Fire Country is a CBS firefighting drama co-created by and starring Max Thieriot, and one of the most-watched scripted series on American broadcast television. It follows Bobby Bode Donovan, a young convict who joins a prison release program that places incarcerated firefighters on the front lines of Northern California's wildfires in exchange for a shot at reducing their sentences.
Bode is assigned to work in Edgewater, his small hometown, where he must face the family and community he left behind as he fights alongside the local Cal Fire crew. The ensemble includes Kevin Alejandro, Diane Farr, Billy Burke and Jordan Calloway, and the series balances high-stakes rescue set pieces with the family melodrama and small-town tensions at its emotional core.
A breakout hit for CBS, Fire Country consistently ranks among the top-rated scripted series on American broadcast television and has spawned an expanding franchise of spin-offs. Its blend of procedural firefighting action and soapy family drama has made it a dependable ratings anchor across multiple seasons. It streams on Paramount+.
Running Point is a breezy, joke-packed Netflix sports comedy created by Mindy Kaling, Ike Barinholtz, and David Stassen, loosely inspired by the life of Los Angeles Lakers executive Jeanie Buss. Kate Hudson stars as Isla Gordon, the overlooked sister in a basketball dynasty who is unexpectedly named president of the fictional Los Angeles Waves after her brother steps down, forcing a woman long dismissed as the family's party girl to prove she can run a struggling professional franchise.
Surrounded by skeptical brothers, a demanding roster, and a league that never quite takes her seriously, Isla sets out to turn the team around while wrangling her chaotic family. Hudson, in her first major television lead, brings her signature warmth and comic timing to a role that lets her be both glamorous and self-deprecating. The ensemble, including Brenda Song, Drew Tarver, Scott MacArthur, and Chet Hanks, gives the show a rapid-fire, workplace-comedy rhythm familiar from Kaling's other series.
Premiering in February 2025, Running Point became an immediate streaming hit and was renewed by Netflix for a second season within weeks, buoyed by Hudson's star turn and the reliable appeal of an underdog sports comedy. Light on its feet and unabashedly crowd-pleasing, it streams on Netflix.
Win or Lose holds a landmark place in Pixar's history as the studio's first-ever original long-form series, an animated comedy that brings Pixar's feature-quality craft and emotional depth to episodic television. Created by Carrie Hobson and Michael Yates, the eight-episode series follows a co-ed middle-school softball team, the Pickles, over the course of the week leading up to their big championship game, examining the anxieties, hopes, and inner lives of the kids, coaches, and parents in their orbit.
The show's clever structural conceit is that each episode retells the same week from a different character's point of view, revealing how the same events look wildly different depending on whose eyes you see them through. A nervous young pitcher, an overwhelmed coach, a kid navigating family stress, each perspective is rendered with its own visual flourishes that externalize that character's emotional state, a technique that lets the series explore empathy and subjectivity in a way tailor-made for Pixar's storytelling strengths.
Debuting on Disney+ in early 2025, Win or Lose drew attention both for its inventive format and for a pre-release controversy when Disney removed a storyline involving a transgender character, a decision that generated significant discussion. Reviews praised the animation and the show's tender understanding of adolescent anxiety. It streams on Disney+.
Duster is a high-octane 1970s crime thriller from J.J. Abrams and co-creator LaToya Morgan, marking Abrams' return to creating a television series. Set in the sun-baked American Southwest in 1972, the show follows Jim Ellis (Josh Holloway), a charismatic getaway driver for a growing crime syndicate whose life takes a sharp turn when it collides with a determined federal agent's investigation. The series revels in the muscle cars, desert vistas, and outlaw cool of its era, built around Holloway's roguish, movie-star charm.
Rachel Hilson co-stars as Nina Hayes, one of the first Black female agents in the FBI, who recruits Jim as an informant in her crusade to bring down the syndicate's ruthless boss, played by Keith David. The uneasy alliance between the fast-talking wheelman and the principled, underestimated agent forms the spine of the show, which mixes propulsive car chases and heist mechanics with a period-accurate portrait of a country in transition. Its bright, kinetic style signals that the series is out to entertain first and foremost.
Premiering on HBO Max in May 2025, Duster earned solid reviews for its retro energy, its charismatic lead performances, and its throwback commitment to practical car stunts. It reunited Abrams with the kind of character-driven genre fun that made his name, and gave Holloway one of his most enjoyable roles since Lost. It streams on HBO Max.
Pulse holds the distinction of being Netflix's first original English-language medical drama, a fast-paced ensemble series set in the high-pressure trauma center of Miami's Maguire Medical Center. Created by Zoe Robyn and developed with veteran showrunner Carlton Cuse, the series follows a team of emergency-medicine residents whose personal and professional lives collide as they treat a relentless stream of patients, all under the added strain of a looming hurricane bearing down on South Florida.
Willa Fitzgerald stars as Dr. Danny Simms, a third-year resident who is unexpectedly promoted to interim chief resident just as she files a complaint against her supervisor and former romantic partner, Dr. Xander Phillips (Colin Woodell). The series unfolds across two timelines, gradually revealing what happened between them while its ensemble contends with the day-to-day intensity of emergency medicine. The result blends the workplace-romance intrigue and rapid-fire medical cases that have long made the genre a staple, updated for a streaming binge model.
Premiering in April 2025, Pulse drew a large audience hungry for a new medical drama and quickly became one of Netflix's most-watched titles of its season, even as critics offered mixed reviews. Its central storyline, which foregrounds a workplace power imbalance and a harassment complaint, gave the familiar genre a contemporary edge. It streams on Netflix.
Good American Family is a Hulu limited drama series inspired by the real and deeply contested Natalia Grace case, which had already fueled tabloid headlines and documentaries. Premiering in March 2025, the show dramatizes the story from deliberately shifting perspectives, refusing to hand viewers a single tidy version of the truth.
Ellen Pompeo and Mark Duplass star as an American couple who adopt a Ukrainian-born girl with a form of dwarfism, played by newcomer Imogen Faith Reid, only to come to believe she is actually an adult posing as a child. The series moves between the adoptive parents' account and Natalia's own, forcing the audience to weigh competing, often irreconcilable claims about what really happened inside the home.
The project drew significant attention as Pompeo's first major series lead since her long run on Grey's Anatomy, with the actress also serving as an executive producer. Reviews were mixed, but the sensational real-life subject and its ambiguous storytelling made it one of Hulu's most talked-about dramas of the year. Good American Family streams on Hulu.
The Paper is a Peacock mockumentary comedy set in the universe of The Office, created by Greg Daniels, who adapted the original American series, together with Michael Koman. Premiering in September 2025, it revives the beloved documentary-crew conceit by sending the same filmmakers who once chronicled Dunder Mifflin off to find a brand-new subject.
This time the cameras follow the Toledo Truth Teller, a struggling Midwestern newspaper, and the earnest new editor (Domhnall Gleeson) trying to resurrect it with a ragtag crew of volunteer reporters. Sabrina Impacciatore and Chelsea Frei co-star, while Oscar Nuñez returns as accountant Oscar Martinez, the lone original Office character folded into the new ensemble.
Reviews were generally warm, praising the show for finding its own rhythm while honoring the spirit of its predecessor, and Peacock renewed it for a second season. By centering a dying local newspaper, the series gives its workplace comedy a timely, bittersweet backdrop. The Paper streams on Peacock.
Wayward is a Netflix limited thriller series created by and starring comedian Mae Martin, released in September 2025. A sharp departure from Martin's stand-up and their comedy series Feel Good, it trades laughs for dread, building a slow-burn mystery around a seemingly idyllic small town and the secretive institution at its heart.
Martin plays a police officer who becomes entangled with Tall Pines, an academy for troubled teenagers run by the charismatic and unnerving Evelyn Wade, played by Toni Collette. As two students try to escape the program, the show peels back the community's wholesome facade to expose the coercive machinery of the so-called troubled-teen industry, drawing on real-world reporting about such facilities.
The series debuted at number one on Netflix and amassed well over a billion streaming minutes within weeks, even as critics were sharply divided over its tone and ambitions. Collette's performance drew particular attention and helped make the show one of the most-discussed Netflix titles of the fall. Wayward streams on Netflix.
Gen V is a Prime Video superhero series set in the universe of the hit show The Boys, trading that show's jaded adults for the ambitious, unstable young supes of Godolkin University, a Vought-funded college where students compete for ranking and fame. After debuting in 2023, the series returned for a darker, eventful second season in September 2025.
The ensemble is led by Jaz Sinclair as Marie Moreau, alongside Lizze Broadway, Maddie Phillips, London Thor, Derek Luh, and Asa Germann, as the students uncover sinister secrets beneath their school's glossy surface. Season 2 raises the stakes with a new threat at Godolkin and storylines that feed directly into the events of The Boys' fifth and final season, making it essential viewing for fans of the wider franchise.
Season 2 also carried real-world weight: it paid tribute to cast member Chance Perdomo, who died in 2024, honoring him rather than recasting his role. The season drew strong reviews and reinforced Gen V's place as a vital corner of The Boys universe. Gen V streams on Prime Video.
IT: Welcome to Derry is an HBO Max horror series that serves as a prequel to Andy and Barbara Muschietti's blockbuster IT films, expanding Stephen King's nightmarish vision of the cursed town of Derry, Maine. Developed by Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, and Jason Fuchs, it premiered in October 2025 and brings the franchise's shape-shifting evil back to the small screen.
Set in 1962, roughly 27 years before the events of the first film, the series follows the residents of Derry as a wave of disappearances and terror signals the return of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, with Bill Skarsgård reprising the role that made him a horror icon. The story weaves together a group of children and townspeople confronting an ancient malevolence that feeds on the town's buried history.
The premiere became one of the most-watched series debuts in HBO Max's history, and the Muschiettis have said Stephen King granted them broad creative freedom to deepen Derry's mythology. Its success also sent the earlier IT films surging back up the streaming charts. IT: Welcome to Derry streams on HBO Max.
Pluribus is a science-fiction drama on Apple TV+ created by Vince Gilligan, the mind behind Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Premiering in November 2025, it reunites Gilligan with his Better Call Saul star Rhea Seehorn in a lead role he wrote specifically for her, and it arrived wrapped in unusual secrecy about its actual premise.
Seehorn plays Carol Sturka, introduced as possibly the most miserable person on Earth, who finds herself at the center of an extraordinary global event. A mysterious contagion begins sweeping through humanity, and Carol must reckon with being one of the few people left untouched by it. Gilligan builds the show around his gift for character study and slow-burn tension, filtering a high-concept science-fiction idea through one deeply unhappy, resistant individual.
The series set a record as the biggest drama launch in Apple TV's history and drew strong reviews, with particular praise for Seehorn's performance, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination soon after the premiere. Apple renewed the show and it quickly became one of the platform's signature titles. Pluribus streams on Apple TV+.
