The Expanse’s tumultuous TV history includes being cancelled by SYFY after three seasons, a massive fan campaign (#saveTheExpanse), and being picked up by Amazon for three seasons, only to be cut short again before its time. While Season 6 technically concluded the Marco Inaros storyline, it still left a third of the source material unadapted. While the final episodes teased the rise of Laconia, it appears the massive time jump and narrative shift in James S.A. Corey’s final trilogy would have been too difficult to pull off. And fans have been searching to fill an Expanse-sized hole in thier hearts ever since.
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The Expanse was a brilliant series that scratched the itch for space opera, hard sci-fi, political military thriller, and more. It had everything a great sci-fi story needs, including complex characters and moral conundrums. There hasn’t been much like it since it left the air in 2022. Thankfully, however, there’s hope on the horizon, as these five upcoming shows are beginning to look like the next must-see sci-fi series, and among them, there might just be a perfect replacement for The Expanse.
5) Star City (Apple TV)
Apple TV’s Star City expands the alternate history of For All Mankind (the hard sci-fi hit from Battlestar Galactica’s Ronald D. Moore), shifting perspective from NASA to the Soviet space program. The spinoff series will star Rhys Ifans as a key figure at Star City, the cosmonaut training center outside Moscow, reimagined in a timeline in which the USSR beats the US to the Moon. Similar to The Expanse, Star City will likely take on the geopolitics of space exploration, albeit from an alternate past rather than a near future. Star City will premiere on May 29th on Apple TV, and while you wait, you can check out For All Mankind.
4) Consider Phlebas (Prime Video)
Based on the first novel in the Culture series, Consider Phlebas will introduce audiences to Iain M. Banks’ expansive universe. The story takes place during a massive galactic war between the post-scarcity Culture (governed by hyper-intelligent AI “Minds”) and the authoritarian Idiran Empire. Written by Charles Yu and executive-produced by Oscar-winning filmmaker Chloé Zhao, the adaptation has the potential to capture the same physical and philosophical scale as The Expanse did in its later seasons. Expanse fans will likely feel right at home among The Culture’s questions about AI governance and utopia. Although there is no set premiere date for the series, details will likely begin to trickle out soon.
3) Neuromancer (Apple TV)
William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer essentially invented cyberpunk as we know it, yet it has strangely never received a definitive screen adaptation. Thankfully, it looks like Apple TV will rectify the glaring oversight with its upcoming 10-episode series starring Callum Turner as Case, the burned-out hacker recruited for a digital heist. From there, we follow Case and augmented assassin Molly Millions as they infiltrate corporate systems controlled by powerful AIs, unraveling a conspiracy tied to a corporate dynasty. While The Expanse explores space, Neuromancer probes digital frontiers, with themes such as corporate power, class inequality, and humanity’s relationship with tech. Well-poised to deliver the same level of intellectual density, Neruomancer will likely be a must-see for Expanse fans and will likely premiere late this year.
2) Stargate Revival (Prime Video)
Amazon MGM Studios’ developing Stargate revival will be led by longtime franchise writer and producer Martin Gero (Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis). The new series will reportedly be a continuation rather than a hard reboot, with the original film’s creators, Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, attached as executive producers. For Expanse fans, this one is a no-brainer. The Stargate network (ancient portals connecting countless inhabited worlds) is strikingly similar to the Ring Gates introduced in later Expanse seasons, not to mention competing powers and political alliances, and the question of humanity’s role in the galaxy. While no date has been set, the release window is currently looking like late 2027 to early 2028.
1) The Captive’s War (Prime Video)
The most direct spiritual successor comes from the creators of The Expanse themselves, with Amazon greenlighting an adaptation of The Captive’s War, the newest novel series from James S.A. Corey, reuniting key creative forces including showrunner Naren Shankar and director Breck Eisner, with the authors serving as executive producers. The same studio that rescued The Expanse after its cancellation is once again betting on the writing duo to deliver gold. The series supposedly veers fully into large-scale space opera, depicting humanity’s struggle against the Carryx, a massive alien empire with rigid biological castes. The story follows captives like research assistant Dafyd Alkhor, who must learn to survive within the alien hierarchy while attempting to spark rebellion from the inside. With familiar creative leadership and an entirely new universe, it may offer the closest thing to the special sauce that made The Expanse so amazing in the first place. Although there is no set release date, the series is currently in active development.
Which upcoming show are you most excited for? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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