DH’s Anticipated TV In 2025: #1-20 – Dark Horizons

A new year is here and with it comes a look at the most anticipated titles of the year in terms of television.

Finishing our coverage with those ranked 1-20, this includes rebel scum standing up to the Empire, Joel facing the consequences of his choice, the Going Merry crew entering the Grand Line, xenomorphs hitting Earth, the end of the Upside Down, and the return of the Man Without Fear.

There’s also the Slough House crew stopping another plot, Jack Reacher not being the biggest guy in the room, Lestat trying to rock the world, Charlie Cale trying to stay out of trouble, the return of Team Peacemaker and Wednesday Addams, a look at a younger Pennywise the Clown and more.

Here’s the list, links to the entire guide are below the descriptions:

1. “Andor” Season 2 (Disney+)
Without question, the best filmed “Star Wars” work since the original trilogy returns with a final season that retains the first season’s several mini-arcs structure but will boast year-long time jumps between them as it races to reach the events of “Rogue One”. Hopefully that won’t lead to it feeling rushed, and in fact could work in its favour – avoiding the pacing issues early on in the first season. I’m genuniely anticipating this more than almost every film coming out next year.

2. “The Last of Us” Season 2 (HBO)
HBO’s adaptation of the acclaimed PlayStation game hit it out of the park with the first season, sticking to the first game quite loyally though also made a few changes that were incredibly well-received. Here they’re adapting what appears to be the first third of “The Last of Us Part II” game – a much darker, more epic, but also more divisive title that some loathe and some adore (I think its brilliant). Much of the game’s best stuff (eg. Day 2 Abby) is being held back until Season 3, but some events here are going to hit like a bomb when they happen.

3. “One Piece” Season 2 (Netflix)
Netflix’s live-action take on the long-running anime marked the first time a work of anime jumped to live-action successfully after so many failures. Obvious love of the material, lavish production values with practical sets everywhere, and a great fresh faced cast with excellent chemistry made it one of 2023’s most fun binges. Here it gets a shorter second season adapting the pre-Arabasta arcs and bringing in some great talent like Katey Sagal and Joe Manganiello to add to the high-seas hijinks.

4. “Alien: Earth” (FX)
Famed “Fargo” and “Legion” creator Noah Hawley is showrunning this TV series set within the “Alien” franchise. More specifically events unfold in 2120, two years before those of Ridley Scott’s original film. It begins when a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth. A young woman (Sydney Chandler) and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery in the wreckage. The series will reportedly retain the original film’s retro-futuristic aesthetic.

5. “Stranger Things” Season 5 (Netflix)
Having filmed across the entirety of 2024, the cast and crew of “Stranger Things” wrapped production on their final season the other week. Netflix is expected to turn this into a big event later in the year after the fourth season had the streamer’s biggest-ever premiere weekend for an English-language series. Plot specifics are under wraps beyond it mostly returning to the town of Hawkins, and of course the season likely to have massive budgets for the total of its run.

6. “Daredevil: Born Again” (Disney+)
Depending upon how “Fantastic Four” turns out, this could be the most or second most exciting Marvel work to come out next year. Ditching plans to retool it into a legal procedural, Marvel is essentially giving us a fourth season of the Netflix series (with a fifth on the way) and offering the kind of dark gritty drama meets adult sensibility within the MCU that it has only teased to date. The key players are back, as is Jon Bernthal’s Punisher, and if it goes well this could well be ongoing.

7. “Slow Horses” Season 5 (Apple TV+)
Apple’s critically beloved and darkly comic espionage series has been consistently great and has already completed filming its fifth run along with being renewed for a sixth. Here, the fifth season will be based on Mick Herron’s novel “London Rules” and deals with a random string of terror attacks rocking the country, while Claude Whelan (James Callis) finds himself under fire from multiple corners.

8. “Reacher” Season 3 (Amazon Prime)
The textbook example of a series that works better as a binge (ie. Season 1) than a weekly release (ie. Season 2), the third run of the show sees one of the better Lee Child books about the character – “Persuader” – being adapted. Here, Alan Ritchson’s character must take down a notorious drug trafficker operating from a heavily fortified lakeside mansion and has a massive bodyguard who makes Reacher seem short.

9. “Interview with the Vampire” Season 3 (AMC)
AMC took on the challenge of adapting Anne Rice’s first ‘vampire’ novel across two seasons, in doing so did the impossible – delivered a quite different second season adapting the weaker back half of the novel into a superior screen one with rich performances, wonderful writing, superb production quality and fascinating character dynamics. For the third run they’re adapting the second book “The Vampire Lestat” and changing things up again, moving Sam Reid’s Lestat more front-and-center along with a more punk rock vibe.

10. “Blade Runner 2099” (Amazon Prime)
A sequel to both Ridley Scott’s original film and Denis Villeneuve’s sequel, this takes place a half century later with Michelle Yeoh and Hunter Schafer starring. The series will see a Blade Runner nearing the end of her life and a fugitive replicant teaming up to stop a widening conspiracy that poses an existential threat. Silka Luisa (“Shining Girls”) serves as showrunner and executive produces the project alongside Scott. Shot across Prague and Belfast over the back half of 2024, don’t expect this until year’s end.

11. “The Diplomat” Season 3 (Netflix)
The shorter and faster paced second season of the Keri Russell-led series ended on one of the greatest TV cliffhangers of recent years. So many questions linger about the third season after those final few minutes put everyone’s position in question. One thing we do know is that Netflix was already filming the third season as the second aired, and this time it’s going back to the full eight episodes of the first – hopefully the superb quality of the writing and acting are maintained.

12. “Poker Face” Season 2 (Peacock)
Rian Johnson’s critically acclaimed, inverted detective story dramedy series returns as Natasha Lyonne’s human lie detector Charlie Cale keeps on solving character-driven case-of-the-week mysteries. Filmed over the last six months of 2024, guest stars are under wraps though both Johnson and Lyonne direct episodes over the new run.

13. “Peacemaker” Season 2 (HBO)
James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” spin-off is back, the first season proving even more enjoyable than Gunn’s film thanks to fun work from John Cena, Freddie Stroma and others. Here the team return for a new season which shifts the action into the new DC Universe and brings in Frank Grillo’s Rick Flagg Sr. from “Creature Commandos”. Other specifics of the new season are under wraps, but it will launch shortly after the release of Gunn’s “Superman” film in cinemas next July.

14. “IT: Welcome To Derry” (HBO)
A prequel to the two “IT” films based on the Stephen King novel, this sees the film’s director Andy Muschietti returning to executive produce and directs four of the nine episodes of this prequel in the early 1960s in a period before Pennywise the Clown goes into hibernation. Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, James Remar and Bill Skasgard star in the series which will cover some events from the book (eg. the Black Spot) not really done in the films.

15. “Wednesday” Season 2 (Netflix)
Tim Burton, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar’s smash hit supernatural series and reinvention of “The Addams Family” finally returns after three years and has seen a shift in shooting locale to Ireland, along with some creative changes for the show. Gone is the teen romance angle, replaced with an emphasis on more horror. Also the family characters like Gomez and Morticia are expected to get more screen time in the new outing.

16. “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” Season 3 (Paramount+)
The third outing for Captain Pike’s crew sees Montgomery Scott (Martin Quinn) join the crew full time, Cillian O’Sullivan playing Dr. Roger Korby from TOS, and Rhys Darby guest starring. One episode will see some of the crew transformed into Vulcans, another is a Hollywood murder mystery which Jonathan Frakes directed and dubs the “best episode of TV I’ve had the privilege of directing”.

17. “Spider-Noir” (Amazon Prime)
Amazon is spinning off Nicolas Cage’s memorable “Spider-verse” character – a spin on P.I. characters like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe – into his own live-action series. Here he’s an aging private investigator and superhero in an alternate version of 1930s New York City. His investigation into a death leads him to discover the Mayor is involved with crime boss Silvermane and femme fatale Yuri Watanabe. Jack Huston, Lamorne Morris, Brendan Gleeson and more star in the show which is currently filming in Los Angeles and wraps next month.

18. “Criminal” (Amazon Prime)
An adaptation of the famed Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips comics, the series follows multiple generations of criminal families and explores the murders that connect their pasts. Celebrated novelist Jordan Harper teams with Brubaker as showrunners on the project which stars the likes of Charlie Hunnam, Richard Jenkins, Adria Arjona, Emilia Clarke, Luke Evans, Garrett Hedlund and more. Directing duties were split with half going to Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (“Captain Marvel”), the other half to Dee Rees (“Mudbound”).

19. “Young Sherlock” (Amazon Prime)
Having directed the two “Sherlock Holmes” films with Robert Downey Jr., filmmaker Guy Ritchie returns to the characters with this prequel to the Arthur Conan Doyle stories. Hero Fiennes Tiffin stars as a 19-year-old Holmes who is an unruly, unfiltered and undisciplined amateur investigator at Oxford University. He sets out to solve his first murder mystery and uncovers a scheme with global implications. Zine Tseng, Joseph Fiennes, Natascha McElhone and Colin Firth co-star along with Max Irons as Mycroft and Donal Finn as Moriarty.

20. “Wycaro 339” (Apple TV+)
“Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” creator Vince Gilligan’s new work is a sci-fi series starring Rhea Seehorn and set once again in present-day Albuquerque, New Mexico. This time, the town has “faced an abrupt change away from the world as it is known.” The project already has a second season order and was shooting for much of this year with little known about it beyond genre, leading star and that it’s not about “crime or meth”.

The Full Guide
DH’s Anticipated TV In 2025: #1-20
DH’s Anticipated TV In 2025: #21-40
DH’s Anticipated TV In 2025: #41-60
DH’s Anticipated TV In 2025: #61-80
DH’s Anticipated TV In 2025: Honorable Mentions