Paradise on Disney+ Is the Best TV Show to Start a Surreal 2025
The first episode of Paradise is all you need to get hooked on the show. It’s actually best to go in blind, knowing only the barest of details about the new Disney+ series from Dan Fogelman (This Is Us, Only Murders in the Building), which is described with the most nebulous blurb: "tranquility explodes when a shocking murder occurs and a high-stakes investigation unfolds." The description hardly does the show any justice, but the truth is it’s almost impossible to talk about the show without spoiling the twist at the end of the pilot. For purposes of this review, I’m going to assume that you’ve seen it (this is a not-so-subtle hint telling you to go see it) because once the ball gets rolling, there’s no going back.
Why Paradise is already one of the best shows of 2025
I really didn’t want to write a review of Paradise until after the entire season had aired, but given the state of things in America, it felt kind of important to talk about it sooner rather than later. There are currently five episodes out of eight, which makes the show easy to binge once everything is out, but even halfway through, there are things that set this show apart. The Black Mirror-esque plot about a subterranean post-apocalyptic all-American bunker suburb isn’t even the most interesting thing about Paradise, and neither is it particularly new. We’ve been treated to a similar future vision with last year’s stellar Fallout from Prime Video or Apple TV+’s Silo, but the difference is in how hard the surviving population of Paradise works to maintain a sense of normalcy. Although the tongue-in-cheek absurdity of Fallout and the austere grimness of Silo embrace the new normal in different ways, both are slathered in unmistakable post-apocalyptic aesthetic.
On the other hand, the people of Paradise try to carry on as if absolutely nothing has happened. It’s a study in hypothetical collective grief, about how society can or would move on after an extinction-level event. It’s about maintaining the status quo in a world that has changed so radically that the status quo is not only practically impossible but even arguably immoral. But it also makes total sense that the conditions for survival exist only because the people most interested in maintaining the status quo are the ones with the means to make it happen: the rich and powerful. Whereas billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos engage in dick-measuring contests by rocket proxy, Paradise’s Samantha Redmond, aka "Sinatra" (Julianne Nicholson), poured her resources and considerable government influence into building an artificial town deep inside a mountain in Colorado. With the help of the United States government, led by the disarmingly charming President Cal Bradford (James Marsden), Sinatra built a bunker town unlike any other by looking exactly like every other suburban town in America.
Julianne Nicholson as Sinatra
It’s not unreasonable to think that billionaires work with governments to further their own interests. It has never been more blatant than it is now, but the difference between Paradise and our very real dystopia is that leaders like Sinatra and Bradford listened to science. Whereas real American President Trump withdrew the USA from the Paris Agreement, fictional American President Bradford believed in the scientists' warning of an impending environmental catastrophe and prepared accordingly, thus ensuring his and a few thousand other citizens’ survival. Conceived of and filmed before the U.S. elections last November, there was no way Fogelman could’ve foreseen Trump’s victory and subsequent dismantling of America’s trust in science and education. But it’s now become a timely commentary about how if and when shit hits the fan, you’d want the people in charge to trust the experts. Remember Trump’s disastrous response to COVID? If you don’t, don’t worry, neither did America, which is why he’s back in charge, and climate change denial is again on the menu.
James Marsden as President Cal Bradford
In the completely fictional world of Paradise, the billionaires and the government worked together to ensure the survival of America. Not the human race, no, but specifically America. Or, even more specifically, several thousand handpicked American citizens to populate Sinatra’s artificial town and carry on with life after the apocalypse. Of course, it’s not just any tens of thousands out of the United States’ 346 million and change, but a carefully curated community comprised of people with professions and contributions deemed essential to reboot the human race. There’s a sickening dread that comes with the realization that Paradise’s unnatural selection is a microcosm of our own reality. In the unlikely yet scientifically probable event of a man-made or environmental apocalypse, the 1% who almost certainly have their own bunkers will be taking the few they consider useful to survive with them in the next age. In Paradise, the task of selecting who lived and died fell on Dr. Gabriela Torabi (Sarah Shahi), a psychologist and grief expert who considers herself the 'architect of social well-being.' Torabi was hired by Sinatra, who is also a far more nuanced character than the predictable billionaire-as-villain. Her motivations are melancholy and tragic, a mother who wants only to want a better world for her child and models her haven, or paradise as it were, after those sentiments.
The premise is solid, but the storytelling is superb. Paradise is a slow burn that reels you in more and more with each episode, parting the curtains just enough to show you a peek of what’s to come. But the beating heart of Paradise is none other than its hero, special agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K Brown), a straitlaced bodyguard assigned to pre- and post-apocalyptic President Cal Bradford, whom he finds dead in his bedroom in the first episode. The complicated relationship between the two men is revealed and unpacked as the series progresses and is a compelling story in itself. Collins is a man with such unwavering principles that he sacrifices his relationship with a beloved family member in order to do the right thing. President Bradford isn’t quite as black and white—he’s still a politician, after all—but when push comes to shove, you can count on him to do the right thing.
Sterling K Brown as Xavier Collins
From perfectly paced storytelling to endearing characters and heroes you want to cheer for, Paradise is already one of the best TV shows of 2025. This is why Paradise, a show set in some distant, dystopian future, is such a refreshing and almost necessary watch in an in-your-face dystopian present. President Cal Bradford isn’t quite on the level of The West Wing’s Josiah Bartlett or Presidential doppelgänger Dave Kovic of Dave, but he’s right up there on the list of great fictional Presidents, which is an achievement considering he starts off the series as a corpse. Bradford shows his mettle in what might be the series’ most gripping and emotional episode in "The Day," the penultimate episode and arguable crescendo of a series that keeps you guessing and on the edge of your seat. Bradford is the kind of President who makes you wistful for the triumph of good men. Because they don’t make Presidents, real or otherwise, like they used to.
