With Eyes East

I watch bad TV for a living, and I don’t mean the fun, “so bad it’s good” sort of material, but the hours and hours of mundane CBS procedurals and sitcoms that aren’t designed for one’s full attention – “brain-melting” content, which serves a purpose, sure, however encroached upon by TikTok. I say this because it takes a lot to shock me these days, and for whatever reason, 2025 was generous with truly terrible, offensively bad TV. Discussing the worst TV shows of a given year has not been a regular feature here, nor will it be – with any luck – but I had to make something of the experience of watching this dreck.

Special Mention: The Last of Us

A show with genuine spikes of drama and spectacle can’t truly place in a “worst of” list, but the second season of HBO’s The Last of Us was an entirely avoidable downgrade. There are at least two ingredients: one, the main character Ellie has been reshaped from a dour, serious survivor to a goofy, incompetent fool, and two, the story structure has been inexplicably not reshaped from the source material. The game on which this season is based, The Last of Us Part II, had a unique structure which played with perspective and empathy – you were the ostensible “hero” Ellie in one half, and the ostensible “villain” in the other. This is the more immersive approach than the switching of, say, Halo 2, way back in 1967, though that was, ironically, more like a TV show, or a movie. Season two of The Last of Us is true to the game, and basically reproduces Ellie’s half, instead of intercutting it with the villain’s. Season three promises the overall better story, with more memorable characters and set pieces, but my love for this brand (carried wholly on the strength of the original 2013 game) is all but extinguished.

Special Mention, Most Improved: Boston Blue

Blue Bloods was undoubtedly the worst police procedural, but surprisingly, its spinoff, Boston Blue, doesn’t share its worship of the police industry nor its vintage racial politics. At least, as far as I’ve seen. Starring perhaps the only tolerable member of the Wahlberg clan now flanked by an earthbound Sonequa Martin-Green, this story of a family dynasty controlling a city’s law enforcement tackles the same tricky issues without automatically defaulting to “the police did nothing wrong and everybody else sucks.” I was pleasantly surprised. Not enough to watch in my free time, but it’s a considerable step up from the stiff-jointed, heavy-sighing original.

5) Alien: Earth

From strong opening hours to a nonsensical conclusion viewed through clawed fingers gripping like a facehugger, Alien: Earth is the broken product of too many cooks and too much time in the kitchen. Creator Noah Hawley’s original ideas for what the first Alien show should be were mixed and remixed over the course of six years until we got something with flashy, iconographic imagery and halfway interesting setups – both with zero payoff. The superficial themes of robot souls and simulacra would feel stale without a century of science fiction; they were talking about this in shows as recent as Black Mirror and Westworld. Granted, Westworld is old at this point, but it wasn’t six years ago.

4) All’s Fair

After the first episode, I didn’t get the hype. I mean, I understood it basically. All’s Fair is practically a victim of external circumstances, chiefly our collective exhaustion with Ryan Murphy. He was so ready for the “slop era,” its harbinger and now its champion. And if we credit The People vs. OJ Simpson more to Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (which we should), that leaves him with one genuinely great show to his name – Pose – and countless seasons of American Horror Story and its many derivatives. There’s simply too much that’s offensive about All’s Fair, from the reasonable allegation that it’s Kim Kardashian roleplaying a lawyer after several failed attempts at a license in the real world to the very subject matter of rich women helping rich women out of legal trouble being a worthy, possibly empowering imposition upon our screens. It was the second episode that sealed the deal for me, which lacked the oomph of even the premiere, sputtering into a shapeless, garish, cynical mess. Like with Alien: Earth, though, there will be a second season.

3) Landman

In any other year, this would be number one, and it’s incredible it’s only number three. Landman is trash. It fails as a television show, entirely bereft of drama or characters or forward momentum, and it fails as a moral work of art, being propaganda for the oil industry (well documented). This is only the latest from Taylor Sheridan, who’s the television equivalent of a mainstream country song (see also, his country version of American Idol, CBS’s The Road). You might be surprised that he got his start on the writing side with the screenplay for Sicario, a well-researched, authentic-sounding script that provided the basis for a mean, intense thriller. Of course, the potent sexism in that film reaches a nadir of shrill absurdity in Landman, with every female character (including the sexy 17-year-old daughter played by a 27-year-old actress) a shrieking, fluttering Archaeopteryx with no idea about how oil or business or life is supposed to work. Better explain it, men. But damn, do they like money and fucking. It’s embarrassing that an adult man thinks about women this way (and that’s coming from me).

2) English Teacher

It’s impossible to prove, but I hated this show before we learned about its star’s allegations of stalking and sexual assault. Once something like that happens, it’s better to erase the guy, but I do want to communicate just how bad his show was. Comedy is subjective, of course, but English Teacher is unfunny in the exact same way that Chuck Lorre shows are unfunny. It’s on autopilot, moving to the template rhythm of familiar sitcoms – in this case, FX shows – and nailing predictable punchlines with deliveries so self-assured they feel halfhearted. It’s also a “dramedy,” which means we’re supposed to actually care about this dipshit and his relationship troubles. That’s basically impossible, especially when a show positions its main character as the only competent, sane man, surrounded by identically foolish people, even if he learns occasionally that he shouldn’t be so perfect all the time? Jesus, this guy sucks.

1) Chrisleys

I don’t remember the name of this show and I’m not gonna look it up. As bad as Landman and English Teacher are, the title of “Worst Show of the Year” is reserved for this clan of assholes. This isn’t just bad TV, it should not be on TV. It’s a troll. For those who don’t know, the Chrisleys were the subject of a reality show not long ago on TLC (?) before Ma and Pa were convicted of insider trading (or embezzlement or whatever the fuck). After the daughter cried to Big Daddy Trump, the white-collar felons were pardoned and released, and are now back, manufacturing the usual screechy drama but now wearing the stupid red hat. A celebration of how easily justice is perverted by money, it would almost be patronizing if anyone were watching. The producers of this show have no spine, no creative ambition, and no moral rectitude. I hope it blows back on them for the rest of their lives, assuming they’re capable of shame somewhere inside their infinite capacity for greed.