2025 Best in Network TV: Comedy Winners

Every year since The Word on Pop Culture began in 2010, we have awarded the best in network television in something we like to call The Broady Awards. The theory behind the Broadys was that there was still a lot of good and worthwhile TV on the original big broadcast networks that were often overlooked by the time the annual Emmy Awards rolled around, which had begun to focus mainly on cable, premium cable, and later streaming series.

Here are this year’s Broady Comedy winners: 

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Best Comedy Series: Ghosts (CBS)

Photo: CBS

​“Ghosts” on CBS, which aired its fourth season in the 2024-25 network TV season, was the most consistently funny sitcom of the year, which is why we’re giving it our Best Comedy Series honor. The show hasn’t had a whole lot of change over time – Rose McIver’s innkeeper Samantha still sees ghosts, her chef husband Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) does not, and the ghosts inhabiting the inn are still doing their wild and wacky shenanigans – but the show’s concept hasn’t gotten old, yet, and provided the most and biggest laughs of any network TV show this year. 

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Best Variety/Talk Show: Saturday Night Live (NBC) 

Photo: NBC

​This wasn’t a great year for variety or talk shows on network TV, but that might only be our perspective on it. The world has gotten us down, and we’ve not been into the nightly reminder of how far we’ve fallen by watching the nightly talk shows with reminders of how and why, so we watched less “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers” this year than ever before. We enjoyed the over too soon differentness of “After Midnight,” thanks to comedian/host Taylor Tomlinson’s personality, but the quality of the show depended too much on the panel of guests to pull off winning this honor. NBC’s long-running sketch comedy show “Saturday Night Live” celebrated its 50th season this year, and quite frankly it didn’t live up to the expectations or hype we placed upon it – as you could tell by going back into our archives and ready about each of the season’s 20 episodes, as well as its 50th anniversary special. But when it comes down to it, even with those disappointments, the highs of the season were good enough to still take the cake, as far as network variety and talk shows go. 

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Best New Comedy Series: Going Dutch (Fox)

Photo: Going Dutch

​None of the new network sitcoms really stood out all that much, but the three that interested us the most were Fox’s “Going Dutch,” NBC’s “Happy’s Place” and NBC’s “St. Denis Medical,” which all had their highs and lows throughout their freshmen season. We’ve chosen “Going Dutch” because the father/daughter relationship and chemistry between Denis Leary and Taylor Misiak provided the most consistent laughs (it might help that the season was about half as long as the other two, which isn’t really a compliment). “Going Dutch,” about a U.S. military base in the Netherlands deemed “the least important Army base in the world,” has the capability to grow into something more and it pairs well with “Animal Control,” one of our favorites, on Fox. 

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Best Comedy Episode: Saturday Night Live's 50th Anniversary Special (NBC)

Photo: NBC

​Here’s the thing … we figured the 50th anniversary special of “Saturday Night Live” would be our winner for Best Comedy Episode of the 2024-25 season before it even aired. We’re ‘SNL’ nerds and putting that many legendary cast members and hosts together for a three-hour-plus night of comedy is just too much to pass up on. While we didn’t find the 50th anniversary special to be perfect, it focused too much on the last quarter-century of the show, or as good as the one that preceded it a decade prior, it was still impossible to top as far as a single comedy episode of the season. These were our favorite moments from the episode… Click the link to check them out! 

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Best Actor: Utkarsh Ambudkar (Ghosts)

Photo: CBS

​Utkarsh Ambudkar probably has the most challenging job of any actor on the CBS supernatural sitcom “Ghosts,” as his character, Jay, is the only one on the show who can’t commune with the spirits that inhabit the inn that he and his wife run. This leads to a lot of scenes where Ambudkar has to play the butt of the joke or confusion, and he always does yeoman’s work with it. There’s a charming awe-shucks-ness about the character that Ambudkar effortlessly pulls off.  

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Best Actress: Quinta Brunson (Abbott Elementary)

Photo: ABC

​Quinta Brunson’s performance as the uber-optimistic, outgoing second-grade teacher Janine Teagues on ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” a show she created, has been one of the loveliest performances on network TV over its four seasons. It was nice to see Janine back in the classroom in season four, after what we considered a misstep by the show in having her join the school board the previous season. The classroom and antics with her teacher coworkers at Abbott are where the character and Brunson’s performance shine the most, and her budding relationship with Tyler James Williams’ Gregory Eddie was a highlight of season four. 

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Best Supporting Actress: Janelle James (Abbott Elementary)

Photo: ABC

​Janelle James has been one of the comedic standouts on ABC’s “Abbott Elementary” as outlandish school principal Ava Coleman over the show’s four seasons. James has managed to make a character who spends much of her time bullying her staff and seemingly being inept at her job into a lovable character, never more so than in season four when the show’s writers give her character a bit more heart, and equally as important is shown not to be as bad at the job as we thought she was. James’ performance provides laughter every time she’s on screen. 

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Best Supporting Actor: James Austin Johnson (Saturday Night Live)

Photo: NBC

​James Austin Johnson has already joined legends like Dana Carvey, Darrell Hammond and Bill Hader as far as greatest impressionists in the 50-year history of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” and because he plays the most accurate version of Donald Trump the show has ever seen, he gets a large amount of time on screen to show his craft. We may like to see JAJ’s Trump on ‘SNL’ a little less, especially as time goes on, but you have to admire the perfection that is the impression. Johnson had the opportunity to break out another fantastic impression in season 50 in Bob Dylan that I hope we’ll get to see more of, but I’m not sure that would make a whole lot of sense. 

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Best Guest Actor: Dana Carvey (Saturday Night Live)

Photo: NBC

​Dana Carvey is an all-time “Saturday Night Live” legend. It was fantastic to see him so often on the show for the first half of the milestone 50th season, as he was tasked with the impression of President Joe Biden, whom had a more minor role on the show as he backed away from being the Democratic Party’s candidate for President, but was still President. Carvey played Biden the way he and much of the country viewed him in his final year in office, super aloof, a bit confused and full of grandpa-ness. Carvey has always been fascinating with impressions as he’s able to play them with equal amounts of accuracy and character that make them one-of-a-kind. It was also terrific to see him reprise his most frequently recurring character from his time on the show, The Church Lady, during the season.  

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Best Guest Actress: Lady Gaga (Saturday Night Live)

Photo: NBC

​One of the toughest things in show biz is likely when a musician has to pull double duty as host and musical guest on NBC’s long-running sketch comedy show “Saturday Night Live.” Lady Gaga’s acting skills likely make it a bit easier for her, but still, it has to be a long week. She had done it before, more than 10 years prior, but in season 50, she completely knocked it out of the park, especially with hilarious live sketches like riding luggage around Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center and memorable pre-taped segments like “Pip,” one of our favorite ‘SNL’ moments of the season. Lady Gaga is probably too busy to host ‘SNL’ frequently, but she showed she’s game for anything and applies her charm wonderfully.