The 17 best science fiction TV shows of all time – according to New Scientist writers

Television hasn’t always been kind to science fiction, with smaller budgets to throw at special effects and epic, universe-spanning narratives getting cancelled before their time. But despite all the obstacles, countless series have proved that long-form storytelling on the small screen is the perfect way to explore the complex ideas and philosophies that make this genre so compelling.

With so much gold to choose from, the New Scientist team found picking their favourite sci-fi series a tricky task – not everyone could narrow it down to one. Though this is far from a definitive list (and is presented in no particular order), we hope that our selection contains something for everyone, no matter what kind of sci-fi fan you are.

Rebooted from an ill-fated 1978 series, Battlestar Galactica begins with a nuclear holocaust and humanity’s remnants crowding aboard battered spaceships to flee from sentient machines. But its most compelling moments involve the survivors struggling to balance societal and ethical norms against the cold calculus of survival. Jeremy Hsu

The Leftovers isn’t just the best sci-fi series I have seen, it’s perhaps the greatest TV show ever made. Big claim, I know. The premise is weird: what if one day, out of nowhere, 2 per cent of the population disappeared? Don’t expect answers to why this happened – the series doesn’t offer any. Instead, it explores the gritty fallout of so much inexplicable grief and loss. Chelsea Whyte

My family weren’t into Doctor Who, so this show was, I think, my introduction to science fiction (if you count time travel as science fiction, which I most definitely do). It follows physicist Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula), who has invented a way to travel through time, although it’s not quite what he expected. Sam has vanished from his own reality, but his consciousness leaps into the bodies of other people, whose lives he must sort out before he can move on – and hopefully return home. The series was revived in 2022 – and when I get a minute to myself that isn’t filled with children or books or the need to sleep, I shall be watching it. Alison Flood

Two parts sci-fi, one part noir, the richly detailed universe of The Expanse has drawn me in like no other. Set in a future where humanity has colonised the solar system, it follows the crew of a deep-space ice hauler and a hard-boiled detective investigating the disappearance of a wealthy heiress. Before long, they are embroiled in conspiracies and a rebellion by the exploited, asteroid-dwelling Belters. Long live the Outer Planets Alliance! Bethan Ackerley

Black Mirror operates in a strange twilight zone of science fiction, not quite fanciful enough to feel truly invented, but a little too futuristic to feel like a real-world drama. Each episode dives into the way technology is warping human experience, hopping genres from romcom to slasher horror. The earliest series are the most arresting – the first episode, featuring the UK Prime Minister and a pig, will be burned into your brain – but throughout Black Mirror is thought-provoking, disturbing and often darkly funny. Madeleine Cuff

How many stories start with someone opening a door and stepping into the unknown? The joy of Doctor Who, and one of the two reasons for its longevity, is that the titular Doctor’s spacecraft is a portal to anywhere in time and space. You can set a story in Victorian London or a billion years in the future. The other reason why the show has lasted over 60 years is that the Doctor can regenerate into a new body – convenient when you want to cast a new lead. Rowan Hooper

I began watching The X-Files at around 9 years old – far too young! I thought Mulder was the epitome of cool, I wanted to believe, and I was fascinated and terrified by the monsters he and Scully encountered each week. Revisiting the series as an adult, I identified more with the sceptical Scully and was drawn to the long-running narrative of an alien conspiracy. It is this structure of weaving standalone plots with ongoing stories that makes The X-Files so good. Let’s just pretend the 2010s revival never happened. Jacob Aron

Set in New New York at the turn of the 31st century, this animated series is, in essence, your classic workplace sitcom, with all the main characters working at interplanetary delivery company Planet Express (including Philip J. Fry, who was cryogenically frozen in 1999 and wakes up 1000 years later). Futurama has an absurdly high gags-per-minute ratio, but there are also deeply poignant moments – even the mere thought of Fry’s dog makes me sob – and frequent, satisfying homages to science fiction. Tim Boddy

Imagine Han Solo from Star Wars walking into a Wild West saloon. A mash-up of Westerns and sci-fi, Firefly sees a crew of lovable misfits on the spacecraft Serenity trying to survive and make a difference in a space empire ruled by the Alliance. The series has become a cult classic thanks to its idiosyncratic characters, compelling cast, inventive storylines and snappy dialogue. Chris Simms

At first glance, Fringe may seem like a successor to The X-Files: it features a somewhat antagonistic duo of oddball investigators and quickly plunges into both the supernatural and the personal. But it is so much more than that. Where The X-Files had aliens and government conspiracies, Fringe has parallel universes, family secrets, psychedelics and sensory deprivation – plus an incredibly strong cast of supporting characters. Expect Leonard Nimoy as a multiversal villain, doppelgangers and men-turned-giant-porcupines. Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

I’m reluctant to admit that sci-fi isn’t my go-to choice of entertainment – tales of robots and aliens don’t really do it for me. But Outlander offers an alternative take on the genre, with plenty of romance and a swashbuckling heroine. It follows Claire Beauchamp, who accidentally travels back in time from 1945 to 1743. Once she has accepted her fate (and met the love of her life, Jamie), Claire, a nurse, bewilders her contemporaries with her 20^th-century knowledge of anatomy and pathogens – not to mention her feminist attitude. Alexandra Thompson

The Star Wars franchise started as an uncomplicated space opera: the Empire is evil because its agents look like fascists; the rebels are good because they aren’t that. But recent instalments have gone a long way in complicating that narrative. Andor explores what an “ordered” space empire would look like – colonialist, banal, dehumanising – and why those conditions make heroes out of thieves. Linda Rodriguez-McRobbie

There is something about Altered Carbon that is awful and depressing, but also incredibly appealing. Who wouldn’t want to be able to try out a smorgasbord of different bodies, or “sleeves” as they are called in the show? Epic cities, gross inequality, affable AIs and a questionable storyline – this cyberpunk series has it all! Finn Grant

I am terrible at watching telly in the evenings after work/children/life are in the bag for the day – I generally just fall asleep. Not when it comes to the adventures of Rick (Andrew Lincoln), Michonne (Danai Gurira) and their ragtag crew, though. I have watched every episode of The Walking Dead, from Rick’s awakening in hospital to discover a world ravaged by a virus that has turned everyone into “walkers” to the various terrible communities they keep stumbling across. It’s shocking, well-acted and, particularly in the earlier series, full of surprises. Alison Flood

The original Star Trek is an aspirational model for a society led by science, one with true equality and peaceful exploration. That’s a pretty cathartic means of escapism in today’s tumultuous world, perhaps even more so than it would have been in the 1960s. It’s a great show to dip in and out of, and the over-the-top Technicolor, terrible special effects and wooden acting only add to its appeal. The series spawned a bewildering array of spin-offs of varying quality, but in my opinion you can’t beat the original. Matthew Sparkes

How different would your life be if you had made different decisions at key points? And what would you do if you could visit the other multiverses spawned at these points, with different yous? That’s the intriguing premise of Dark Matter, adapted for TV by Blake Crouch from his own book. The first few episodes can be a little slow at times, but it gets better and better after that. Michael Le Page

Recency bias be damned: despite only debuting in 2022, Severance has already earned its place among the greatest sci-fi TV of all time. Imagine if you could separate your memories of work from the rest of your life. At first, outsourcing the daily grind may seem like a no-brainer – but what horrors might your body unknowingly experience at the office, and what misery might the alternate version of yourself endure? Bethan Ackerley