12 underrated TV gems from 2025 – from The Assembly to Worlds Apart
The best of the small screen over the past 12 months that you might have missed.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
As well as this year’s biggest TV juggernauts – Adolescence (Netflix), The White Lotus (Sky Atlantic), The Celebrity Traitors (iPlayer) et al – we have been spoilt with some relatively undiscovered gems.
Here’s my Deserving Dozen…
1. Confessions of a Brain Surgeon - iPlayer
Pioneering neurosurgeon Henry Marsh quotes French doctor René Leriche, who wrote, “Every surgeon carries within himself a small cemetery… a place of bitterness and regret.” Now retired, Marsh’s regrets are both professional and personal, humble and honest.
2. Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action - Netflix
How did the former Mayor of Cincinnati create a TV phenomenon that pitched itself as a champion of free speech yet stood accused of ruining US culture? Comparing himself to Oprah Winfrey, Springer said, “She does a talk show, I do a circus. Just no lions.”
3. Worlds Apart - Channel 4
Six young Brits each team up with a pensioner to travel across Japan, solve puzzles and try to win a £50,000 prize. They trade energy and wisdom in a reality show not about age, but compassion and comradeship.
4. Last One Laughing - Amazon Prime Video
Ten comedians try to make each other laugh, while not smiling themselves. More proof that there’s nothing funnier than watching someone trying to keep a straight face.
5. Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius - iPlayer
A fascinating two-part documentary follows Austen’s own personal rebellion: only by rejecting an offer of marriage without love and putting herself in financial peril could she dodge a woman of her time’s lot and instead become its greatest-ever chronicler.
6. Once Upon a Time in Space - iPlayer
The awe-inspiring triumphs and devastating tragedies of the two-decade space race, as remembered by those involved. Among them is Anna Fisher, the first mother in space, who told RT, “I didn’t want to be a female astronaut, just an astronaut.”
7. Live Aid at 40 - iPlayer
The day Bob Geldof stopped the world with music. Brian May told RT, “It was one of the few moments in anyone’s life that you know you’re doing something for all the right reasons.” Worth watching for the Radio Ga Ga clap-along alone.
8. Richard Burton: Wild Genius - iPlayer
A sympathetic portrait of a star caught between worlds – stage versus screen, devoted first wife Sybil versus passionate lover Elizabeth Taylor, Wales versus the universe… Was Burton a wasted, tormented talent, or did he pack three lifetimes into one? You decide.
9. The Assembly - ITVX
David Tennant and Gary Lineker are among stars interviewed by young people with autism, other forms of neurodivergence and learning disabilities. These inquisitors succeed in disarming their subjects, resulting in strikingly warm and honest telly – especially when it’s Danny Dyer in the hot seat.
10. Chris McCausland: Seeing into the Future - iPlayer
A self-professed geek who has been blind since his mid-20s, comedian and Strictly winner McCausland is the perfect person to discover what Silicon Valley can offer by way of access-enabling technology – what he calls “building a bridge between blind people and the rest of the world”.
11. Ride or Die - iPlayer
This documentary explores the role that Christian faith plays for bikers in the notoriously dangerous sport of road racing, many of whom tuck holy medals inside their racing leathers. It’s a window into a world of people living on the edge and at peace with the ever-present risk of falling off it.
12. Noel’s Kiwi Adventure - ITVX
With this half-jokey, half-serious series on his attempt to create a rural idyll in New Zealand, Edmonds is often effortlessly Alan Partridge: one minute you want to cheer and the next watch through your fingers. You’d need a heart of granite not to wish him well, and for his tirelessness alone he earns his place at the top of my TV Christmas tree.
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