After a comparatively muted year, 2025 looks set to provide a blockbuster 12 months of TV – from the return of some of the most beloved shows still on the air, to a handful of exciting new offerings. These are the 11 you just can’t miss.
Severance: Season 2 (17 January 2025)
It’s been nearly three years since the jaw-dropping conclusion of the first season of Dan Erickson’s critically adored, utterly addictive sci-fi thriller, which finally returns for more terrifying and toxic office-based shenanigans with its masterful cast (Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, John Turturro, Patricia Arquette, Tramell Tillman, Christopher Walken) and some thrilling new faces (Gwendoline Christie, Alia Shawkat, Bob Balaban, Merritt Wever), too.
The White Lotus: Season 3 (February 2025)
Following unbelievable antics in Maui and Sicily, Mike White’s delicious satire is heading to Thailand for a characteristically razor-sharp and side-splitting deep dive into death and spirituality – as experienced by the one percent, naturally – featuring Natasha Rothwell’s beleaguered spa manager, Belinda, alongside the likes of Parker Posey, Leslie Bibb, Carrie Coon, Michelle Monaghan, Jason Isaacs, Aimee Lou Wood and Blackpink’s Lisa in her acting debut. It can’t come soon enough.
The Last of Us: Season 2 (spring 2025)
Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal take on the undead yet again – this time with assistance from Kaitlyn Dever, Jeffrey Wright, Catherine O’Hara, Young Mazino and Isabela Merced, as the former’s freewheeling new girlfriend – in Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann’s dystopian phenomenon. Expect jump scares, profound heartbreak and more existential dread than you can deal with.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2025)
Hot on the heels of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon comes another Westerosi adventure: an action-packed, six-part prequel from George RR Martin, based on his Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, which follows Peter Claffey’s Ser Duncan the Tall, the future Lord Commander of the Kingsguard known as “Dunk”, and Dexter Sol Ansell’s “Egg”, his squire and, later, King Aegon V Targaryen. It should be as lavishly rendered as it is explosively entertaining.
A Thousand Blows (2025)
Set in the deadly world of illegal boxing in Victorian London, this rollicking new Disney+ crowdpleaser from Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight centres on Small Axe’s Malachi Kirby as a fresh-faced young contender drawn into the criminal underbelly of the East End. Among those he rubs shoulders with? The Crown’s Erin Doherty in the part of the notorious leader of an all-female gang, and Stephen Graham as a hulking fighter determined to take him down.
The Bear: Season 4 (2025)
Yes, the jury is still out on the third instalment of Christopher Storer’s sweeping culinary comedy-drama – it captivated some and confounded many others – but, the truth is, wherever Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), Syd (Ayo Edebiri), Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), Marcus (Lionel Boyce), Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) and Nat (Abby Elliott) go, we will always follow. Here’s hoping for more actual plot progression and character development this time around, as well as more touching standalone showcases in the vein of last season’s deeply moving, Tina-centric “Napkins”.
Wednesday: Season 2 (2025)
Fewer romantic entanglements, more mysteries to solve – that’s what the sophomore season of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar’s kooky, Tim Burton-produced supernatural romp holds for its delightfully deadpan, pigtailed heroine, played to perfection by Jenna Ortega. With returning favourites (Hunter Doohan, Emma Myers, Joy Sunday, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzmán, Fred Armisen) joined by extraordinarily starry series newcomers (Thandiwe Newton, Steve Buscemi, Billie Piper, Back to the Future’s Christopher Lloyd, The Sixth Sense’s Haley Joel Osment, Joanna Lumley as Grandmama Addams and a cameo from Lady Gaga, no less) all hell is guaranteed to break loose.
Stranger Things: Season 5 (2025)
Two and a half years ago, the Duffer brothers dazzled the world with the epic fourth instalment of their wonderfully nostalgic, genre-defining sci-fi behemoth, sending Kate Bush running up the charts and leaving fans speculating endlessly about the future of Sadie Sink’s Max. Now we have – deep breath – the blockbuster final season, in which the residents of Hawkins (Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, Maya Hawke, Winona Ryder and David Harbour) will defend their beloved town for the last time. Bring it on.
And Just Like That: Season 3 (2025)
A weirdly joyous funeral, curious reading material and some very chaotic fashion – it’s literally anyone’s guess what will happen in the next outing of Michael Patrick King’s divisive Sex and the City reboot. I just know that Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis, Sarita Choudhury, Nicole Ari Parker, John Corbett et al will make a number of questionable decisions, romantic and otherwise – and that I’ll be glued to my screen for the duration of its run.
Black Mirror: Season 7 (2025)
Emma Corrin, Issa Rae, Tracee Ellis Ross, Harriet Walter, Rashida Jones, Awkwafina, Paul Giamatti, Peter Capaldi – to no one’s surprise, Charlie Brooker has assembled a knockout cast for the return of his pitch-black and highly prescient anthology series. Bone-chilling and hilarious, the six new episodes – one of which is the first sequel in the history of Black Mirror – should be a hoot.
Squid Game: Season 3 (2025)
The second instalment of Hwang Dong-hyuk’s blood-soaked, devilishly twisted South Korean survival saga may only just have aired, but you won’t have long to wait for its astonishing conclusion, set to cap off a truly excellent year of TV.
