Every
year I give what I call the grand jury prize, honoring series and actors that
fall just beneath my qualifications for the top ten. These include certain
promising new genre and sources of original programming that might fall under
the radar.
Most
Gifted Actor of 2025
Walton
Goggins
This past spring the rest of America
finally figured out what I did as early as 2010 and fell in love with Walton
Goggins. Goggins has been one of the greatest performers in any genre practically
since Peak TV began for his work as Shane in The Shield. There's been
nothing he can do since, whether it be Boyd Crowder is Justified, his constant
work in the HBO comedies of Danny McBride or guest spots in shows like Sons
of Anarchy. So it's a crime worse than most of the unscrupulous (but always
charming) characters he's played that from the debut of The Shield he
received exactly one Emmy nomination for his work in the last twenty years.
Now, it's looking like the Emmys
are finally catching up with him. In perhaps the most serious season of The
White Lotus to date his depressed and broken Rick was one of the most
wrenching and tragic characters in a show mostly based on comedy the past two
seasons. It was the perfect mixture of every genre Goggins has played in his entire
career to this point and ended with what has been the saddest death in the
show's entire run. It really looked like Goggins was going to get his first
Emmy this year and I'm not entirely sure I can forgive the Academy for not
giving it to him.
However it looks like they are
finally going to make up to it. Goggins received back to back Emmy nominations
for the first time in his career, having been nominated for playing the Ghoul
in the first season of Fallout in 2023. Now back for a second season
there's a good chance he'll be back in the Emmy ranks again. And Sunday nights
in March and April on HBO were pretty much a night of Goggins as the final
season of The Righteous Gemstones gave us one last chance to see
(perhaps more than we really wanted) another of his iconic characters as 'Baby Billy'
the oldest member of the preaching family. Throw in a dynamite SNL stint
where among his other gifts he helped put 'Guns' in the Constitution and its understandable
why everyone fell in love with him.
Most
Gifted Actress of 2025
Kaitlin
Olson
There were a couple of candidates
for this particular spot, especially considered that two of the greatest
actresses in TV made multiple appearances in my top ten list. Julianne
Nicholson showed her dramatic chops as Sinatra in Paradise and received
an unexpected Emmy nomination (though not by me) and everyone fell in love with
her as 'Dance Mom' on Hacks and she deservedly won her second Emmy.
Carrie Coon was the heavy favorite to win Best Supporting Actress for her
wonderful work in the third season of The White Lotus and she will
definitely receive her third consecutive Emmy nomination for her work as Bertha
in Season 3 of The Gilded Age.
It was easy, however, to list who
the most valuable player of 2025 was when it came to TV and that's another
actress who has finally been getting her due. Kaitlin Olson returned to her
iconic role in the most recent season of It's Always Funny in
Philadelphia. She also had an
incredible part in the crossover with Abbott Elementary when she tried
to break up Gregory and Janine. Then in Season 4 of Hacks she returned
as DJ the now born-again Christian daughter of Deb who we immediately saw while
she loved God found a way to market her brand – and laid down the law with her
mother. How she found the time for all of this while starring in her phenomenal
ABC series High Potential when she plays Morgan, the genius cleaning
lady-turned-consultant, a role that is proving to be as game changing for her
as Saul Goodman was for Bob Odenkirk, is a question I'm not sure Morgan could
answer. Olson joins the ever growing list of complicated heroines on TV, an
antithesis to her trashy character on Sunny and she handles all of them
with incredible work. Can an Emmy finally be in her future?
Two
Different Kinds of Mystery Novel Adaptations
No
Will Trent did not take a decline in quality in its third season; it's
still on track to be one of the best shows of the decade. But I figured I'd let
some new faces join the top ten this year. Both the character and the show had
some extraordinary moments. Will spent the first half of the season dealing
with how he'd had to burn down his relationship with Angie. He headed into a
new romance which seems to have burned up (I hope we haven't seen the last of
Gina Rodriguez) nearly torched his relationship with his partner Faith when he
tried to save her son, and finally ended up meeting his biological father at
the worst possible time. The season ended with him by the bedside of his surrogate
mother not sure what will happen next.
Everyone
in the cast has been having just as hard a time. Angie finally seems to have
moved on from Will, was in a healthy relationship, then her mother died, then
she spiraled, then she found out she was pregnant. She spent the final episode
first climbing through a vent and then with the baby daddy in a sonogram – with
Will on the outside. Michael Ormwood spent most of Season 3 raising his kids,
then learnt he had a brain tumor, and collapsed at the end of the season. Faith
spent the season worried about her son, then learned he was working for a drug
dealer. Amanda spent most of this season handling the insanity – and then took
a bullet in the chest.
I
can't wait until next week when Season 4 begins. I will have to wait slightly
longer for the fourth season of another brilliant adaptation of mystery novels
to return but Season 3 of Dark Winds was by far its best yet. Joe
Leaphorn spent the season dealing with the guilt and ramifications of his
decision to kill the man responsible for his son's death, first as an FBI agent
came to investigate, then when his wife learned the truth. He escaped with his
badge intact but his marriage may never be. Chee helped him investigate the
problem of the son of a missing friend that led to a barrage of murders and a
chase on a train. And Bernadette spent the season as part of border patrol,
looking into a case of human trafficking only to find there was no one she
could trust.
The
third season was incredibly dark, in both real ways and surreal ones. The fifth
episode saw Joe having been wounded, reliving the worst moments of his past in
a dream sequences that had all the trademarks of a Lynch scene but was far
easier to get to the point of. And it drew riveting performances across the
board: Deanna Allison's monologue where she told an FBI agent the pain she'd
gone through ever since her son had died should have earned her an Emmy
nomination. Throw in that it gave us one last chance to see Robert Redford (in
a cameo with co-producer George R.R. Martin) and you had a series that restores
luster to the brand of AMC.
Long
Live The (Stephen) King
The
Institute &
Welcome to Derry
We're all used to seeing Stephen
King done on the big screen and he has been done well on streaming in past
years. Even his pseudonym Richard Bachman had his day in the sun this past
fall. Now on two different kinds of adaptations of his work we see that
television is absolutely getting King right.
First came the debut of an adaptation
of a recent novel The Institute. Adapted for MGM+ it took the world of
one of the more gentle horrors in King's work and adjusted just enough to make
it fit into ours. Mary Louise Parker gives a standout performance as Miss
Sigsby, the ultimate product of ends justifying the means, even if that means using
children as guinea pigs until they die. The Institute may have itself been
destroyed in the season finale but there's more than enough material for a
second.
Just as astonishing was Welcome
to Derry, the Stephen King adaptation I've been waiting for my whole life.
And judging from the enormous ratings so were a lot people. Set 27 years before the events in the films
of the Muschiettis we see a new sent of children dealing with deaths of those
around them and just what it was like to live in Derry when Pennywise was around
in the past. The answer: pretty horrible. And that's before the military decided
it was its mission to find a way to harness the evil that lurks in the sewers.
With Easter Eggs that didn't feel
like fanservice, Welcome to Derry answered questions I'd never thought
to ask and that made a remarkable about sense. Furthermore by working within the
bounds of the original novel the writers made it clear that they didn't have to
change that much to make the story work. The series also did something few
horror series have done in Peak TV and be genuinely frightening as well as
gory. The Black Spot episode will rank as one of the tour de force moments in
2025.
The writers clearly have a plan
and they laid the groundwork for it perfectly all season, hiding their secrets
in plain sight. We may not see Dick Hallorann in Season 2 but this is Stephen
King's Maine. There are a lot of characters who've been round.
RETURN
OF A KILLER FRANCHISE
Dexter:
Original Sin and
Resurrection
The prequel to Dexter Original Sin almost from the start
justified its existence. By looking into the Morgan family and starting to show
that there were cracks in it even before what happened to Dexter, we saw a
darker side. And Harry Morgan went from being somewhat heroic as a ghost to
someone who might very well have unleashed more evils than we could have
expected. By getting a glimpse at younger versions of the characters such as
LaGuerta and Angel we saw new sides to them as well as seeing as a teen how Dexter
first unleashed his Dark Passenger.
Personally I would have preferred
another season of Original Sin to spending more time with Dexter in
the present after New Blood. Then I actually saw Resurrection and I
began to see its virtues. We saw Dexter trying to reinvent himself in New York,
trying to rebuild his relationship with Harrison who he'd done much to destroy
and was recovering from the horror. We saw Dexter find himself in a collector
of serial killers featuring some incredible guest roles from Krysten Ritter to
Neil Patrick Harris to Uma Thurman. And Peter Dinklage gave one of the most frightening
performances in his entire career.
We were reminded through both the
specters of Dexter's past and in his present that he couldn't stop hurting
people. This was made clear most tragically in the fate of Angel Batista, who
knew the truth about Dexter spent all season chasing him, paid the price – and with
his haunting last words made it clear he would never forgive him. Dexter has
reinvented himself yet again and once again the path is clear. But we all know
that there will always be a conflict between his need and the collateral damage
he keeps causing. He protected his son this time and Harrison doesn't seem upset
by who he is. But we all know what happens to those who love Dexter and that
there's no real happy ending. But it'll be glorious to see him try to avoid it.
Peak
Jeopardy Returns!
In truth I didn't think I'd be writing
one last note on Jeopardy this year. It had been good, but not great. Then in
the last weeks of July we were graced by the presence of sixteen game winner
Scott Riccardi who managed to win an impressive $455,000 before being laid low.
Then Season 42 started on a far stronger note, with higher paydays and more
consistent winners then we got throughout Season 41 And then the eligibility period for the 2027
Tournament of Champions with yet began another
super-champion Harrison Whitaker who won 14 games and just over $374,000 before
December became the cruelest month.
Throw in the appearance of a
(non-evil) twin brother of Jeopardy super champions Ray Lalonde Ron and the
viewer sees how the family of Jeopardy continues to expand in the post-Trebek
era. Who could ask for anything more? (Well, maybe bring back the College
Championship.)
And that's it for 2025. I'll ring in the New Year with my recap of
the final week of the Jeopardy semi-finals and look out this weekend for my predictions
for the 2026 Critics Choice Awards as Emmy Watch 2026 officially begins.
Happy New Year!
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