Every new year, my resolution is to "watch MORE television".
I say this tongue in cheek but damn it if I don't make a go of making that resolution come true.
Today's Tuesday TV Touchbase looks back at what I watched in 2025.
Several things I watched reached a series finale this year.
The producers of Resident Alien saw the writing on the wall and crafted a season finale that wrapped a neat bow on the series if it was cancelled which it was. Andrea and I miss the found family of Patience, CO but if it had to end, Resident Alien ended on a positive note.
Sandman reached it's end with it's 2nd season. The assumption is the series ended after only 2 seasons due to the scandals surrounding Neil Gaiman but the producers insisted this was the plan all along and given how the series came together and moved towards a definitive end in season 2, I think I believe them.
The revival of Night Court got handed it's walking papers after 4 seasons without any heads up from NBC. The 4th season ended on a cliff hanger, introducing a heretofore unknown husband for Judge Abby Stone played by Simon Helberg. The new Night Court was always hit or miss and to be honestly, more miss than hit. Still, I think it was a shame it did not get to end on it's own terms.
FUBAR came to an end with it's 2nd season. The Netflix spy caper comedy starring Arnold Swarzenegger had some good moments in season 2 but the show was not as tight or engaging as it was in the first season and I'm not particularly surprised or sad that it was time to go.
What the TV gods taketh, they also giveth. New series for 2025 that I watched in 2025 included:
Creature Commandos, the gonzo animated project from James Gunn set in the TV/film DC Universe alongside Gunn's Suicide Squad and Peacemaker. At turns hilarious, sadly poignant and brutally violent, C.C. never ceased to surprise.
Daredevil:Born Again, the Disney+ revival of the Netflix Daredevil series. It is a relentlessly grim series, just like the best of Marvel's Daredevil comics.
Librarians: The Next Chapter follows up on The Librarians. It was a mostly enjoyable continuation of that universe but with a new cast of characters but I couldn't quite shake the notion that LTNC is a secondary substitute for the OG Librarians. I'm hoping that season 2 will better establish the new crew as worthy successors.
Stumble is not based on anything prior. This mockumentary style comedy is an all new concept on NBC about a disgraced cheer coach from a mid-level community college making a go of it at a lower level community college. So far, Andrea and I have enjoyed this show a lot and it has some real genuine laugh out loud comedy.
The Paper is another mockumentary set in the same universe as The Office, set at a struggling Toledo OH newspaper. Andrea and I are enjoying this show as well.
I decided to give Outlander: Blood Of My Blood a try and found a gripping and harrowing drama set in the world of Outlander. I did not want to like O-BOMB but damn it! It has me hooked.
Meanwhile, I caught up on season 7 of Outlander this year and season 8, the series finale is coming up in 2026.
Andrea and I returned for the second season of these series:
- Happy's Place remains a very inoffensive family oriented sit com. This one is mostly for Andrea
- Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage still has not convinced me that Montana Jordan's Georgie should be headlining a sitcom. This one is also mostly for Andrea.
- St. Denis Medical has in only it's 2nd season already succumbed to Flanderization of the characters of Bruce, Joyce and Alex centering around their raging insecurities. Still a viable and mostly funny sitcom.
- Brilliant Minds has stepped up it's game in it's 2nd season and deserves better recognition in both audience numbers and critical acclaim.
- High Potential churned out 7 episodes and went on a break. Star Kaitlan Olson is involved with other projects so this series needs to be doled out in chunks. It remains an engaging and witty crime series.
- Wednesday came back after THREE YEARS (Really?) for a 2nd season. It's a Tim Burton production so the show looks good and feels weird but I think lacks a strong emotional core, relying on style over substance.
Still chugging along....
I said before that Abbott Elementary felt like it was spinning it's wheels but I think I might reconsider that assessment with season 5 shaping up as a really strong effort with some really funny episodes.
In 2025, we also watched the episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia which featured that show's half of the crossover with Abbott Elementary. The title of the episode is "The Gang Fucks Up Abbott Elementary" and it's true.
Everytime I think Ghosts is also spinning it's wheels, it finds a new way to surprise me. This year's Christmas tale with Sam riffing on It's A Wonderful Life was an especially powerful episode.
Andrea and I continue to follow Saturday Night Live even though no one on this show is writing or performing this thing for us. Kudos to James Austin Johnson who is becoming a strong utility performer outside of his on point Trump impersonation. And a sad farewell to Bowen Yang who Andrea has a weird thing for.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds did not land a particularly strong 3rd season. 'Nuff said about that.
Only Murders In the Building continues to deliver it's now traditional "best season ever" or "worst season ever" according to critics. Nobody ever lands in the middle. For my part, season 5 deserved plaudits for challenging Mabel, Charles and Oliver in a new way with the dire personal stakes of potentially losing the Arconia.
A big part of our TV diet here at the Fortress of Ineptitude are late night shows that skewer our dystopian political hellscape with comedy.
- Late Night With Seth Meyers
- The Daily Show
- Jimmy Kimmel Live
- And more. Click on this link for more about these types of shows: It's Funny Because It's True
Game shows were a constant presence on our TV viewing schedule.
- Wheel Of Fortune
- Celebrity Wheel of Fortune
- Jeopardy
- Celebrity Jeopardy
- Jeopardy Masters
- Pop Culture Jeopardy
We sampled Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? when Ken Jennings was paired up with Matt Damon for a celebrity edition of the show. Jimmy Kimmel was pleased to have Ken Jennings on the show but not so much when Ken invited Kimmel's nemesis Damon to be his partner. Yeah, Ken did most of the heavy lifting on the way to the million dollar prize for charity but Matt made some significant contributions as well.
We checked in on the season finale of The Joe Schmo Show without actually watching the episodes before that. Click here for more about why we did that.
Game Changers has become Andrea's obsession. I find this show to be very amusing but I'm perplexed by why Andrea is so in the weeds for this show. Does she have a thing for host Sam Reich? He does look like a sort of teddy bear.... an evil teddy bear but still.
Other things we watched this year?
Secrets of the Penguins as Blake Lively narrates the life and struggles of penguins.
Elton John/Brandi Carlisle Special
Conan O'Brien and the Mark Twain Prize which may be the last good thing to happen at the Kennedy Center.
Everybody's Live With John Mulaney defied the rules of TV talk shows. The season finale featured John Mulaney in a wrestling match with a trio of 13 year old boys.
Here are shows from the past that we caught up on.
Phineas and Ferb continues to delight us as Andrea and I recently completed season 2.
I caught Andrea up to season 3 of Arrested Development but stopped short of the 4th and 5th seasons made for Netflix. Subjecting Andrea to those proceedings may be introduced as evidence in any potential forth coming murder trial. ("You're husband made you watch what before you killed him? OK, you're free to go.")
Netflix dropped A.P. Bio before I could finish my re-watch and USA Network stopped airing season 1 episodes of Poker Face which I enjoyed a lot but I'm not shelling out money for yet another streaming service to catch up on it. (And Peacock has ended the show as of it's 2nd season.)
Mike & Molly became part of our weekend viewing. Then TV Land pulled it from their schedule.
And I got sucked into son Dean and friend Jan's rewatch of House while they were living here this summer.
Andrea and I have two re-watch obsessions:
- Hudson & Rex
- Leverage
Oh my God! That is a LOT of TV!
And I am not done!
I also watched.....
- Invincible
- My Life Is Murder
- Electra Woman and Dyna Girl
- Hacks
- Peacemaker
- Stranger Things
- Law & Order AND Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
I think I achieved peak TV watching in 2025.
And since Jan got me Roku for Christmas, I now have MORE things to watch than ever before!
2026 may find me permanently melded with my couch.
We'll find out in future editions of the Tuesday TV Touchbase.
Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.
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