The sci-fi genre has earned itself the reputation as one of the most consistently popular genres in pop culture. It has continued to grow and evolve over the years, adapting to keep its core tenets at the center of its stories. Its focus on speculative ideas involving scientific advancements often sees the best sci-fi TV shows shine a spotlight on problems or issues within modern society or in humanity as a whole, regularly providing audiences with cutting and gripping stories. As a result, science fiction TV shows are often among the most-watched and most talked-about shows on TV, and have earned a lasting place within modern pop culture.
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Not all sci-fi shows get the attention they deserve, though. There have been some great sci-fi shows that nobody talks about, or that seem to have faded quickly into obscurity. Though there are many excellent sci-fi stories unfolding on the small screen at any given moment, sometimes they simply don’t get the viewership they truly deserve.
5) Childhood’s End (Syfy, 2015)
Childhood’s End is an Australian-American three-episode miniseries that adapts the novel of the same name by the legendary Arthur C. Clarke. Its story concerns a peaceful alien invasion of Earth, transforming the planet into a utopia at the cost of the human race’s culture and identity. The story is a sci-fi classic, though its small-screen adaptation struggled to find the viewership that it seemed to deserve.
Childhood’s End boasted some truly exceptional visual effects and brought the original story’s complex themes to life with the appropriate sensitivity and vision. However, it simply didn’t perform as well as it should have, with its marketing proving disappointing and its three-episode format not seeming to help matters. Despite being a strong adaptation of the sci-fi classic involving one of the best alien encounters in pop culture, Childhood’s End is a show that hardly anybody actually seemed to watch.
4) Colony (USA Network, 2016-2018)
Colony might not quite be a sci-fi TV show cancelled in its prime, but it’s certainly one of the genre’s most overlooked shows of the past decade. Its story is set in a near-future dystopian Los Angeles, where regular citizens live under the military occupation of the Transitional Authority, who serve an alien group known as the Hosts. It ran for three seasons, during which time it concerned the efforts of a resistance to the Authority’s rule.
Although Colony wasn’t a sci-fi masterpiece, it was an impressively crafted show that featured many of the hallmarks of a great sci-fi story. Despite consistently positive reviews, Colony couldn’t quite find the viewership it needed, ultimately leading to its premature cancellation. It’s a show that deserves far more attention, but was ultimately cancelled because not enough people were watching it.
3) Devs (FX, 2020)
Devs is a truly interesting examination of the pitfalls of modern television. It follows the developers at a quantum computing company when a software engineer becomes implicated in the death of her colleague and boyfriend. With an impressive ensemble cast and glowing critical reviews, Devs is one of the most successful shows released on Hulu to date.
Strangely, Devs swiftly went from a sensational show to one of those recent sci-fi shows that nobody talks about. Despite earning a considerable viewership on Hulu, Devs wasn’t watched anywhere near as widely as it should have been, considering the depth of its story and the rich narrative themes it explored. While it didn’t necessarily fail, it wasn’t able to find the audience it should have, and isn’t as well-remembered as it deserves to be as a result.
2) Future Man (Hulu, 2017-2020)
Another Hulu show that nobody seemed to see was Future Man. A sci-fi comedy starring Josh Hutcherson as a janitor whose video game high score qualifies him to help save the world, Future Man is innovative and refreshing. However, it was also plagued by unimpressive viewership figures, leading to its eventual cancellation and removal from all streaming services.
It may not have been a sci-fi TV show cancelled too soon, but Future Man was nowhere near as successful as it deserved. A show as fun and consistently engaging as Future Man should easily have become widely watched and talked about, but this sadly wasn’t the case. And, with it now removed from all streaming platforms, it doesn’t seem likely that it will even blossom into a show with a cult following, as new viewers won’t be able to find Future Man to engage with it.
1) Counterpart (Starz, 2017-2019)
Counterpart is another great sci-fi TV show nobody talks about — at least, that is, outside of die-hard sci-fi fans. The show earned an impressive 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which goes some way toward explaining its quality. Starring J.K. Simmons as a mild-mannered UN agent who discovers a gateway to an alternate reality in which he is a super spy. Its mind-bending premise facilitated a gripping story that ran for two seasons before being cancelled.
Despite being hailed as one of the best sci-fi TV shows of the 21st century, Counterpart’s ratings were pretty disappointing. Considering how intelligent and well-made the show is, it simply deserved to perform far better than it did. With a cult following and many glowing reviews, it’s a sci-fi show that never got the flowers it deserved at the time, but at least is fondly remembered by fans.
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