10. THE PITT: SEASON 2 (HBO Max) - The gimmick of the show is limiting in that it's like FOX's 24 (2001) where the entire season takes place all in one day or one 12-hour work shift. However, the makers utilized that gimmick extremely well in the first season by depicting how a hospital would handle a mass shooting event, hour-by-hour. The show wasn't going to do a major event like that again, so it would be a matter of the individual cases, from the mundane to the strange, that a medical center would encounter. It's also about a further examination of the characters and the personal issues that they're handling. In terms of the narrative drama, the show juggles all those things superbly, weaving everything and everyone together in brilliant fashion. Noah Wyle has managed to make playing a doctor again, for the second time in her career, following ER (1994), but now 30 years later, a very compelling thing.
9. BIG MISTAKES (Netflix) - Dan Levy, Emmy-winner from Schitt's Creek (2015), returns with another series in which he's writing and acting. He plays a church minister who is pulled into the mob thanks to the idiotic exploits of his sister. It's about sibling rivalry to the max. Taylor Ortega plays his sister, Morgan, in an entertainingly frustrating way. However, the actress who steals every scene she's in is Laurie Metcalf who plays their mother, Linda, a single woman who decides to run for politics. Metcalf has been nominated for an Oscar. She's won several Emmy Awards for her role on the comedy series Roseanne (1988). She's nominated again for the upcoming 78th Primetime Emmys for her role in Monster: The Ed Gein Story (2025). She also just won her third Tony Award. I have to say that Laurie Metcalf is the reason to watch this series because she is brilliant.
8. THE BOROUGHS (Netflix) - I was a huge fan of Stranger Things (2016). The series ended last year, but the creators of the show, the Duffer Brothers, are still producing television. This series is very much akin to Stranger Things, but instead of focusing on a group of prepubescent children, this series focuses on middle-aged adults, transitioning into their retirement years and getting close to elderly status, people in their 70's. The show is very much about ageism and a kind of bigotry toward older people or a disregard toward them because they're old. The show is commenting on this issue and theme, more so than Stranger Things commented on anything specific. Stranger Things was a fun narrative that juggled science-fiction concepts in a geeky and nerdy way that was about empowering the geeks, the nerds and the outcasts, which is again a kind of commentary. This series though feels like it has more to say in regards to its specific theme.
7. THE BEAR: SEASON 5 (Hulu) - This is the final season of the Emmy-winning series. A lot of criticism has come at this show, specifically for its third and fourth seasons, for the direction the show took. Much of that criticism and commentary has been about if the show should be competing at the Emmys as a comedy. For most regular people who just watch the show, this conversation is rather meaningless. Outside of awards consideration, regular people might not care. They simply want to be entertained or intrigued by a great story or great performances. Some might be taken in by the production value, the craft, things like the cinematography and the editing. When it comes to that, the show remained "Certified Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes, which means it remained critically acclaimed in general. The past two seasons in particular, Ayo Edebiri really emerged as the lead and the character we come to care the most about. This final season makes her the Noah Wyle of the restaurant's kitchen, as we focus on her handling one, crazy work shift, and it injects a Safdie Brothers-like energy back into a series that started with that same energy.
6. JURY DUTY PRESENTS: COMPANY RETREAT (Prime Video) - This is the second season of the production that pulled off a gentle and sweet prank on an unsuspecting real person who is surrounded by actors performing a ridiculous comedy. The show was successful and was even nominated for Emmys, including Outstanding Comedy Series. It seemed unlikely that the show could pull off the same prank again. Certainly doing another, fake "jury duty" scenario would be impossible without the real person realizing that it's a prank even after the first or second day. To the credit of the show, they came up with a different scenario where they could manipulate things in order to pull off a similar prank but arguably better because the real person they found, that of Anthony Norman, was a more interesting person and a more engaging one.
5. NEMESIS (Netflix) - So many shows have been made about cops and robbers, police chasing criminals. Many shows or films have been made about heists, thieves trying to pull off some big job or con. Not that many of them have featured a predominantly African American cast. There was one made two years ago called Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist (2024), which made my top ten list of that year. That series was set over 50 years ago. This series is set in the present-day. It doesn't have the star-power as that 2024 series. The cast here might not be immediately recognizable, but all of the actors in this ensemble are fantastic. Matthew Law and Y'Lan Noel are stars who should be cast in as many productions as possible. Gabrielle Dennis and Cleopatra Coleman lead the supporting cast who work incredibly well together. Tre Hale and Quincy Isaiah who play two criminals who are involved in the heists get outstanding moments in Episode 4 that was overlooked by the Emmys but hopefully will get recognized by the NAACP Image Awards.
4. BEEF: SEASON 2 (Netflix) - The first season was about two people who go to war with each other in ways that swung from emotionally manipulative to increasingly violent. It was also a metaphor for class warfare that occurs between those with wealth and those who are poor. It was brilliant and fun, as well as crazy and insane by the end. Lee Sung Jin created the show as a one-off, limited series. The success of that first season compelled him to create this second one. The dynamic isn't exactly the same, although people might be more critical if it were. There's a similar class warfare aspect to it, but that propulsive feeling of having two people feeling like they want to kill each other is absent. The beef in this season isn't that much of a beef, meaning the conflict never really builds to a level of hate that was present in the first season. However, what Lee Sung Jin creates instead is powerful and quite entertaining. Episode 4 is the prime example, which mostly takes place in a hospital waiting room. Episode 8 is another, which has a fun, if brief, action sequence. The cast of Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Charles Melton and Cailee Spaeny, as well as Youn Yuh-jung are great. It's great that it got 16 Emmy nominations.
3. THE LINCOLN LAWYER: SEASON 4 (Netflix) - I have been a fan of all three of this show's previous seasons, but I think this season is probably the best season of the show overall. The reason is that it flips the show on its head a bit. Manuel García-Rulfo stars as Mickey Haller, a Mexican-American attorney in Los Angeles. His whole thing is that he's the guy who you want when you get arrested, especially for a felony like murder. This season flips things by making Mickey the guy who is arrested for murder and needs an attorney as good, if not better than him. Neve Campbell recently returned to the big screen this year in Scream 7 (2026), but this show was the better use of her. Her character of Maggie McPherson is the attorney who has to defend Mickey, which brings up other issues, given that she's his ex-wife. Courtroom dramas are my particular favorite and this one has quickly become my new current favorite in that genre.
2. BAIT (Prime Video) - Riz Ahmed was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. He was nominated specifically for his role here as an actor named Shah Latif who is auditioning to become the next James Bond. It's a character that is inspired by things that have happened to Ahmed in real life. It's very fictionalized of course. If anything, the Hollywood aspect of this series might be a very good hook, but the true power of the series is about the mental health struggles and socio-cultural issues that he encounters as a result or separate from his acting career. It's more about identity, family and friendship. It's incredibly powerful but also features a very funny role for Sir Patrick Stewart that's very cool and cuckoo.
1. JUICE:SEASON 2 (Wow Presents Plus/Tubi) - This was a series that aired on BBC Three in 2025. The show at that point wasn't available in the United States. The streaming service WOW Presents Plus made the series available to American audiences in the spring of this year. I discovered that Tubi is also streaming the show to American audiences. I'm not sure when Tubi made the show available on their platform, but I didn't notice it till this year and not until WOW Presents Plus promoted it, so this show is eligible for my list. The show focuses on a young British man named Jamma who is Muslim, Pakistani and gay. Yet, he feels unseen or overlooked in both his professional and personal lives. A lot of it is semi-autobiographical from its creator, Mawaan Rizwan. The show features his real-life family members, including his mother, Shahnaz Rizwan who plays his mother, and his brother, Nabhaan Rizwan who plays his brother. Nabhaan Rizwan also has a notable role in Bait as well. The show features a great supporting role, played by Russell Tovey who plays Guy, a therapist and the boyfriend to Jamma.
