I shouldn’t be writing this. It would have taken only two different flips of the coin this year for me to write the opposite story, about how Amazon Prime Video took major creative risks with its TV shows and, in doing so, blew the rest of the streamers out of the water. But instead I’m forced to tell you that Amazon simply blew it. Big time.
If you’re racking your brain trying to think of your favorite shows of the year, now that the year-end best-of lists are popping up in your algorithm, I don’t blame you. It was mostly a milquetoast year for bingeing. And even if there were shows you devoured, they probably weren’t on Prime Video.
Looking over the top picks from The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times (which only features new series) and New York magazine, the networks and streamers that had the most critically acclaimed shows out of the 55 chosen among these three lists were HBO/HBO Max (14), Apple TV (9) and Netflix (8). The titan that is Prime Video only had two series that rose to the top with these critics, putting them on par with…Mubi.
I agree with these writers in number. There were indeed two shows on Prime Video that were my favorites of the year by far: the third season of The Wheel of Time, a blockbuster book-to-screen fantasy adaptation that finally took flight after a wobbly start, and Étoile, a madcap dramedy about ballet from Amy Sherman-Palladino, her follow-up to the smash hit The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. While I certainly enjoyed many other efforts this year (the prompt second season of Nobody Wants This, the decade-late second season of Wolf Hall), The Wheel of Time and Étoile gave me a feeling I didn’t get from anything else: that I was watching something wholly unique. These weren’t “new spins on the procedural!” or “fresh takes on the whodunnit!” Instead, these two seasons pushed the artform of television forward in their own exhilarating ways.
So what did these TV creators get for releasing, in my opinion, the best shows of the year? Cancellation notices from Amazon. Actually, it’s even worse than that. The Wheel of Time showrunner Rafe Judkins always planned for eight seasons at best, six at worst. In April, before the plug was pulled, he said he chose Amazon as the home for the show after receiving multiple offers because “Amazon felt like a place where they do want to invest in shows for the long term.” Meanwhile, Étoile was ordered for not one but two seasons when it was announced in 2023. For both of these shows, Amazon essentially told the creators they’d back their creative visions, then reneged on that support. (Good luck winning TV bidding wars in the future!)
The reason for these cancellations is no secret. They didn’t get enough eyeballs, so Prime Video did the math and said they weren’t worth the expense. But what Amazon obviously didn’t factor into their calculations was the potential long-term payoff, both in terms of audience and critical acclaim.
I’ve been covering The Wheel of Time’s rollout since before its debut, having read the 14-book fantasy series by Robert Jordan. I was also a vocal critic of its first season, especially its first episode. But what’s so impressive to me about the series, and gobsmacking about its cancellation, is how much it’s improved — and not just improved from watchable to good. The epic saga, which features familiar flavors of Tolkien, Martin and Rowling in an otherwise singular story of destiny throwing a group of friends into a fight to save the world, went from watchable to unmissable. The latest season featured my favorite episode of TV in years: “The Road to the Spear,” which sees main character Rand al’Thor step into the lives of his ancestors, going back incrementally over thousands of years. The fact that more people aren’t talking about this show, I believe, is that most viewers wrote it off after season one and haven’t given it a second chance, which is a shame.
“The Wheel of Time” vs. Too Big to Fail TV
The most inventive and startling show of the year is being drowned out by conversation-dominating snoozefestsÉtoile, on the other hand, hooked me from the start with its infectious theme and the undeniable Lou de Laâge, a French actress who I was previously unfamiliar with. The subject matter is admittedly not the stuff of viral hot takes — it’s about ballet, not gruesome ER rooms or the Upside Down — but as with the best shows by Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel Palladino (Gilmore Girls, Maisel), the magic is in the alchemy of pairing their rapid-fire dialogue with eccentric characters played by actors who can actually pull it off. Here, they have it in spades: Lou de Laâge as a prima ballerina and eco-activist who spends her free time chasing illegal fishing boats; the brilliant Simon Callow as a billionaire who could make or break the ballet companies in question (sound familiar?); Tiler Peck as a deer-in-the-headlights dancer who’s followed around by a therapist after freezing during Swan Lake (her brilliant performance is even more impressive once you realize she’s a real principal with the New York City Ballet).
Neither of these shows are perfect. I still think The Wheel of Time has pacing problems in its third season, which comes with the territory of adapting 14 books. I also agree with the general spirit of the New York Times review of Étoile: it has issues, including a climactic dance number that’s completely deflated by a tedious accompanying performance from the band Sparks, but any qualms are exponentially outweighed by the positives. Ten years from now, I’ll probably forget most of the TV I watched this year. But the ingenuity of The Wheel of Time and Étoile will stick with me. If Amazon had renewed them, I have a hunch critics and audiences alike would have recognized their greatness in subsequent seasons, too.
I find it telling that, in his roundup of the best TV of 2025, longtime Los Angeles Times critic Robert Lloyd included the Apple TV show Pluribus, but wrote that it’s “more interesting than compelling, but it’s interesting enough.”
Is that really the bar we’re setting for TV these days? “Interesting enough”? If only the people calling the shots at the streamers renewed shows based on creative merit instead of virality. Oh well. If you’re like Lloyd and can only think of shows that were “interesting enough” this year, go bookmark The Wheel of Time and Étoile to watch soon so you, at least, can have a more inspired best-of list for 2025.
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