So we're turning it over to you, the Doux Reviews readers: what were your best TV shows and movies this year? What about books? Video games? This is also a great place to talk about the stuff that wasn't necessarily good, but stuck with you in some odd way.
It's also a good time to look ahead: what are you looking forward to in 2026? I'm most excited about Christopher Nolan's take on the Odyssey.
Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)
I didn't do a "Best of" this year, and I probably should have. You guys mentioned pretty much everything I would have posted.
ReplyDeleteDexter: Resurrection was so good that it was a pleasant surprise. Although I'm sorry that Dexter: Original Sin was canceled possibly because Resurrection was so good. Original Sin started out a bit meh but it ended really well, as if they had found their stride.
Andor was just terrific. So good that maybe other Star Wars properties will pay attention, I hope. Pluribus was new and different and very intriguing. Josie got me to try The Lazarus Project and I sure wish there was more of it. I also wish there were more of Poker Face.
After two terrific seasons, Strange New Worlds seems to have lost some of its mojo in season three. I hope four and five are as good as one and two. And that it will immediately segue into a Paul Wesley-led original Star Trek reboot. And I'm looking forward to the final season of Outlander in March.
I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of stuff. It's been another rough, strange year. And not just politically.
Happy new year, everyone!
I still love watching competition shows while I am fussing around the house. Josie got me hooked on Sewing Bee and I am seriously considering actually sewing something for the first time in my life. I have been doing a lot of knitting which zens me out when I am at the end of my rope.
ReplyDeleteI was very disappointed in Bake Off this year. It felt as though the four judges were just going through the motions and I didn't find my annual underdog to root for.
I am looking forward to Odyssey as well. I have had to read it twice, so I will be interested to see it come to life on the big screen. And, being the complete history nerd that I am, I am excited about all the 250 specials that will inevitably drop this year.
ChrisB, if you're really interested in trying to get into sewing, I have great news: the sewing world has radically changed thanks to the internet!
DeleteYou aren't limited to the old-school paper patterns by Simplicity, McCall, etc. There are lots of independent pattern makers who sell PDFs of their patterns. You can print them at a copy shop or on a home printer (in the latter case you have to tape them together).
This is a UK website, but it's my first stop when I'm looking for a pattern. The PDFs are available to buy for those of us in the US. Or, if a particular PDF isn't available, you can usually search the pattern designer's name and buy it from their website: https://thefoldline.com/
Oops, I forgot the say: https://thefoldline.com/ also runs posts about which of their patterns (since they're a pattern aggregate site) might be similar to something sewn on Sewing Bee!
DeleteJosie -- thanks for this! I can foresee thefoldline becoming a rabbit hole site for me. I'll let you know how I get on.
DeleteI have a feeling most of what I watched this year wasn't actually made in 2025. Of the new movies I saw, I guess Sinners was the best, but I didn't see very many. On the TV side, possibly the best episode of TV I saw from 25 dropped on December 30: Fallout, season 2, episode 3: The Profligate. I wasn't overly sure of the new season's direction after the first 2 episodes, but as a huge fan of Fallout: New Vegas , I just LOVED this episode. It featured really interesting, character-revealing choices by both Maximus and the Ghoul that echo the kinds of choices the games feature at their best.
ReplyDeleteI enter 2026 with a lot of dread and uncertainty to be honest. despite that, I am looking forward to Hytale releasing into early access though. It's been a rocky ride, and was actually canceled at one point by Riot. The original owner bought it back and is releasing it now, and it looks to be Minecraft but better.
ReplyDeleteOne of the problems I have with this sort of thing is going through my list of watched films & shows and realising that I don't remember what half of them were about. I suppose that means they weren't worth much. I also think that the main reason I remember anything I watched when I was younger is that I saw those films several times.
ReplyDeleteAnyway!
As far as new-in-2025 properties are concerned, the best thing I saw during the past year has to have been Andor. The first series was absolutely brilliant, and the second every bit its match. Hard to believe a Star Wars franchise entry could be number one on my list, but there it is.
I had been very much looking forward to Alien: Earth, and was very much let down. I've already said all I want to say about that, and will add that I have no desire to watch the next instalment.
Del Toro's Frankenstein was good, though perhaps not quite as good as it could have been; I thought the ending was particularly naff, turning the Creature into some sort of superhero. It did drive me to finally read the original (which, I must say, is just ever so slightly interminable), and I was surprised to find how closely the film hewed to the novel, yet perplexed at some of the deviations. Artistic licence and all that; who can say?
The Thursday Murder Club was a waste of talent. If you want to watch something with Pierce Brosnan doing a decent (though limited) bit of work, watch Soderbergh's Black Bag, which was brilliant; Fassbender and Blanchett are perfectly matched.
Also on the plus side, Heads of State with Sir Idris Elba, OBE, and John Cena as bickering alpha males was funny and delivered exactly what it promised: two hours of entertainment. (It's incorrectly titled, of course, as the UK PM is not the head of state; that's what we have a king for.)
The overlooked underwater thriller, Last Breath was, I thought, well done and delivered the requisite tension. I also thought the series Untamed with Eric Bana and Sam Neill was pretty good.
The Residence was hilarious and wonderful and absolutely worth the time to watch. It's up there with all of the Knives Out films in the quality of the ensemble work. Great stuff.
I enjoyed Murderbot, though perhaps not as much as I thought I would; I liked the novels (novellas?) better. Still, pretty well done and worth the time; looking forward to the next series.
Unlike the critics, I thought Dept Q hit the mark. Interesting characters, good writing, and well acted.
The second series of The Recruit was perhaps not quite as surprisingly fun as the first, but was still a solid thriller and worth the watch.
Everything else I watched was from earlier days, and I can only give the merest smattering of the best and more recent, because the comments software here won't let me do more: Nomadland, Calvary, A Man on the Inside, 37 Days, A Perfect Spy, Black Doves, Leave the World Behind, The Order, Shadow in the Cloud, Rebel Ridge, Inglorious Basterds, Relic (not The Relic, but the one with Robyn Nevin), The Gone, Wolf, Lambs of God (let me say that again: Lambs of God; watch it), Talk to Me, Bodkin, The Frozen Ground (Nic!), The Limey, and The Empty Man. Also burning through The X Files again because it's Mulder and Scully and I can't get enough of Dana Scully; the original, one-and-only Star Trek because nothing comes close in the simple perfection of its inspired casting and concept; University Challenge and Only Connect, the finest UK quiz shows (US viewers have to resort to VPNs to watch; not sure if they're avaiable on Acorn or some other BBC-friendly outlet).
Far too many others to mention, but there you go. Try to have a happy new year, though I think it's going to be pretty damned tough, and there are going to be a lot of people who would otherwise have lived through it who aren't going to.
Sorry for the botched close-italic tags after The Residence and Untamed. Should have run it through BBEdit's check first.
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