TV trends come and go, and right now, we are in the throes of a science fiction revolution. Just this year, networks have aired a lot of brand-new sci-fi series or at least aired new episodes of sci-fi shows that started a couple of years back. If you’ve fallen behind, now is a great time to catch up on these classics-in-the-making.
Lanterns (HBO)
HBO does DC
The newest show on the block is Lanterns, the first TV show to be set in the new DC Cinematic Universe that officially kicked off with last year’s Superman. This show focuses on two members of the Green Lantern Corps, an interstellar peacekeeping force dedicated to policing the universe. Kyle Chandler is Hal Jordan, a veteran Green Lantern who fears he may soon be put out to pasture by John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), Hal’s trainee. Together, they investigate a series of mysterious deaths in a small Nebraska town, with plenty of tension to go around.
Lanterns has the high level of polish you expect from an HBO series, as well as the pulpy fun of a superhero show. It’s an intriguing mix that hopefully won’t combust as the season continues.
- Release Date
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August 16, 2026
- Network
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HBO
- Showrunner
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Chris Mundy
- Directors
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James Hawes
- Writers
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Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+)
With new episodes airing right now
While Lanterns is at the start of its first season, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is in the middle of its fourth. A back-to-basics kind of Star Trek series, every episode of Strange New Worlds stands on its own, with some more narrative-heavy episodes sprinkled in for variety. Captain Pike (Anson Mount), Spock (Ethan Peck), and the crew of the USS Enterprise boldly go where no man has gone before, just like everyone before them.
Fans have dinged recent episodes of the show for leaning too hard into comedy and meta references, but the show still has half a season to win them back. Paramount+ also premiered a new Star Trek series this year called Starfleet Academy, centered around cadets training to become Starfleet officers.
- Release Date
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2022 – 2027-00-00
- Network
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Paramount+
- Showrunner
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Henry Alonso Myers, Akiva Goldsman
- Directors
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Dan Liu, Amanda Row, Maja Vrvilo, Akiva Goldsman, Dermott Downs, Eduardo Sánchez, Jeffrey W. Byrd, Jonathan Frakes, Jordan Canning, Leslie Hope, Valerie Weiss, Sydney Freeland, Christopher J. Byrne, Rachel Leiterman
- Writers
-
Onitra Johnson
Silo (Apple TV)
Catch up in time for the season finale
Silo is set in a future where an environmental catastrophe has driven mankind underground. We’ve been down there so long that a lot of people have forgotten why, but an engineer-turned-sheriff named Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) is on the case.
The third season of Silo is airing right now, with the finale due out on September 4. The third season has been especially interesting, because not only do we spend time with Juliette and the other denizens of the Silo in the “present,” we also flash back to what the world was like before everybody abandoned the surface. Finally, we find out exactly what happened.
- Release Date
-
May 5, 2023
- Network
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Apple TV
- Showrunner
-
Graham Yost
-
Rebecca Ferguson
Juliette Nichols
-
-
Tim Robbins
Bernard Holland
-
Harriet Walter
Martha Walker
Sugar (Apple TV)
Wait for the twist
Sugar is definitely one of the most daring shows on TV, sci-fi or otherwise. Nominally, it’s about John Sugar (Colin Farrell), a private investigator who is clearly influenced by Hollywood movies. It’s an entertaining modern noir with a great performance from Colin Farrell at its center.
However, Sugar has a twist that is so unexpected it’s kind of hard to believe the show runs with it. Everything that makes the show work is very much present in the second season, which wrapped up in August.
- Release Date
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April 4, 2024
- Network
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Apple TV
- Showrunner
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Mark Protosevich, Sam Catlin
-
-
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Miguel Sandoval
Thomas Kinzie
-
Scott Lawrence
Dr. Vickers
Fallout (Prime Video)
The end of the world, but it’s funny
We return to post-apocalyptic fare with Fallout, based on the popular video game series from Bethesda. This time, nuclear war has destroyed the world, and the survivors struggle to pick up the pieces. Despite that heavy description, the show actually has an ironic, absurdist tone it picks up from the games. We follow Lucy (Ella Purnell), an optimistic vault dweller who has never seen the surface world before; Maximus (Aaron Moten), a squire in a knightly order of surface-dwellers who walk around in giant mech suits; and the Ghoul (Walton Goggins), a cynical mutant looking for his lost family.
The cast is appealing, the worldbuilding is dense, the jokes are pretty funny, and the show is picking up speed as it goes. Season 2 wrapped up earlier this year, with more on the way.
- Release Date
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April 10, 2024
- Network
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Amazon Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan
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Ella Purnell
Lucy MacLean
-
-
Moises Arias
Norm MacLean
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Walton Goggins
The Ghoul / Cooper Howard
Paradise (Hulu)
The end of the world, but it’s dramatic
Easily the most underrated sci-fi thriller on Hulu right now, Paradise is yet another show about humans being forced to live underground after an environmental calamity. This time, the government moves underground with him. We follow Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown), a Secret Service agent who comes into work one day to find his boss, President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) dead.
That starts things off with a bang, but Paradise goes to some wild places as it continues. By the end of the second season, the massive underground bunker is in danger and there is a pitched competition to control an AI-controlled quantum computer that can manipulate time itself. The show has been very entertaining so far. Hopefully it can keep that up in the third and final season, which is on the way.
- Release Date
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January 26, 2025
- Network
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Hulu
- Showrunner
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Dan Fogelman
- Directors
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Gandja Monteiro
- Writers
-
Jason Wilborn
Star City (Apple TV)
Everyone’s watching you
You’ll notice that there are a lot of shows from Apple TV on this list. That is because whoever is in charge of Apple TV is clearly obsessed with sci-fi; they must be to greenlight this many series.
Not that we’re complaining. Star City is a period drama set in an alternate version of the past where the United States and the Soviet Union never stopped running the space race. Star City is a spin-off of For All Mankind, which traces this timeline from the American point of view. Star City switches perspectives to the Soviets, and focuses on the chilly surveillance state that has cosmonauts on edge. It’s part sci-fi, part paranoid spy drama, and it may be even better than the mothership show.
- Release Date
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May 28, 2026
- Network
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Apple TV
- Showrunner
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Ben Nedivi, Matt Wolpert
Cast
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Rhys Ifans
Chief Designer
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Anna Maxwell Martin
Lyudmilla Raskova
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Agnes O’Casey
Irina Morozova
-
Alice Englert
Anastasia Belikova
The sci-fi shows to come
Believe it or not, there were even more sci-fi shows airing new episodes on Apple TV this year, but we didn’t want the list to be one long tribute to the streaming service. But if you have an Apple TV subscription, Dark Matter is worth watching. And although its first season came out in 2025, Pluribus still may be the best new sci-fi series to come out in the past few years.
Meanwhile, the most exciting new sci-fi show on the horizon is Neuromancer, an adaptation of William Gibson’s seminal cyberpunk novel. Neuromancer premieres on Apple TV (obviously) on January 22, 2027.