Senator Crystal Asige, actor Blessing Lung’aho, filmmakers Enos Olik and Charles Chanchori, singer Kestin Mbogo, and visual artist Narotso Wattimah shared their recommendations that cut across genres and platforms, highlighting series that entertained, challenged, and proved unforgettable.
Crystal Asige: ‘The Beast in Me’
Singer Crystal Asige.
Photo credit: Pool
For Senator Asige, the best of the lot was The Beast in Me, a show on Netflix.
“In brief, it’s about the exploration of the shadow side that is found in every human being – the parts of our identity that we deny, suppress, or are completely oblivious to – in contrast with the versions of ourselves that we readily present to others,” says the senator, who studied film and theatre in university.
While a good number of shows simply flirt with the idea of inner conflict, The Beast in Me lingers in it, asking viewers to sit with the uncomfortable duality of human nature. Its refusal to offer easy moral resolutions is precisely why it stood out to the eloquent government official.
“The shadow side of ourselves is not typically what we like to examine,” notes the nominated senator who represents persons with disabilities and special interest groups. “And it’s certainly not what we are willing to openly talk about.”
One moment, in particular, lingered long after the credits rolled.
“In the final episode, the protagonist, who is an author, is captured doing a book reading,” says the award-winning musician.
“I found it very compelling how she summarises the shadow side of human nature. Not only does she do an in-depth dive into the characters in her book, but you could see that it also parallels a deep dive into her own shadow,” he adds.
Blessing Lung’aho: ‘Lazizi’ and ‘Ayana’
Blessing Lung’aho is a talented actor, TV commercial model, storyteller, and fitness enthusiast.
Photo credit: Wilfred Nyangaresi
Blessing Lung’aho, on the other hand, has spent years moving between sets and scripts as an actor and filmmaker. Still, he says, 2025 stood out as the year that Kenyan television not only looked, but also felt like home.
“We are infusing more culture into our shows, and I’m really enjoying it,” he says.
His top picks, Lazizi and Ayana, resonated heavily with him, not because of the spectacle, but for their representation. Both shows, he says, leaned into cultural specificity at a time when Kenyan stories have often been flattened or sanitised for mass appeal.
In Lazizi, that cultural grounding is rooted in the sugarcane business of western Kenya. While we have heard of the plight of sugarcane farmers and the systems around them, the actor says that he has never actually seen the story portrayed anywhere on screen, and watching Lazizi, especially as one who hails from that region, felt deeply personal.
“People from home keep talking to me about it,” he mentions. “It feels like my uncles have been represented. They saw people on TV who do what they do.”
This visibility, he believes, goes a long way in bridging the long-standing gap between urban storytelling and rural realities, and between polished portrayals of success and the everyday labour that sustains families.
“Every time they see me on TV, I’m in a suit and speaking a language that is not my native tongue. They don’t really relate to that, but this one was different.”
Ayana, on the other hand, drew him in through its coastal infusion.
“All I know about the coast is Mabuyu, so it was very interesting to see the Coastal culture play out, including how they deal with societal situations and family dynamics,” he opens up. “It’s like watching a documentary about your own country.”
Kestin Mbogo: ‘The Rookie’
In occasional moments when Kestin Mbogo is not working, ministering in song, or tending to family and friends, she likes to kick up her feet and cuddle into a good crime series, or a comedy show that understands the assignment.
This year, her standout show was The Rookie, a police procedural that she describes as light, humorous, and quietly inspiring. Unlike darker crime dramas, The Rookie balances investigation with warmth, making it ideal for her unwinding.
“I usually joke and tell my husband that if I wasn’t in the music industry, I’d be a detective,” Kestin laughs. “I like solving mysteries. Most of the time, I’m able to see beyond the surface and determine who’s guilty. And I’m hardly ever wrong!”
This interesting quirk of hers finds a home in the show, which follows John Nolan, a man who defies expectations by becoming a police rookie later in life. His journey, Kestin says, resonated deeply.
“You’re never too old to start something,” she states. “Whatever you want, you can go for it.”
Watching the show became a ritual she shares with her husband as part of an intentional effort to find stories they can enjoy together.
Enos Olik is a film and music producer.
Enos Olik’s daily routine involves directing films and cinematography. When he gets some time off, he watches TV shows at least twice. The first time is purely for entertainment, “I shut off my mind and just enjoy the movie,” the masterful director says, while the consequent watch is for the details — the whats, the whys, and the hows.
His standout pick for the year was Fallout, a post-apocalyptic series adapted from a popular video game with the same name. Set in a world where civilisation has collapsed, and survivors retreat into their underground bunkers, the show follows communities attempting to rebuild amid scarcity, secrecy, and fear.
“It stood out because the story was solid and because I already knew it,” Enos says.
And though familiarity with the game gave the adaptation added weight, it was the series’ production value that truly mattered and impressed the filmmaker. In his own words: “It was way up there.”
Rather than one defining episode, the entire series stayed with him — a cumulative experience shaped by tension, survival instincts, and moral compromise. Watching it, he says, reinforced a recurring theme that blind trust in systems can often leave people exposed.
“From Fallout, you see how people just trust governments, traditions, and structures, which sometimes fail to protect them,” he reflects. “Critical thinking then emerges as a very essential thing.”
Closer home, Enos singles out South Africa’s Unseen as a powerful African series that resonated deeply.
Charles Chanchori: ‘Andor’ and ‘Star Wars’
Charles Ndegwa aka Chanchori, a blogger and newspaper columnist during the interview at Nation Centre on July 3, 2017. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL
Charles Chanchori is an auspicious author and screenwriter. His top pick of the year was Andor, the critically acclaimed Star Wars series that quietly dismantled everything audiences thought they knew about the Franchise.
“It’s unlike anything Star Wars has ever done,” he gushes. “It’s grounded, gritty, and one of the most amazing shows I’ve seen in my entire life. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
Set under an authoritarian regime tightening its grip on the galaxy, Andor tells the story from the perspective of the resistance. But beyond the fantastic storyline, it is the realness of the characters that makes the show really shine.
“Unlike the usual ‘good people are good, and bad people are bad’ narrative, the characters here have so many grey areas, which is authentic to real-life situations,” says Charles.
“It’s magnificently written,” he remarks.
“The sequences, the suspense, the patience with which tension is built, and the attention to detail was so good, it even had me noticing things that I never pay attention to, like the clothes that people wear,” Charles adds.
One particularly outstanding moment was one where the government brutally descended on the main resistance hub. Shown from multiple perspectives, including that of the government official who has been representing the government all along, with the belief that he was working with the right side.
“For the first time, the propaganda falls away, and he realises that maybe he isn’t on the good side after all, and there is a character shift,” Charles says.
Narotso Wattimah: ‘Ozark’
Narotso Wattimah is a visual artist and member of Kuza Film Club, which is a club dedicated to African storytelling. Though she mostly watches movies rather than shows, her favourite of the year was Ozark. Dark, tense, and morally complex, it reaffirmed her belief in layered storytelling.
