Highly anticipated series have already landed in 2025, but there are plenty more to come in what looks to be a bumper year for television. Small-screen favourites such as "The Last of Us" and "The Bear" will be back with new seasons, while fresh shows promise to keep us entertained.
Black Mirror (season seven)
Charlie Brooker's dark satire series is back for a seventh season in 2025, with more "sci-fi scenarios spanning dystopias and tackling themes of surveillance, AI, and societal issues", said TechRadar. As usual, expect an "all-star cast" taking on the individual stories of each episode, as well as returning characters from the season four episode "USS Callister". Brooker said the six episodes will continue to be mixed in tone: some are "deeply unpleasant, some are quite funny, and some are emotional".
It's been a long three-year wait for fans of "Severance" after the "truly astonishing" first season finale ended with a dramatic cliffhanger, said Empire. Season two picks up in the "immediate aftermath" and answers some of the burning questions. The acclaimed dystopian drama stars Adam Scott, of "Parks and Recreation" and "Big Little Lies", whose character has undergone a procedure to separate work and personal memories. Season two is "by turns gripping, tense, bewildering, and darkly, absurdly funny".
After a delay to filming due to the 2023 writers' strikes, the final season of Netflix's hit sci-fi horror saga finally wrapped shooting in December and is earmarked for release in late 2025. Season five will be a "culmination" of a story arc "planned out seven years ago" by the show's creators, the Duffer Brothers, said Radio Times. The eight-episode season will "pick up shortly after the events of season four" and is set in 1987, though little more is known of the plot. The long-standing cast all return in their roles, while 'The Terminator' actress Linda Hamilton joins the line-up for the final season.
Creator Mike White promised ahead of release that it would be a "supersized 'White Lotus'" that will be "longer, bigger, crazier". A trailer released in January teased fans with a "flashing montage of parties, guns and boat trips", said Marie Claire. "One of the most intriguing plot threads" looks likely to feature the 29-year-old Aimee Lou Wood from "Sex Education" and the 53-year-old Walton Goggins as a couple with a "noticeable age gap".
The original series captivated audiences with the lives of glamorous New York City lawyers from 2011 to 2019. But the drama isn't over. This year, a new "Suits" will be released, set in Los Angeles.Gabriel Macht will reprise his role as the bold lawyer Harvey Specter in a three-episode arc. So far, the rest of the cast includes Stephen Amell, Josh McDermitt, Troy Winbush, Alice Lee and Bryan Greenberg. The series has already premiered in the US, but a UK release is yet to be confirmed.
UK platform and release date TBC
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
The latest "Game of Thrones" prequel based on George R.R. Martin's "Tales of Dunk and Egg" novellas, is set to premiere on HBO in 2025. The series will follow Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk), played by Peter Claffey, and Aegon Targaryen (Egg), played by Dexter Sol Ansell, on a series of adventures. Following "House of the Dragon", this upcoming drama has been criticised for deviations from Martin's source material, but the author has visited the set and has only positive feedback for "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms", reported ScreenRant. The characters "look as if they walked out of the pages of my book", he said.
The "jaw-dropping" season finale of "The Last of Us" left masses anxiously awaiting the return of the video-game adaptation and, now, fans can "finally rejoice" as season two has been confirmed for 2025, said Tribune. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey will return for more post-apocalyptic adventures, joined by newcomers Isabela Merced and Jeffrey Wright. Catherine O'Hara, of "Beetlejuice" fame, appears in a new trailer, which gives the impression that she will play a therapist helping Pascal's Joel Miller open up about the events of the first series.
Nominated for five Golden Globes earlier this month, "The Bear" is one of the most critically acclaimed shows on TV right now and the new season is expected to air in June. The ending of season three was "daunting", said Somiyah DeMercado in CBR, leaving the fate of the restaurant up in the air as Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) prepares to begin her own venture. Jeremy Allen White, who won the best actor Golden Globe, will return as Carmy Berzatto in the high-stress kitchen for a season "filled with even more emotional breakdowns and foul language".
After millions devoured the first season of BBC's smash hit comedy-detective drama "Ludwig", the new season hopes to prove just as bingeable, said Radio Times. Season one introduced David Mitchell's John, a puzzle setter who found a knack for crime solving while impersonating his missing police detective brother James, and his sister-in-law Lucy, played by Anna Maxwell Martin. Now John is officially helping the force, but James is still missing.
"Bridgerton" fans should be excited because the BBC's newest "Pride and Prejudice" spinoff will be spiky, said Ben Jureidini in Tatler. The 10-part series, based on Janice Hadlow's novel of the same name, will follow Mary, the "plain" Bennet sister. The fresh spin on the Jane Austen classic will turn the awkward, forgotten character into a true period heroine. Writer Sarah Quintrell, who grew up watching the BBC's adaptations, intends to write a "beautiful story" for "all the Marys out there".
Jason Bateman and Jude Law are set to star as brothers competing over a family business in this new Netflix mini-series that is already being compared to "Succession" and "The Bear". Bateman and his "Ozark" co-star Laura Linney are two of the four directors. The show's logline says Law plays the "owner of New York City hotspot" who allows his "turbulent brother back in his life", opening "the door to escalating dangers that threaten to bring down everything he's built".
Netflix – release date TBC
Wild Cherry
Two-time Bafta-winning "Mood" creator Nicôle Lecky is back with the highly anticipated thriller "Wild Cherry", said Max Goldbart in Deadline. The "provocative and deliciously honest" show will follow Lorna (Carmen Ejogo), a self-made, successful Black business woman and her privileged best friend Julia (Eve Best), as they are forced to take sides during a "shocking" scandal at their daughters' exclusive private school.
The BBC is set to release a four-part adaptation of James Graham's hit West End show "Dear England" about Gareth Southgate and the national men's football team. As manager, Southgate delivered the "inflatable unicorn: two Euros finals, a World Cup semi-final", said GQ. But the naysayers point to the "lack of silverware" and "tedious tactics". Joseph Fiennes will bring his "star power" to the role in the TV series, which is also written by Graham.
Fans have been "clamouring for more of Matt Murdock" since the end of Charlie Cox's three-year stint in Netflix's "Daredevil". Now, the favourite superhero is back, this time as part of Marvel's interconnected cinematic universe, said Allison Hambrick in ScreenRant. Murdock, a blind lawyer with a double life as a crime fighter, will take on a fight for justice in New York alongside a handful of cast members from the original series, like Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin and Jon Bernthal's Punisher.
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