2025’s Most Disappointing Shows, From ‘All’s Fair’ to ‘Zero Day’
For many, 2025 is ending not with a bang or a whimper but just an exasperated sigh.
Amid all the anxieties and terrors of the last 365 days, even television, our best and most accessible means of escapism, has been letting us down. We had great expectations for the TV shows below — a star-studded Ryan Murphy project! Suits‘ long-awaited return! A new 9-1-1 spinoff! — but they were overhyped and/or underwhelming.
Here we’re counting down the TV shows from this year that had us saying, “We’re not mad — we’re just disappointed.”
9. Zero Day (Netflix)
More like zero stars, are we right? No, Zero Day wasn’t that bad, but it certainly didn’t warrant Robert De Niro’s first starring TV role. In fact, the political thriller about a cyberattack on the United States had too many big-name stars to list, but ultimately, it worked so hard at shoehorning in timely issues that it forgot to provide a coherent storyline.
8. The Z-Suite (Tubi)
With its first live-action original series, Tubi had an opportunity to make a bold statement. And when Lauren Graham signed to play a Gen X-er ad maven replaced by Gen Z upstarts, we had reason to believe this workplace comedy would fit the bill. But the generational humor in The Z-Suite is nothing we haven’t seen before — yes, yes, the olds don’t understand social media — and nothing that Younger didn’t do better.
7. The Last Frontier (Apple TV)
The Last Frontier got on viewers’ last nerves. What seemed like it would be a taut survival thriller — about feds chasing escaped convicts across frigid Alaskan wilds after a plane crash — turned into a 10-episode plod with convoluted twists and patience-punishing procedural action. Apple TV canceled the series after its first and only season, though, and viewers weren’t mourning the loss.
6. Monster: The Ed Gein Story (Netflix)
After sparking controversy with Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, the Monster franchise avoided public ridicule but nevertheless delivered an unfocused and frustrating installment with The Ed Gein Story. This installment traced cinema’s horror genre to a notorious serial killer… while indulging some of the horror genre’s worst habits.
5. 9-1-1: Nashville (ABC)
We don’t begrudge the second 9-1-1 spinoff its improbable emergencies — fire tornadoes included. After all, over-the-top drama is in the franchise’s DNA. What we do fault Nashville for is the contrived soapiness that pits half-brother against half-brother, and worse, wife against ex-girlfriend. (We need some first responder to evacuate Jessica Capshaw to a better show.)
4. The Baldwins (TLC)
We’re sure there could be a docuseries in which Alec Baldwin processes the fatal events on the Rust set. And we had hope that the TLC show would — amid all the family fun of Alec, Hilaria, and their kids — explore the grief on all sides of the tragedy. (Yes, even despite the TLC of it all.) Alas, what we got was a one-sided perspective that felt more like PR spin control — and a reality-TV crash grab — than a balanced docuseries.
3. Pulse (Netflix)
Remember when this medical drama took a dig at Grey’s Anatomy and then lasted all of 10 episodes, compared to the latter show’s 450-plus? Aren’t doctors supposed to avoid such hubris? And speaking of inexcusable choices, the show focused not on Nestor Carbonell and Justina Machado’s characters but on Willa Fitzgerald and Colin Woodell’s and their queasy-making romance-turned-harassment-turned-romance storyline.
2. Suits LA (NBC)
Never mind our disappointment — imagine NBC’s disappointment when the success of Suits on streaming, one of the biggest second acts Hollywood has ever seen, resulted in a spinoff that captured the fashion sense of the original but nothing else! A TV show about practicing law in La-La Land should have been a lot more fun than Suits LA was.
1. All's Fair (Hulu)
To quote a certain TV diva, we were all rooting for you! How dare you! Learn something from this! No, we didn’t have high hopes for newbie actor Kim Kardashian — she might be famous one day! — but this legal drama managed to squander the talents of legendary thespians Glenn Close, Sarah Paulson, Niecy Nash-Betts, and Naomi Watts. There’s nothing fair about this show getting a second season when far more deserving shows don’t.
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