There have been times, throughout the history of the television medium, when fans of science fiction have been left wanting. Eras with little to offer, and even less of considerable substance. The past several years have, thankfully, not been one of those times. The 2020s have, thus far, been a rich tapestry of sci-fi goodness.
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With so much to watch, which science fiction shows number among the best in modern times? While our list is clearly subjective, we hope you’ll find at least something here that will suit your sci-fi savvy. These are – in our view – the very best of the bunch as of about midway through the 2020s.
We’re including shows which premiered in the previous decade, so long as they continued into the current one. Our criteria is simple: at least one season needs to have debuted in the ’20s!
10
Westworld (2016-2022)
When we were crafting this list, we ran into a bit of an issue surrounding two particular shows with different spins on the same dilemma. In Westworld’s case, it’s held up to a substantial degree by its masterful first season. The latter series, which we’ll tackle in due time, is pillared instead by its final season.
Westworld was the talk of the town when it premiered on HBO in 2016. The show, which was an adaptation of the late Michael Crichton’s 1973 novel of the same name, chronicled the lives of the intelligent individuals behind a multi-setting theme park depicting various points throughout history – and importantly, the lives of the equally intelligent (if not more so) sentient robots forced to populate these settings for the comfortable thrills of the rich and famous.
A revolution was inevitable, and indeed that reckoning eventually came to fruition. But it’s in Westworld’s first season, as the roots are planted, and multiple mysteries are terrifically presented and partly answered, that the show is at its peak. It really fell apart as it went on, though there were always scattered moments of brilliance to be found.
A planned fifth and final season did not come to pass, leaving Westworld on a tremendously dour final note – all told, however, it works fine as a series finale. Just be prepared for sadness.
9
Star Trek: Lower Decks (2019-2024)
The first modern Star Trek series to appear on our list, and most assuredly not the last, Star Trek: Lower Decks brought the franchise where it had never gone before: into the realm of adult animated comedy. It followed four (eventually five) lower-ranking young officers as they beheld crises large and small from a relatively veiled perspective. The bridge crew were the obvious heroes, as always; and yet, our Lower Deckers still managed to punch above their supposed weight plenty of times.
Lower Decks does struggle at times to find the best balance between compelling subject matter and strong comedy, and it’s at its worst when it descends into direct slapstick. Yet, far more often than not, and especially after its somewhat rocky first season, the show successfully connects with Star Trek’s nearly six-decade commitment to the exploration of highbrow concepts against a provocatively adventurous backdrop. In fact, Lower Decks frequently manages to surpass most of its contemporary Star Trek peers in this key regard.
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Animated series tend to have a (relatively) easier time returning to the airwaves years down the line, and there is a degree of hope by all involved that Lower Decks can at least come back with some TV specials, if not a full-fledged sixth season and beyond. Time will tell!
8
From (2022-)
Every television generation has its low-key classics, those hidden gems that deserve far larger audiences. From, a sci-fi series with horror vibes galore, is absolutely one of them. It has the misfortune of having aired first on the somewhat niche Epix cable network, and later on the more niche MGM+ streaming service. It has limited reach, but a dedicated fanbase has helped to keep it afloat, and that doesn’t tend to happen to subpar TV.
From has a great cast, but it’s Harrold Perrineau’s sheriff protagonist, Boyd Stevens, who frequently steals the show. The uniformly solid acting is bolstered by a purposefully flawed, fully intriguing cast, and further buoyed by deliciously dreary cinematography.
As fans of From, we implore you to check it out. The most recent season only has three reviews cited on Metacritic, for heck’s sake. It needs more viewers!
7
Star Trek: Picard (2020-2023)
So, yeah. Star Trek: Picard’s first season was shaky. Its second season, despite an excellent two-episode start, devolved into something all the shakier. By the time it was heading into its third and final season, folks were right to feel unenthusiastic, but there remained some cause for cautious optimism.
We knew before season two had even ended that the third promised a grand reunion for the entire cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Maybe that would lead to a more fitting and fulfilling continuation of the three-show 24th-century era, which had impressed so many of us for so many years before bowing on a sour note in Star Trek: Nemesis?
While some have criticized Star Trek: Picard season three for relying too heavily on raw nostalgia, we clearly disagree. Sure, it’s laid on a bit thick, but it’s in glorious service to a clear and present love for the era that gave us not only Next Gen, but Deep Space Nine and Voyager as well. The TNG reunion story ends up nearly as robust a celebration of the overarching setting, and its ending – while perfectly final in its own right – teases the potential for a highly-desired successor series which could follow newly-instated Captain Seven into a bold new 25th-century saga.
6
For All Mankind (2019-)
What if the space race of the 1950s through 1970s took a very sharp turn? What if a cosmonaut from the Soviet Union, and not an astronaut from the United States, was the first to step foot on the moon in 1969? How might this divergence affect the world moving forward? For All Mankind takes this thoughtful alternate-history hook and runs with it, delivering a timeline which tackles so many of reality’s rigors whilst charting a course for humanity that is equal parts scientifically brilliant and bursting with terrifying potential.
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For All Mankind has, as of this writing, aired four seasons out of a hoped-for seven. With each passing season, the in-universe year jumps ahead a fair bit; the second season is set during the 1980s, the third in the 1990s, the fourth in the 2000s, and the fifth will presumably follow suit. It’s an envisioned timespan that is rarely rivaled – although a show still to come on this list does vastly outpace that.
While For All Mankind has stumbled at times with certain supporting characters, it has by and large stuck the landing with each passing portion of its saga. It comes highly recommended by TheGamer!
5
Andor (2022-2025)
Andor – or “Star Wars: Andor” as it’s understandably referred to on the regular – hasn’t yet begun its second and final season, but it’s about to. Indeed, by the time you’ve read this, the whole 12-episode second half may be in your rear-view mirror, and we sure hope it proves to be as excellent as those first 12 chapters.
This limited-series Star Wars tale takes the form of a full-blown spy thriller. Diego Luna returns from his fateful role in Star Wars: Rogue One to helm a prequel that few expected much from ahead of Andor’s premiere, but fewer still have found anything less than exhilarating now that they’ve seen what the show has to offer. Andor is gripping, it is smart, it is well-cast, beautifully-staged, as dark as it needs to be, and more capably compelling in its vivid depictions of decidedly adult themes than we ever could have imagined.
With genuine respect to anybody who feels such a clarifier to be wholly unnecessary, we cannot help but state that Andor isn’t just top-shelf Star Wars; it’s top-shelf television.
4
Severance (2022-)
If there’s anything more than a handful of readers may take umbrage with regarding Severance’s appearance in this article, it will likely be the fact that it’s not at #1. Don’t misunderstand; we do share your love for this show. It is gripping, it is witty, it is delightfully dark and filled to the brim with the kinds of twists and turns that propel conversations by the company water cooler week after week. Severance is very, very good.
The hard-working personnel of a certain biotech corporation are given the show’s titular treatment, an operation which severs their memories of the workday after hours whilst simultaneously erasing all recollection of their private lives when they’re on the clock. It’s no state secret heading into Severance that such a corporation is probably hiding a few scattered secrets, and as Mark, Dylan, Helly, and others begin to unravel the broader schemes at play, Severance quickly blossoms into must-watch science fiction television.
3
Foundation (2022-)
Between For All Mankind, Severance, and Foundation, it’s tough to argue with AppleTV+’s impressive sci-fi batting average. Foundation, a loose adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s perennially adored 1950s trilogy, doesn’t “just” spend decades as For All Mankind does; it charts the course of an interstellar empire and its roughshod rebellions over the course of centuries.
Foundation is viewed in part through the lens of one Hari Seldon, the genius inventor of the field of psychohistory, which calculates probabilities on a cosmically long-term scale. Seldon’s prediction is that the all-conquering Galactic Empire, which has existed for millennia, is on its last legs, and a perilously long dark age is destined to follow… unless his precise instructions are met, in which case that dark age can recede considerably in length. Naturally, the Galactic Empire isn’t hearing any of this.
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What follows, at least so far as the television series tells it, is the time-traveling escapade of a young woman who was briefly Hari Seldon’s protege. Although reluctant at the beginning, this woman, Gaal Dornick, ultimately does her best to fulfill the task, crossing dangerous paths across the cosmos in doing so.
Jared Harris and Lee Pace are frequently praised to high heaven for their roles as Hari Seldon and the clone lineage of imperial ruler Brother Day, but most of Foundation’s cast are capable of meeting their combined high bar.
Foundation is also gorgeous, quite possibly the most routinely breathtaking series on this list, and while production issues have caused its upcoming third season a number of delays, we’re stoked to finally see Gaal’s journey continue.
2
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022-)
Spinning off from the second season of the good-but-not-quite-great Star Trek: Discovery, the five-season initial flagship of Alex Kurtzman’s ongoing time at small-screen Star Trek’s helm, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds puts the excellent Anson Mount in the sizable shoes of the franchise’s famous Captain Christopher Pike. Accompanying him are Ethan Peck as Spock, Rebecca Romijn as Una (more commonly known as Number One), and several nifty lower-billing stars in roles which include Nyota Uhura and Nurse Christine Chapel.
The idea of a Star Trek show that returns to a known crew but recasts them for a modern audience is, perhaps surprisingly, brand-new to Trek. But Captain Pike’s adventures were never well-documented, as he was largely known for being the man who captained the Enterprise prior to James Kirk. His lasting bond with Spock was firmly established and yet barely seen, and Strange New Worlds does a fantastic job not just with their relationship, but with… well, everything.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is every bit the Star Trek experience that many lifelong fans had been hoping to see again – it’s all about boldly going, exploring new worlds and new civilizations, and everything that comes along for the ride. Sometimes, it’s action-packed; sometimes, it’s subdued and speech-filled. It’s a variety show in the vein of classic Star Trek and The Next Generation, a perfectly suitable flagship replacement for Discovery that celebrates the franchise in ways which meet and exceed its contemporaries.
1
The Expanse (2015-2022)
When The Expanse was canceled three seasons into its adaptation of what would eventually become a nine-novel series, it left off at the tail end of the first of three major arcs. It sort of worked as a finale, but the unfulfilled promise of a story set within the bounds of a single star system abruptly exploding into a galaxy-spanning spin on the concept of a “brave new world” still stung. The Expanse’s position on the middling Syfy Channel did it no favors, but it had a dedicated-as-heck fandom, and we made ourselves heard.
Sure enough, The Expanse defied fate to return with a bigger budget as an Amazon Prime original. The following trio of seasons covered the second of the novels’ three arcs… and then it was canceled all over again. The writers knew ahead of time, and much like the end of its Syfy run, The Expanse does handle things with grace. But it’s a pause; three more novels are screaming to be adapted, and goodness, we need to see it someday.
But enough about the present state of affairs. What makes The Expanse so excellent? Its title honestly says it all: The Expanse begins when humanity is embroiled in tension between the respective governments of Earth and Mars, and the loose coalition of “Belters” who exist beyond the dominance of either party. Intelligent life beyond our own species remains a mystery, and the notion that we might expand beyond the borders of our own star system is a total pipe dream – until it isn’t.
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A conspiracy surrounding alien technology and unscrupulous individuals who are willing to use it as a weapon, and the ensuing events, catapults the human race far beyond our prior limits and into a veritable gold rush throughout the galaxy, but old wounds do not so easily heal, and more startlingly still, the long-departed aliens responsible for such a paradigm shift might still be out there.
Of course, the above is just a bunch of words on a screen if the show itself doesn’t click. The Expanse’s writing, acting, storytelling, characterization, are all superb; and while its presentation can at times be hindered by budgetary concerns, which don’t apply so thoroughly to Foundation, For All Mankind, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and so forth, the overall quality of the series far surpasses such constraints not unlike Babylon 5 did in the 1990s.
Come back to us someday, won’t you? James Holden can only put lingering plot threads out of his mind to enjoy a measure of personal peace for so long; the danger’s still out there, and Holden and his allies know it.
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