I don’t know if it’s the proliferation of streaming services, or a ravenous appetite from audiences, or just the fact that everyone in Hollywood is a giant dork, but there are a ton of science fiction TV shows on the air right now. Or if they’re not dropping new episodes this very moment, they just wrapped up a new season or will soon be airing one.
This is your guide to all the great recent sci-fi TV shows, plus a few on the way.
Pluribus (Apple TV+)
Where crankiness can save the world
Pluribus finished its first season in late 2025, so it’s a bit of a stretch to call it “new,” but it’s so good that it’s still worth recommending, just in case you missed it the first time.
The show is about a woman (Rhea Seehorn) who finds herself to be one of the last human beings on Earth not subsumed into a strange alien hive mind. The hive mind is actually very nice to her and is willing to give her whatever she wants, but she is dead set on reversing what they’ve done to the world.
This show, which is created by Breaking Bad genius Vince Gilligan, is funny, imaginative, and beautifully made. The only part is that we’ll probably be waiting a while for Season 2.
- Release Date
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November 6, 2025
- Network
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Apple TV
- Directors
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Adam Bernstein, Zetna Fuentes, Melissa Bernstein
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Rhea Seehorn
Carol Sturka
-
-
Carlos Manuel Vesga
Manousos
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Paradise (Hulu)
Hell on Earth on Hulu
Paradise is the first two shows on this list about horrible catastrophes driving what remains of humanity underground. In the case of Paradise, a series of natural disasters did the trick. We mainly follow Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown), a Secret Service agent who comes in to work one day in the massive underground bunker where everybody lives only to find his boss, the president, dead.
Paradise is easily the most underrated sci-fi thriller on Hulu. It wrapped up its second season in March of this year and has a third and final one on the way, so now is the time to get caught up.
- Release Date
-
January 26, 2025
- Network
-
Hulu
- Showrunner
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Dan Fogelman
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Sterling K. Brown
Xavier Collins
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Julianne Nicholson
Samantha ‘Sinatra’ Redmond
-
Sarah Shahi
Dr. Gabriela Torabi
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Star City (Apple TV+)
For All Mankind, eat your heart out
Star City is a prequel to For All Mankind, a show that imagines what our history would be like if the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union never ended. While that show is told mainly from the American perspective, Star City goes back to the beginning and explores the Soviet side of things, and it may be even better than the progenitor show.
The first season of Star City is set in the 1960s and ’70s, where Soviet cosmonauts are spied upon all the time to make sure they’re towing the Communist Party line. It’s part speculative sci-fi fiction and part Cold War spy thriller.
- Release Date
-
May 28, 2026
- Network
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Apple TV
- Showrunner
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Ben Nedivi, Matt Wolpert
Cast
-
Rhys Ifans
Chief Designer
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Anna Maxwell Martin
Lyudmilla Raskova
-
Agnes O’Casey
Irina Morozova
-
Alice Englert
Anastasia Belikova
Silo (Apple TV+)
Season 3 airing right now!
Silo is an ongoing post-apocalyptic drama about a world where everyone has been forced to live underground thanks to some kind of cataclysm that happened many years in the past. Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) is getting closer to the truth. In the third season, we spend a lot of time in flashbacks to right before the world was ruined, so the show seems like it’s close to revealing answers.
Silo has been chugging along for a few years now. It has a solid fan base but has yet to break out and become a popular phenomenon. Maybe this third season can be the one. Or maybe it’s just too similar to Paradise.
- Release Date
-
May 5, 2023
- Network
-
Apple TV
- Showrunner
-
Graham Yost
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Rebecca Ferguson
Juliette Nichols
-
-
Tim Robbins
Bernard Holland
-
Harriet Walter
Martha Walker
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+)
Boldly goes where many men have gone before and looks great doing it
A million Star Trek shows have come and gone over the decades, including many in the past 10 years. Strange New Worlds may be the best. It harkens back to The Original Series, telling mostly stand-alone stories with a mix of drama, comedy, and heady sci-fi ideas. Anson Mount is winning as Captain Pike, the captain of the USS Enterprise before Kirk came along.
If you find yourself craving more Trek, the first season of the show Starfleet Academy, which is a kind of YA take on the franchise, also aired on Paramount+ earlier this year.
- Release Date
-
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
3 Body Problem (Netflix)
3 bodies, 2 more seasons, 1 massive problem
An adaptation of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past books by Liu Cixin, 3 Body Problem is about humanity’s generations-long attempt to prepare for a coming extraterrestrial invasion. The first season was a trippy good time, and the second season could drop on Netflix as soon as the end of this year, or early in 2027. If you aren’t on board yet, now would be a good time to binge this gem.
- Release Date
-
March 21, 2024
- Network
-
Netflix
- Directors
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Minkie Spiro, Jeremy Podeswa, Derek Tsang Kwok-Cheung, Andrew Stanton
-
Jonathan Pryce
Mike Evans
-
-
-
The Boroughs (Netflix)
Gone but still good
Executive produced by Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer, The Boroughs is set in a retirement community where a strange presence is bedeviling the elderly residents. A group of senior citizens played by acting legends like Geena Davis, Bill Pullman, Ed Begley Jr., and others take it upon themselves to investigate.
The Boroughs is a fun watch that turns the spotlight on some terrific actors, but it didn’t get the kind of viewership Netflix was hoping for. It was canceled after its first season dropped in May, but the main plot is mostly wrapped up by season’s end, so you can watch it without fear that it will leave you hanging.
- Release Date
-
2026 – 2026-00-00
- Network
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Netflix
- Showrunner
-
Jeffrey Addiss, Will Matthews
Lanterns (HBO)
Superhero sci-fi arriving in just a few weeks
This show actually isn’t out yet, but it looks promising so we’re going to include it. Lanterns is an upcoming HBO show about Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), a pair of Green Lanterns. If you’re familiar with DC Comics, you know that Green Lanterns are members of a kind of intergalactic police force who keep peace throughout the cosmos, and who can use their technologically advanced rings to create anything they can imagine.
The prospect of HBO applying their signature coat of polish to a live-action sci-fi superhero show is pretty intriguing, so we’ll be watching when Lanterns premieres on August 16.
- Release Date
-
August 16, 2026
- Network
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HBO
- Showrunner
-
Chris Mundy
-
Aaron Pierre
John Stewart
-
-
Nathan Fillion
Guy Gardner
-
Kelly Macdonald
Sheriff Kerry
More around the corner
Further out, there are even more new sci-fi shows coming our way, including:
- Vision Quest: Robotic Marvel hero Vision (Paul Bettany) will try to recover his memories on Disney+ starting October 14, 2026.
- Blade Runner 2099: The classic sci-fi franchise will get a TV entry on Prime Video on November 25.
- Neuromancer: The breakout cyberpunk hit will finally get an adaptation on Apple TV+ on January 22, 2027.
Set phasers to fun, clear your calendar, and enjoy.
