The second season of the Australian version of Guy Montgomery’s spelling bee sees comedians such as Hannah Gadsby, Rove McManus, Takashi Wakasugi, Josh Thomas, Dave Hughes, Hamish Blake, and more all take part in the best spelling-bee on TV. There are new rounds to build upon the opening quiz and the buzz round to end the show, but the key to the show’s success continues to be the chemistry between Guy and Aaron Chen.

Melanie Bracewell and Tim McDonald again took us through the weekly news and highlights in a comedic way for 30 weeks in 2025. There were some great guests this year, including Antony Green at his retirement, the Philippou brothers, Reggie Watts, Ben Elton, and Anthony Albanese. The highlight each week is the banter between Bracewell and McDonald, as well as with the cultural correspondent, Mel Tracina.

This Netflix series is the true story of Belle Gibson, and is based on the book The Woman Who Fooled the World by journalists Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano. It follows Kaitlyn Dever as Gibson as she becomes a massive wellness guru and a social media sensation, all of which was hidden behind a bunch of lies, including a fake cancer diagnosis. The series featured strong performances across the board, and it’s an unsettling look at wellness and influencer culture in the modern age.

Playing Gracie Darling is a slow-burning film, but its exploration of our own identity and its focus on character-forward plotting, with strong performances all around, make it a standout of 2025. Morgana O’Reilly plays a child psychologist who returns to her hometown, where 27 years earlier, one of her best friends, Grace Darling, had disappeared, and now there’s another girl who’s gone missing. The series unravels the past and present in both dark and intriguing ways.

This Stan Original series follows four teens who are having their own struggles with their sexuality, and other issues, including racism, internalised homophobia, as well as living in a masculine culture. The characters are messy, allowed to be seen as raw, not perfect, and although there are elements of it drifting into “trauma porn,” I found it just rides the fine line by having such well-written, rounded characters who all generally feel lived in. Having the series set in 2017 around the same-sex marriage plebiscite also adds a concurrent undertone to these teens having been forced, almost, by the world’s events, to tackle their queerness in a more open way because of what was happening in the world around them, which isn’t a story that I’d seen done before.