The sci-fi genre has never been short on ambition, but for every mega-hit like Stranger Things or Westworld, there are brilliant shows that slipped through the cracks. Sometimes it’s a marketing failure and sometimes it’s just a case of audiences not being ready for what the show was offering. But a long list of underappreciated and underrated sci-fi shows deserves more attention.
What follows is a curated list of series that either found cult followings after cancellation or never got the mainstream respect they deserved in the first place. They’re smart, bold and often mindbending sci-fi shows that prove sci-fi is always reimagining what television can be.
Dollhouse
2009–2010, 2 Seasons
Dollhouse tackled one of sci-fi’s most haunting questions: what makes us who we are? With Eliza Dushku leading as an “Active” whose memories could be wiped and rewritten for any assignment, the show pushed into themes of exploitation, free will, and identity. Season 2, in particular, found its footing with higher stakes and a chilling glimpse into humanity’s future collapse.
But the dreaded Fox Friday night slot practically doomed Dollhouse from the start. On top of that, unaired episodes and network meddling left audiences confused about its vision. By the time it found a creative groove, cancellation had already sealed its fate. This is a great show if you missed Westworld, and was more an experiment ahead of its time.
Humans
2015–2018, 3 Seasons
Before Westworld rebooted the conversation about AI, Humans was telling a more intimate version of the same story. Set in a near-future where synthetic humans (“Synths”) work as laborers and companions, the series examined morality, family, and what separates organic from artificial life. It balanced tender domestic drama with questions of consciousness, and critics praised its thoughtfulness and restraint.
So why did Humans never break out? Well, the answer’s unsurprising: as a network production, it drowned among the more accessible sea of streaming options. Without a strong push, Humans slipped under the radar despite critical acclaim, and by the time it was canceled, it became yet another sci-fi show that ended on a massive cliffhanger.
Travelers
2016–2018, 3 Seasons
Travelers delivered a fresh spin on time travel: agents from a bleak future send their consciousness back into people seconds before they die, taking over their lives to try to prevent catastrophe. In a gripping twist, they have to juggle their missions while living as these hosts—navigating spouses, kids, and jobs they never chose.
And yet, it barely made a dent, originally airing on Canada’s Showcase before Netflix picked it up. This release strategy left it fragmented and hard to discover; add in Netflix’s usual promotion challenges for “smaller” shows, and Travelers was canceled in 2019 despite arguably being Netflix’s best sci-fi of all time.
Counterpart
2017–2019, 2 Seasons
Imagine finding out there’s another Earth nearly identical to ours, separated only by a Cold War-style divide. That’s Counterpart, a slick espionage thriller with a sci-fi twist, played by J.K. Simmons playing two drastically different versions of the same man.
The dual performance alone makes it a must-watch thriller show, but Counterpart also layered moral questions and a paranoid atmosphere that’s worthy of the best classic spy dramas.
Despite glowing reviews—season 1 holds a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes—the network canceled it after two seasons while pivoting to a “female-forward” programming strategy. Starz just didn’t know what to do with it. Without mainstream streaming exposure, Counterpart became one of the best shows nobody watched.
The Silent Sea
2021, 1 Season
South Korea’s The Silent Sea cast delivered a claustrophobic lunar thriller wrapped around urgent environmental concerns. Following a crew sent to a desolate moon base to retrieve mysterious samples, the series layered suspense with a grim backdrop, of Earth ravaged by drought and desperate for survival.
The show’s strength lay in its fusion of survival horror, mystery, and hard sci-fi. Although it might be dismissed as a “space mission gone wrong,” it’s really about how scarcity drives desperation and moral compromise. While some viewers found the pacing slow, its deliberate style allowed the dread to build into something far more unsettling than a typical space thriller.
Devs
2020, 1 Season
Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation) turned his gaze to television with Devs, a cerebral miniseries set in the world of tech and quantum computing, and it was as gorgeous as it was unsettling. With haunting design work, eerie scoring, and heady debates about determinism and free will, Devs was slept on at release.
Blame FX’s branding shuffle for why it slipped by. Devs was released under the short-lived “FX on Hulu” label in 2020, a confusing experiment phased out a year later, so without a clear home or marketing push, it never became appointment viewing. Those who found it still rave about its mood and ideas, and it’s a short thriller show that demands a second watch.
12 Monkeys
2015–2018, 4 Seasons
Based on Terry Gilliam’s cult classic film, Syfy’s 12 Monkeys managed the impossible by expanding the premise into a sprawling four-season saga that arguably surpassed the original. What started as a tense time-travel thriller evolved into a carefully plotted, surprisingly heartfelt story about love and sacrifice. By the final season, it was hailed as one of TV’s best sci-fi narratives.
Unfortunately, the network scheduled seasons in odd binge blocks, airing entire runs over a few nights, making week-to-week conversation nearly impossible. Combine that with Syfy’s reputation for premature cancellations, and many viewers assumed it wasn’t worth investing in. Those who did, though, found one of the rare sci-fi shows that mastered time travel.
The Lazarus Project
2022–2023, 2 Seasons
The Lazarus Project is a British sci-fi thriller that reimagines the time-loop concept at a global scale. Paapa Essiedu, aka Harry Potter’s new Severus Snape, stars as George, a man who joins a covert organization that can reset time to prevent apocalyptic events. His rare ability to retain memory after resets forces him into morally agonizing decisions about what—and who—is worth saving.
But George isn’t a typical sci-fi hero; he’s flawed, conflicted, and driven by love as much as duty. The series uses its time-loop conceit to explore grief, and the toll of living with the same disasters again and again. Canceled after two seasons, it still stands as one of the smartest, most gripping sci-fi dramas to emerge from the UK in years.
Continuum
2012–2015, 4 Seasons
Continuum, one of the few sci-fi shows that nailed its finale, opens in a future dominated by mega-corporations, where a police officer is accidentally sent back to 2012 along with a group of anti-corporate terrorists. What begins as a tense chase evolves into a complex morality tale, examining whether these so-called terrorists are actually freedom fighters trying to avert a dystopian future.
The series thrived on moral ambiguity, and Rachel Nichols’ protagonist Kiera Cameron had to wrestle with loyalty to the system she served versus growing empathy for those who opposed it. This slow shift in perspective is what kept Continuum interesting, making a layered procedural story about power and the price of progress.
Pantheon
2022–2023, 2 Seasons
Based on stories by Ken Liu, Pantheon deserves masterpiece status, full stop. It’s an animated series that pushed adult animation beyond comedy or fantasy into pure speculative fiction. It tackled “uploaded intelligence,” aka human minds preserved digitally, and the ethical plus societal fallout of a world where death might no longer be final.
Rather than leaning only on sleek tech, Pantheon tied its story to a grieving teenager who discovers her dead father may still exist online. By binding intimate human stakes to sprawling sci-fi ideas, it achieved the kind of resonance most live-action dramas chase but rarely capture.
Pantheon originally premiered on AMC+, but can now be streamed on Netflix.