The sci-fi genre had a generationally good year on the small screen in 2025.
This year sci-fi TV represented some of the best on offer – with shows like “Andor” and “Severance” both returning for stellar second seasons and hotly anticipated newcomers like “Alien: Earth” all becoming water cooler discussion shows.
Then you had unexpected magic like “Common Side Effects” and “Murderbot” becoming a weekly delight. All that combines for one helluva year for fans of the genre.
These are the best sci-fi shows of 2025.
Alien: Earth
Giving the reigns of the “Alien” franchise to the mastermind behind FX hits like “Fargo” and “Legion” seemed like a recipe for success – and turns out it was. The network spared no expense once it finally committed to Noah Hawley’s vision for what an “Alien” TV series could look like.
The show has plenty of close-quartered brutalizing of soldiers from a number of xenomorphs, but also stepped back to look at the role synthetics and the newly-minted “hybrids” play in the world. Corporate greed, dubious science, steam-filled corridors hiding monsters, the show checks all the franchise boxes while always making sure Hawley’s strength for humanizing both the best and worst characters in his stories is at the forefront.
Severance
After the pantheon entry of all-time TV episodes that was the “Severance” Season 1 finale and an interminably long wait for Season 2, the Apple TV hit’s return had a lot riding on it. And by all measures, the Adam Scott-led series exceeded across the board. “Severance” found a balance that many puzzle-boxed, theory-crafting series struggle to strike – answering questions the audience spent years speculating on, and posing new ones for everyone to chew.
While Season 2 never reached the individual highs of the Season 1 finale, the second season flaunted a number of episodes easily considered for best TV entries of the year – including the MDRs harrowing ORTBO trip and “Chikhai Bardo,” which finally explored Mark and Gemma before the accident and Mark’s Severance procedure.
“Severance” was the first monoculture moment of 2025 and it deserved every chat and hairbrained theory pitched across its eight-week run.
Black Mirror
Despite the fact that most seasons of “Black Mirror” have an up-and-down quality to them, they can always be relied on to deliver at least a couple amazing sci-fi stories, and Season 7 was no different. This year’s top contenders are “USS Callister: Into Infinity” and “Eulogy.”
The first is a rare sequel to a beloved entry from an early season that let Cristin Milioti return to go full “Star Trek” once again. The episode didn’t reach the highs of the original but was one of the most visually impressive entries of the show to date. The real jewel of the season was Paul Giamatti’s turn in “Eulogy,” a somber story about a man whose assumptions led him down a depressing path and a view of the road not traveled.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Nobody is making the case for the return of episodic, mission-of-the-week television like “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.” Sure there is a through-line across the season, but the best thing about this series is being able to just enjoy a ride on the Enterprise while the team tackles another problem or moral quandary across the final frontier.
For fans intimidated about the size and scope of the “Star Trek” franchise, “Strange New Worlds” serves as a great entry point, and the show’s third season continued that trend of excellence.
Common Side Effects
“Common Side Effects” is an animated thriller about a rare mushroom with the ability to heal just about any wound or ailment the human body could suffer. If that sounds like a show best enjoyed on mushrooms of your own, that could very well be the point – but the alchemy of the new Adult Swim hit is they aren’t needed.
The Mike Judge-produced series manages to thread a number of needles simultaneously, making the series feel suspenseful, heartfelt, spooky, thrilling and genuinely hilarious week in and week out.
“Common Side Effects” is the latest superb show to prove that corporate espionage with a splash of “The X-Files” are two tastes that go great together.
Murderbot
Apple TV’s “Murderbot” series managed to toe the comedy and drama line that Martha Well’s series of novellas did perfectly. The series stars a rouge SecUnit robot who gains free will trying to hide the fact that he couldn’t care less about the group they were hired by for protection – preferring to just binge watch one of their many favorite shows instead – while also growing over time to genuinely care for this oddball family of scientists and researchers.
Alexander Skarsgård plays the titular robot with a perfect blend of disconnected disinterest, childlike wonder and ruthlessly efficient killer. In a world where narrative voice-over harms more than it helps, Skarsgård’s running internal monologue as Murderbot takes each episode to another level of hilarity and sincerity.
Dimension 20: Cloudward Ho!
“Dungeons & Dragons” continues to blow up in popularity year after year, and few actual-play games circulating the internet capture the chaos, hilarity and heartfelt moments of being at the table better than “Dimension 20.”
The most recent major season of the Dropout anthology series – “Cloudward Ho!” – was a swashbuckling steampunk adventure with a splash of Lovecraftian nightmare. If that’s not enough to get you to try out a season while on your journey to start your own game, then nothing will.
Andor
“Andor” might well be the story of our time. The second and final season of the Disney+ Star Wars series pits Cassian Andor, Luthen Rael, Bix Caleen, Mon Mothma and more against the growing power and influence of the Galactic Empire. Across 12 episodes, that chronicles four years of the growing rebellion, the characters make one devastating sacrifice after the next in the pursuit of fighting for something greater than themselves. If the parallels to fighting an encroaching presence of fascism and authoritarianism are stark, it only serves to make the series hit all the harder.
Watching “Andor” Season 2 in 2025 can be a scary prospect but also a hopeful one – and doing so at this time can serve as a reminder that many of us have “friends everywhere.”
The post The Best Sci-Fi Shows of 2025 appeared first on TheWrap.
