The Best TV Shows of 2025 You Need To Watch (So Far)

It wasn’t until midway through the first episode, when shock-riddled 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) goes through the emotionless procedure of being arrested after having his world rocked, that I realized the entire episode has been one long, continuous shot. The delay in my recognition of this fact wasn’t due to viewing passively as I lazily scrolled on a second screen. It was because, at its best, Adolescence gets a stranglehold on your attention with its drama, to the point that you’re only focused on what happens next rather than how it’s being presented. The Netflix drama focuses on a troubled teenage boy accused of killing his classmate Katie Leonard (Emilia Holliday), and the multi-layered ramifications that has on a family, a police force, and a school. That’s where the one-shot approach becomes essential.

Most shows take a fragmented approach to offering up the perspectives of different characters on the inciting incident that puts the season in motion. In one episode of such a show, you may get 10 different perspectives that all come into focus by the end of the season. On Adolescence, you spend an entire episode with Jamie and his psychologist Briony Ariston (Erin Doherty), from her entering the facility to the two of them playing a game of chess to them having a session to her sitting in the shocked aftermath of seeing a young boy riddled with volatile self-hate. All of that, without the camera blinking or allowing you to divert from the drama that was unfolding. Also, that episode is on the shortlist of best episodes in Netflix’s history.

When all is said and done, no TV show so far this year has been nearly as impressive or emotionally arresting as Adolescence. And I’m not sure one will be.