There's been some great scripted television this year, from a cliffhanger season finale of Severance that has us waiting on the edges of ours seats to some much-needed closure in the YA-adored The Summer I Turned Pretty. And while I've enjoyed myself some tried-and-true faves (like Slow Horses and The Gilded Age) and even dipped a toe into some new territory (Your Friends and Neighbors and The Pitt), one show has completely caught me by surprise: Apple TV's Pluribus. And I think, it's the best show of the year.
The Best TV Show of 2025 Is...
Not your average zombie apocalypse
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Published Dec 29, 2025
Israel Sebastian/Getty Images/Apple TV
Hear me out: this isn't just some random show. It's from the mind of Vince Gilligan. The guy who gave us Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul—two shows that were not only entirely captivating, but innovated in everything from the shots, to the storytelling, to the casting. (Bob Odenkirk as a dramatic lead?! Genius.) And straight from Better Call Saul to Pluribus comes Rhea Seehorn, the most under-appreciated actress since before people discovered Olivia Colman. But unlike Gilligan's other two lodestars, Pluribus is not centered on a male character, but a queer, complicated, imperfect woman, helmed by Seehorn.
Apple TV
Pluribus is a zombie apocalypse show, but it's so genre-bending that you might not be sure what exactly you're watching at first—I wasn't. In fact, after the pilot, which is very much in the zombie horror arena, I told my husband I couldn't stomach the suspense. He convinced me to watch the second episode, and I was hooked. The show turns the zombie apocalypse trope on its head by asking "but what if the zombies were all happy and kind and never lied or hurt or killed?" In this world, the entire human population has been exposed to an extraterrestrial virus that essentially turns them into one blissful consciousness. For Carol (Seehorn), one of 13 humans totally unaffected by the happy virus, there's no difference.
Apple TV
Although the questions the series asks are lofty (i.e. is happy hive mind really that bad compared to what humans are doing to each other and to the earth?!), I also really enjoy that the writers are relishing the minutia of everyday life in the post-apocalyptic world, like binging Golden Girls as a comfort show. And one of the most impactful scenes in the third episode isn't a zombie-human stand-off, but a funny, surreal moment where Carol demands the zombies re-stock her Sprouts grocery store.
Hyperbole to call it the best show of the year? Not for me—I'm in the Pluribus hive mind.
