The best upcoming TV shows in 2025

Secret Level – Season 1 (Prime Video)

Produced by the creators of Netflix show Love, Death + Robots, Secret Level is a similar anthology series, in which each and every one of the 15 episodes will be an original, self-contained animated story. They’re all inspired by popular video games too, ranging from Pac-Man to Unreal Tournament via Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer 40,000. We don’t know much about the individual episodes yet, but this is shaping up to be the TV show of choice for sore-thumbed gamers in search of some bite-sized entertainment in their downtime.

Release date: 10 December 2024

On Call (Amazon Prime Video)

From the brain of Law & Order creator Dick Wolf (who knows a thing or two about creating a compelling crime narrative) comes a new breed of half-hour police procedural. On Call promises to differ from Wolf’s standard style, using a combination of bodycam, dashcam and handheld footage to suck the viewer right down into the mean streets of Long Beach, California. The series follows the day-to-day patrols of a pair of LAPD cops – one a seasoned training officer and the other a fresh-faced and idealistic rookie. Expect moral dilemmas aplenty, presented in a visceral cinema verité style.

Release date: 9 January 2025

Severance – Season 2 (Apple TV+)

Giving a whole new meaning to the concept of a ‘work-life balance’, employees at Lumon Industries submit to having their minds and memories surgically divided into two sections: one for the office, one for their personal life. With these two aspects of the person never meeting or crossing over, each worker becomes two distinct people living in one body – or at least that’s the idea.

This involving, mystery-laden sci-fi drama is arguably Apple TV+’s most interesting and thought-provoking original series, and after a long hiatus it’s coming back to the streaming service in early 2025. We have no idea what the second season holds plot-wise, because we don’t yet have an actual trailer or synopsis, but we don’t care: this is probably our most anticipated show of 2025 right now.

Release date: 17 January 2025

Prime Target (Apple TV+)

Apple’s conspiracy thriller stars Leo Woodall (previously seen in One Day and The White Lotus) as a genius mathematician on the brink of an earth-shattering discovery: a prime number pattern that would enable him (or anyone else who knew it) to bypass encryption protocols and gain access to any computer in the world. Where’s Norton Antivirus when you need it?

With various secretive interested parties keen to pick his brain (or shoot it to bits), this geek finds himself in big trouble – and is forced to turn to a young female NSA agent for help. But can he even trust her?

Release date: 22 January 2025

The Night Agent – Season 2 (Netflix)

Speaking of conspiracy thrillers, Netflix is poised to drop a second helping of one of the best we’ve watched in recent years: The Night Agent.

Having foiled an assassination plot against none other than the President of the USA in the first season, low-level FBI agent Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso) has been promoted – enrolled as a fully-fledged member of secretive ‘off the books’ agency Night Action. Now charged with investigating the threats so nefarious that traditional government agencies can’t unravel them, Sutherland will leave the familiar surroundings of Washington, D.C. for more exotic climes, which promise to contain even darker, more twisted schemes by America’s enemies.

Release date: 23 January 2025

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (Disney+)

This animated series tells an alternative-timeline Spider-Man origin story – one where Norman Osborn (aka the Green Goblin) rather than Tony Stark becomes a mentor to 15-year-old Peter Parker. So, you can expect a slightly different story to the one we’ve become so accustomed to over the years.

The animation style, which uses cel shading, is intended to ape the artwork of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s early Spider-Man comics, giving the show (which already has a second season in development) a look that differs markedly from the boringly ultra-realistic style of Marvel Studios’ live-action material.

Release date: 29 January 2025

Invincible – Season 3 (Amazon Prime Video)

Alongside its coarser and far more caustic Prime Video stablemate The Boys, Invincible really is flying the flag for revisionist superhero stories. Despite the series’ crisp, clean and colourful animation, it’s always excelled at painting its characters and themes in various shades of grey, taking down clichés while delivering a genuinely enjoyable story of good, evil and in-between.

A third season is almost upon us, exploring the further adventures of Mark Grayson/Invincible as he grows in power. The above trailer drops plenty of hints about what’s in store. And, thankfully, it looks like more of the same.

Release date: 6 February 2025

Yellowjackets – Season 3 (Paramount+)

In the 1990s, a girls’ high school soccer team reaches the national finals, meaning a flight to the west coast and a shot at glory – but when their plane crashes in the middle of the Rockies and rescue never materialises, the girls must cross horrifying boundaries to survive their ordeal. In the present day, the survivors are now approaching middle age – but just as troubled and dysfunctional as they were as teenagers.

At turns disturbing, scary, hilarious and touching, this two-timeline drama finally returns with a third season that promises to uncover more of the mysterious events during the characters’ harrowing months in the wilderness while progressing the equally suspenseful modern-day storyline.

Release date: 14 February 2025

Daredevil: Born Again (Disney+)

Long before Disney+ even existed, Marvel Studios’ first foray into TV shows consisted of the 2015 Daredevil series on Netflix which, while set in the same shared universe as the MCU movies, took a noticeably darker and more adult tone than the movies. Other related Netflix series (The Punisher, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Defenders) followed, before Marvel severed its ties with Netflix and brought everything under the Disney+ banner.

Now Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) are set to return in a brand-new nine-part show, alongside much of the 2015 series’ supporting cast.

Release date: 5 March 2025

Alien: Earth (Hulu/Disney+)

It’s fair to say that recent additions to the Alien franchise have been hit and miss, but we hold high hopes for this – the series’ first ever TV show. Set in 2120 (which is two years before the events of the original movie), it concerns a mysterious spacecraft that crashes on Earth. And, needless to say, its deadly contents. Aside from that, we know very little about the plot, but with months to go before its release we expect more revealing trailers to appear soon.

The series, which is being executive produced by Ridley Scott and Noah Hawley (best known for the excellent Fargo TV show), apparently follows the style and mythology of the early films much more than the likes of Prometheus and Romulus.

Release date: Summer 2025

The Last of Us – Season 2 (Max/Sky)

The millions who have played through Naughty Dog’s game know what’s in store – but we wager they’re ready to have their hearts broken all over again by this TV adaptation. The first season was spectacular and moving, and managed to distil the feel of the game almost perfectly while expanding on it themes in some genuinely interesting ways but, if HBO’s The Last of Us is to truly cement its position as the greatest game adaptation of all time, it really needs to nail Part II properly. It’s a tricky ask, but if anyone’s up to it, the creative team here are.

Release date: 2025

M. Son of the Century (Now TV, Sky)

There’s no shortage of wartime epics out there from the American and British perspective. Band of Brothers, Catch-22, The Man in the High Castle, The Pacific, we could go on. The eight-part M. Son of the Century, though, will show Italy’s wartime role in a TV drama format. Based on the novel by Antonio Scurati, directed by BAFTA-winner Joe Wright (Darkest Hour, Atonement, Cyrano) and written by Stefano Bises (Gomorrah), M. Son of the Century charts the rise of fascism in Italy, and with it Mussolini’s grasp on power.

Release date: 2025