10.Star Trek: The Next Generation
An oldie but a goodie.Star Trek: The Next Generationis the sequel series starring Patrick Stewart and LeVar Burton, not to be confused withStar Trek: The Original Serieswhich stars William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy.
It’s dated, yes, and it’s cheesy, yes, but it’s fun to look back and see how far we’ve come in terms of space sci-fi.
9.Hard Sun
Hard Sunis a pre-apocalyptic (yes, that’s right!) series about two London police officers who stumble across a cover-up involving a cosmic extinction event that’s right around the corner.
This Hulu exclusive series—co-produced with the BBC—is one of the better shows that Hulu has put out, and even though it was cancelled after one season, it’s worth a watch.
8.Dollhouse
Dollhouseis a sci-fi series about organizations called “Dollhouses” that train mind-wiped humans called “Dolls” and program their brains to take on temporary personalities.
These Dolls are hired out to clients for whatever reasons, including heists, assassinations, or even companionship.
It has all the trappings of a Joss Whedon show, so if you likedBuffy,Angel, orFirefly, you’ll probably like this one.
7.Fear the Walking Dead
This prequel spin-off ofThe Walking Deadnever gained as much traction or notoriety as the original show.
It’s not a groundbreaking series, and it fails to elevate or expand the genre in any meaningful way, but has proven itself to be competent enough to tell an engrossing zombie-filled story.
Related:The Best AMC Shows Worth Watching
6.12 Monkeys
This sci-fi time travel series is a reimagining ofTwelve Monkeys, the 1995 film about a prisoner who travels back in time to track down the origin of a virus that ends up wiping out humanity in the future.
The TV series runs on the same premies, but is a lot more in-depth in its mythology and more ambitious in its exploration of time travel mechanics and consequences. One of the better shows produced by SyFy, for sure.
5.Firefly
Despite only airing 14 episodes before it was cancelled,Fireflyis one of the greatest sci-fi drama series ever made.
Packed with humor, wit, and trope subversions, it was very much ahead of its time. Make sure to watch the filmSerenitywhen you’re done, which is a follow-up film that wraps up the story in light of the series-ending cliffhanger.
4.The X-Files
Government conspiracies, alien sightings, strange scientific anomalies, and so much more.
The X-Fileshas everything a geek could want in a mystery thriller, save for the fact that there are too many monster-of-the-week episodes that end up dragging out the overarching mythology and storyline.
For a more streamlined show that’s similar, tryFringe(which isn’t available to stream anywhere as of this writing, unfortunately).
3.Lost
What’s so geeky about a bunch of plane crash survivors stuck on a desert island? Well, I don’t want to give away too much of the surprise, but suffice it to say thatLosthas one of the deepest and most mysterious sci-fi mythologies of any serial drama TV series.
Related:The Best Epic TV Series to Watch
2.Community
Communityis an oddball sitcom, and you’ll probably need to give it a few episodes before you acquire the taste (also because the show itself takes a while to find its footing and understand where to mine its humor).
The study group premise is super nerdy, and the character of Abed is always an interesting source of geeky humor.
1.Futurama
Futuramais a nerd’s dream. This “futuristicSimpsons” is more than it seems on the surface—the episodes are surprisingly layered with jokes that are so good you’ll only catch them on rewatches, and we’re talking about jokes that are extremely nerdy in nature.
I don’t want to spoil any of them, so I’ll just say this: there isn’t a single sitcom with more scientific rigor thanFuturama.
