Hogmanay TV preview 2025: Paul Whitelaw's guide to the best New Year viewing
A host of TV regulars will help see the old year out, before some much loved shows appear to welcome in the new one, writes Paul Whitelaw
So that was 2025 then. I hope it treated you kindly. TV-wise it will be remembered as a year when the monumentally powerful drama Adolescence altered the course of our national conversation, thus proving that television is still capable of having that kind of impact. Other highlights included Sally Wainwright’s Riot Women, Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus, Tartan noir Dept Q, romantic comedy-drama Film Club, the hilarious return of Alan Partridge, Doctor Who spin-off The War Between The Land and The Sea, and the ratings-grabbing fun of The Celebrity Traitors. But it’s time now to look forward, not back, as we see what the last gasps of 2025 and first knockings of 2026 have to offer.
In Lives Well Lived (27 December, BBC2, 7:40pm), Kirsty Wark curates celebrity-led obituaries for some of the major public figures we lost this year, including Gene Hackman, Diane Keaton, Robert Redford, Patricia Routledge and Brian Wilson. A national treasure who’s still very much with us, Dame Judi Dench attempts to solve an intriguing personal mystery in Judi Dench: Shakespeare, My Family and Me (27 December, Channel 4, 9pm). Did her eight times great grandfather really meet Shakespeare in 1606?
An office Christmas party turns nasty in the unstoppable Death in Paradise (28 December, BBC1, 8:30pm), while the docudrama Titanic Sinks Tonight (27 December to Hogmanay, BBC2, 9pm) relives that tragedy through the historical testimonies of various passengers and crew members.
Back home here in Scotland, Des Clarke and co wax satirical in Breaking the Year 2025 (29 December, BBC1, 10:30pm), and the remarkable saga of a Scottish couple who adopted a grizzly bear cub in the mid-1970s is recounted in the touching documentary Hercules the Bear – A Love Story (30 December, BBC2, 6pm).
And so to Hogmanay itself, which kicks off with – that man again – Des Clarke and the Not Quite End of the Year Show (Hogmanay, BBC Scotland, 9pm), featuring musical performances from Michelle McManus, Tide Lines’ Robert Robertson, house band Roddy Hart & The Lonesome Fire, plus a host of surprise celebrity guests.
Scottish comedy legend Stanley Baxter, who recently passed away, would’ve turned 100 next May, so what better time to celebrate his extraordinary talent than with Being Stanley Baxter (Hogmanay, BBC1, 10pm), a lovingly curated documentary which, as well as examining his career, also tells the complex story of how he concealed his homosexuality for decades in public. Among those paying tribute are Alan Cumming, Suzy Eddie Izzard, Elaine C Smith and Baxter's sister, Alice. Elaine C Smith also crops up in the second annual Queen of the New Year (Hogmanay, BBC1, 11pm), a topical sketch show starring Robert Florence, Greg Hemphill and a whole host of Scottish comics.
The New Year’s celebrations continue – as by God’s law they must – with Jools’ Annual Hootenanny (Hogmanay, BBC2, 11:30pm), in which the genial boogie-woogie-botherer welcomes Craig David, Jessie J, Lulu and Ronnie Wood to the fold. Cue the traditional tranche of mind-blowing social media posts announcing that it isn’t actually recorded live.
Broadcaster Amy Irons will be 100 per cent live as she brings in the bells with, among others, Karen Dunbar, Tom Urie and Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson (alias Jack Docherty) in Hogmanay 2025 (BBC1, 11:30pm). That’s followed by another pre-record, The Graham Norton New Year’s Eve Show (BBC1, 12:30am), which boasts an impressive line-up of guests: Tom Hiddleston, Will Arnett, Laura Dern, Carey Mulligan, Tim Key and the young breakout star of Adolescence, Owen Cooper.
On New Year’s Day, the final episode of Stranger Things (Netflix) “drops” for those who still care, while in Wild London (BBC1, 6:30pm) Sir David Attenborough reveals how nature can thrive in urban environments. A fresh gaggle of civilians gather for the latest series of The Traitors (New Year’s Day and 2 January, BBC1, 8pm), Martin Compston joins the cast of serviceable thriller Red Eye (New Year’s Day and 2 January, STV, 9pm), and the aforementioned Tom Hiddleston returns alongside Olivia Colman for a belated second series of taut spy drama The Night Manager (BBC1, 9:05pm).
This year’s festivities conclude with Taskmaster’s New Year Treat (2 January, Channel 4, 9pm), starring five celebs from outwith the comedy sphere – namely Big Zuu, Jill Scott, Sam Ryder, Susie Dent and Rose Ayling-Ellis – playing various silly games, plus I’m Chevy Chase And You’re Not (2 January, Sky Documentaries, 9pm), a probing profile of the undeniably talented yet notoriously difficult comedy superstar. We’re also blessed with a visitation from the utterly electrifying Elvis Presley in Elvis Presley: ’68 Comeback Special (2 January, BBC4, 10pm), in which a black leather-clad King – after years of making mostly terrible Hollywood films – reclaims his reputation in no uncertain terms.
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