bestselling novel is perfectly timed. After the death of her beloved younger sister, Cassandra Austen burned nearly all of their correspondence. It’s a decision that has puzzled the author’s biographers and her legions of fans ever since, and one that Miss Austen seeks to unravel. Keeley Hawes plays Cassandra, who travels to the home of her late fiancé’s niece (played by Rose Leslie) to track down a cache of letters that might tarnish Jane’s reputation. And if that’s not enough Austen for you, the BBC is also bringing The Other Bennet Sister, a novel imagining the lives and loves of Pride and Prejudice’s studious, overlooked Mary Bennet, to the small screen. KR
Celebrity Bear Hunt
Netflix, early 2025
Hot on the heels of his most recent role as assistant baptiser of Russell Brand in the Thames, Bear Grylls is venturing onto drier land for this new Netflix show, which sees him hunting down celebs in the Costa Rican jungle. We can’t reveal who exactly his prey is yet, but we’ve had a sneak peek at the lineup and can confirm there are some household names in there who we are certain are not natural survivalists – and will make for very entertaining telly. EH
A Thousand Blows
Disney, early 2025
The latest period drama from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight packs a real punch. Set in the underbelly of late Victorian London, it follows Malachi Kirby’s Hezekiah Moscow, who has newly arrived in the East End from the West Indies. He’s drawn into the capital’s boxing scene, where he meets a fearsome female gang leader played by Erin Doherty and clashes with notorious fighter Sugar Goodson, played by Stephen Graham, who soon becomes his deadly rival. KR
Toxic Town
Netflix, early 2025
If a drama has the name Jack Thorne attached to it, the likelihood is that it will be very good, and will aim to make the world a better place in some way. The screenwriter focused on a MeToo case in National Treasure and the care system in Help, and now he’s turning his attention to the real-life story of the Corby poisonings, one of the UK’s biggest environmental scandals. And it’s stuffed with great British talent, from Jodie Whittaker and Aimee Lou Wood to Rory Kinnear. EH
Black Rabbit
Netflix, 2025
The premise for Jude Law and Jason Bateman’s new Netflix drama has shades of Succession and The Bear, which can surely only be a good thing. Law plays the socialite owner of one of New York’s most exclusive member’s clubs, whose rarefied world couldn’t be more different from the tumultuous existence of his chaotic brother (Bateman, sporting a seriously straggly hairdo). When he allows his sibling back into his life, he runs the risk of destroying the reputation he’s worked so hard to build. Bateman’s Ozark co-star Laura Linney is on directing duties for two episodes, with Gangs of London’s Sope Dirisu and Succession’s Dagmara Dominczyk (aka Waystar Royco’s PR boss Karolina) also starring. KR
Brian and Margaret
Channel 4, 2025
Why is This Lying Bastard Lying to Me? is the punchily named book, by Rob Burley, that this new TV drama from political writer James Graham is based on. It stars Steve Coogan as interviewer Brian Walden and Harriet Walter as Margaret Thatcher, and dramatises their encounter in 1989 – a 45-minute showdown that became one of the most famous political exchanges of all time, and triggered a chain of events that led to Thatcher’s resignation. EH
Stranger Things season 5
Netflix, 2025
It’s very nearly time to say goodbye to Netflix’s monster hit. But before we bid farewell to our plucky teenage heroes (OK, most of the young cast are in their twenties now) and their fellow Hawkins inhabitants, Stranger Things round five promises a clutch of practically feature-length episodes. Maya Hawke, aka Robin, has teased that the final season consists of “basically eight movies”. Although plot details are scarce right now, we can surely expect one last showdown between the gang and the villainous Vecna – and we might get answers to some lingering mysteries. Oh, and Terminator star Linda Hamilton has an as-yet-undisclosed role. KR
Am I Being Unreasonable? season 2
BBC One, 2025
Daisy May Cooper’s comedy, the first to ever be named after a Mumsnet thread, was one of the best surprises of 2022, with the writer and actor showing she had much more to offer than the Bafta-winning This Country. As AIBU returns to the rolling hills of the West Country, Cooper’s Nic is forced to move into a caravan with her not-so-trustworthy best friend Jen (Selin Hizli). Wonderful chaos will certainly ensue. EH
Black Mirror season 7
Netflix, 2025
Charlie Brooker’s dystopian satire has an unsettling knack for predicting the future, so you’d be forgiven for approaching Black Mirror’s seventh season with caution. This time around, Brooker has promised to take the show back to basics, returning to its sci-fi roots, and one of the episodes will be a sequel of sorts to season four standout USS Callister, which followed a troubled game developer (Jesse Plemons) presiding over a Star Trek-like spaceship simulator. A staggeringly stacked cast is on board: expect appearances from Peter Capaldi, Emma Corrin, Tracee Ellis Ross, Paul Giamatti and Harriet Walter. KR
How to Get to Heaven from Belfast
Netflix, 2025
Lisa McGee is back with her first new series since Derry Girls, her daring, smash-hit show about a group of schoolgirls living through the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Unsurprisingly, How to Get to Heaven from Belfast brings fans back to Ireland, but we’re introduced to a whole new set of protagonists in their thirties, who reunite after the death of an old classmate. When an eerie set of events take place at the wake, the women – played by homegrown talent Roísín Gallagher, Sinéad Keenan and Caoilfhionn Dunne – end up trying to solve a mystery that takes them on a wild, hilarious journey through the country. EH
Apple Cider Vinegar
Netflix, 2025
Based on a true story, this drama stars Kaitlyn Dever – last seen on television in the brilliant Dopesick – as Belle Gibson, a wellness guru who tricked the world into thinking she had healed herself of terminal brain cancer by eating a healthy diet. The show is inspired by the 2017 book The Woman Who Fooled the World, written by the two journalists who uncovered the details of Gibson’s deception. EH
Adolescence
Netflix, 2025
It seems that starring in 2021’s stress-inducing movie Boiling Point has given Stephen Graham a taste for one-shot dramas. He’s reunited with the film’s director Philip Barantini for Adolescence, a four-part series where every episode is filmed in a continuous take. Graham plays the father of 13-year-old Jamie, who is accused of murdering a female classmate. An unsettling story plays out in real time, as the family and those close to them grapple with questions of responsibility and guilt. The Scouse star is backed up by an impressive cast, which includes Top Boy’s Ashley Walters, The Crown’s Erin Doherty and Happy Valley’s Mark Stanley. KR
The Undertow
Netflix, 2025
What’s better than a TV show starring Jamie Dornan? A TV show starring two Jamie Dornans, obviously. In The Undertow, Dornan plays a pair of identical twins (think The Parent Trap but much, much darker). Nicola, played by Mackenzie Davis, is unhappily married to Adam (Dornan), but has a romantic history with his estranged sibling Lee (also Dornan) as well. When Lee makes a chaotic comeback in her life, and a shocking accident leaves Adam dead, the old flames try to pull off a terrible deception. Can they convince the police that Lee was the one who died instead? It’s based on the Nordic noir series Twin, which previously aired on the BBC and starred Game of Thrones’s Kristofer Hivju. KR
Too Much
Netflix, 2025
Eight years after the end of her groundbreaking study of millennial New Yorkers, Girls creator Lena Dunham is back with another story about a millennial New Yorker – but this one leaving the Big Apple to start a new life in London. Jessica, played by Megan Salter (hilarious in Hacks), is a workaholic in her mid-thirties who moves across the pond after her relationship breaks down. There, she forms an unusual connection with a British man called Felix (The White Lotus’s Will Sharpe). It stars two of the best actors in the biz, and is made by the producers of Love Actually. What more could you ask for? EH
The Last of Us season 2
Sky Atlantic, 2025
HBO’s gripping, emotionally draining drama based on the PlayStation game The Last of Us was one of 2023’s biggest TV hits – and seemed to break the enduring curse of the video game adaptation (whereby nearly every attempt to bring a hit game to the screen ends up as a massive flop). Part two takes place five years after Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Joel (Pedro Pascal)’s odyssey across post-apocalyptic America. The pair have just about found peace in a settlement for survivors – until a figure from the past threatens to turn their hard-won stability upside down. Kaitlyn Dever, Catherine O’Hara and Jeffrey Wright (who’s reprising his role as Isaac in the video game) join the cast this time. KR
Wednesday series 2
Netflix, 2025
Jenna Ortega will be donning the pigtails and monochromatic wardrobe of Wednesday Addams for the second season of Netflix’s atmospheric Addams Family spin-off. Details of the plot are few and far between right now, but the showrunners have promised that Wednesday’s return to the Nevermore Academy will be “darker and more complex”. Plus, it seems like they’ve really upped the ante with the supporting cast this time around, with the likes of Joanna Lumley and Thandiwe Newton making guest appearances. Oh, and Lady Gaga (whose track “Bloody Mary” went viral last year when fans used it to soundtrack Ortega’s dance scene) is making a cameo, too. KR
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