Best and worst TV of 2025 so far 

• NBC
• The Hunting Party

It may feel like it's been a decade since Jan. 1—or, more accurately, Jan. 20—but the year is still young. In the TV biz, new series that debut in late winter/early spring are usually considered to be leftovers that weren't good enough for the fall TV season. Not in 2025: Several new shows have come out strong, and, with a couple of exceptions, it's an excellent crop. Here's what to seek out (and avoid).

The Hunting Party (NBC, Peacock): A secret underground Wyoming super-jail is hit with a mysterious explosion, setting the nation's worst—or best, depending on your true-crime podcast feed—serial killers loose in the wild. Now, it's up to FBI profiler Bex Henderson (Melissa Roxburgh) to track them down before they kill again, one per weekly episode. Procedurals like Criminal Minds and The Blacklist have tread here before, but Roxburgh carries the taut Hunting Party with grim grit and a dash of humor.

Paradise (Hulu): It was billed in advance as a "political doomsday thriller," which seemed like the last thing we need since we're currently living in one. But Paradise upended all expectations with an early twist that made it the buzz of the season. The no-spoiler gist: Former U.S. President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) is the first-ever murder victim in the utopian future community of Paradise, leading Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) to find the killer. And that's only a thin slice of the plot.

Daredevil: Born Again (Disney+): Fortunately, Daredevil: Born Again isn't about the classic Marvel superhero/vigilante finding Jesus. Set years after the 2015–2018 Netflix Daredevil series, Born Again finds blind attorney Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) retired from the crime-busting nightlife. But when his former adversary Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio), runs for New York City mayor, it's time to dust off the red suit and horns. Daredevil: Born Again is just as dark, violent and mesmerizing as its predecessor.

Deli Boys (Hulu): The lush lives of spoiled Pakistani-American brothers Mir and Raj (Asif Ali and Saagar Shaikh) come crashing down when their convenience-store tycoon father suddenly dies. Going from bad to worse, it's revealed that Pops was also secretly the head of a criminal organization that they're ill-equipped to take over. Deli Boys shares some bumbling family crime-comedy vibes with Weeds, and smartly plays up a hilariously arresting breakout star in Poorna Jagannathan as the brothers' mob liaison, Lucky.

Running Point (Netflix): She's starred in many a rom-com and psychological thriller movie since the '90s, but Running Point is Kate Hudson's first bona fide headlining gig for TV—needless to say, she nails this, too. Running Point sits in the tricky genre of "sports comedy," with Hudson as an ex-party girl who inherits her family's pro basketball team, the Los Angeles Waves (a none-too-subtle stand-in for the Lakers). It works, thanks to Hudson, a stellar cast and sharp scripting by Mindy Kaling and Ike Barinholtz.

Grosse Pointe Garden Society (NBC, Peacock): Grosse Pointe Garden Society, centered on four members of a suburban gardening club (Melissa Fumero, Aja Naomi King, Ben Rappaport, and AnnaSophia Robb) hiding a mysterious murder, lives up to its "next Desperate Housewives" hype. The story is told in flashback-and-present tense and gives Fumero plenty of room to shine as sardonic socialite Birdie, a hyper-fashionable hot mess that her former Brooklyn Nine-Nine character would probably hate.

Suits L.A. (NBC, Peacock): The new TV shows of Q1 2025 aren't all gems, and Suits L.A. is a legal drama reboot as lackluster as Matlock is inspired. When the original 2011–2019 cable series Suits blew up in 2023 on Netflix for ... reasons? ... a revival was inevitable. But that heat has fizzled two years later, and it doesn't help that you have to watch this Suits on a weekly broadcast basis instead of as an all-at-once Netflix binge. Suits L.A. is just a snappily-dressed snooze that doesn't recapture any of that old USA Network bliss.

Denise Richards & Her Wild Things (Bravo, Peacock): The title is a play on her notoriously steamy 1998 thriller Wild Things, but I held out hope that Denise Richards & Her Wild Things would be about the actress and former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star running a wacky wildlife habitat. No such luck. It's just more reality slop about how "hard" it is to be a rich and beautiful family in Hollywood. Richards' greatest role remains 1994's Tammy and the T-Rex—watch that instead on Peacock, Tubi or Pluto TV.