Discovering a hidden gem in the science fiction universe is a special thing. We all know the feeling, right? When we finally find that show that lives just outside the mainstream but looks us right in the eye and rocks our collective worlds? Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Sci-fi has got to be the richest, most diversified genre out there. Even as a medium solely for entertainment, a single sci-fi show can bang out so many Big Ideas with so many mind-bending possibilities that if you think about them too hard, your brain might just hurt. And it’s not as if we need to find causes to advocate for and shows to boost; most sci-fi is popular enough.
But some brilliant stuff is not getting the love it deserves, so here are five underappreciated sci-fi shows that have either gotten or are headed toward getting fewer fans than they merit.
If you also adore the kind of hardcore science fiction that offers the opportunity for meticulous analysis and forms the basis of a great deal of scholarship (both paid and volunteer), then here are five shows that deserve more attention and that you might even consider watching. If you love space operas and have not yet watched Dark Matter, then do watch Dark Matter, which aired on Syfy from 2015 to 2017 and got the three seasons and out treatment that probably decent science fiction deserves. Dark Matter is about a group of people who wake up on a spaceship in the far future when they are a long way from Earth and momentarily untraceable in the stellar neighborhood.
The classic premise of Dark Matter centers on six strangers who awaken aboard a spacecraft without any memory of their identities or how they came to be there. Yet this simple setup is given new life and new depth by a fearlessly ambitious narrative. What really matters, it seems, is not so much the whodunit and the unraveling of the show’s central mystery, but the individual and collective journeys of the characters we now know as the Raza crew. They are the reason why the story has a stay-your-hand page-turner quality. But what elevates Dark Matter to classic status, for me at least, is the crew’s dynamic, particularly in seasons one and two.
Dark Matter is the kind of science fiction show that really digs into the complicated stuff, like identity, memory, and the papery-thin nature of redemption. And… it also has all the space battles and nigh-invulnerable morally dubious corporations that you could want. If you watch Dark Matter and don’t spend at least some time imagining what a fourth season would look like, I seriously wonder if you’re even human (or if you are, in fact, a “doppelgänger”). Anyway, dark fantasies of being replaced by a lookalike aside, Counterpart is only sometimes a dark show. At its best, it’s a bright, well-lit assembly of Cold War intrigue and dimensionally transcendental plotlines.
What is so captivating about Counterpart is its slow-burn, methodical world-building. Two diverged worlds formed not long after the Cold War, and in this series, they exist beside each other in what must be described as a mirror universe—alternate yet strongly connected. The same people occupy both worlds; it is their different choices that have allowed them to lead lives that are intriguingly, sometimes shockingly, dissimilar. Womanizing Howard is hot on the trail of a dangerous murderous outfit in the basement of a secretive government office, and these plotlines could unfold in any good spy thriller. But there is another side to the life Howard leads.
The interaction between him and his in-custody double “Cold Howard” is as good as anything you will find in any series about alternate lives. Indeed, with its “who am I?” premise, this is a series that hits home across a wide swath of the character landscape.
I know what you’re thinking: The Expanse is well-known among sci-fi fans, but somehow it seems to have slipped under the radar of many casual viewers, never really achieving the mainstream breakout success that I think it deserves. Based on the series of novels by James S.A. Corey, The Expanse opens with a prologue set a couple of hundred years in humanity’s future, where gravity wells, not wormholes or artificial gravity, make the solar system the biggest playground for humans and human-like AIs. Bolder by far is the basic premise of the series, which, of necessity, is space opera.
Some of it happens in the vast emptiness between Earth and Mars, but most of it is set on and around the various planets and moons in our solar system.
The Expanse deserves more love, but the real reason is its characters. You can root for Jim Holden, the show’s protagonist, and his not-always-heroic heroism. You can root for Naomi Nagata, who might be one of the most fathomable characters to have gone through the odyssey of her circumstances. And what about Amos Burton? He doesn’t always deserve rooting for, but he might be the most interesting character in recent sci-fi for his unpredictability and the hints of malice that come up whenever he talks about or does something that, in the literary terms that govern character assessment, can only be called “bad.” The Expanse is also good on issues that matter, like colonialism and resource scarcity.
If you are a time travel lover but find yourself weary of traditional paradoxes and butterfly effects, then the Canadian science-fiction drama Travelers could easily become your new favorite binge. The series, which aired on Netflix from 2016 to 2018, puts a fresh spin on the concept of time travel. Rather than using the old back-and-forth technique, the show presents “travelers” from a dystopian future who send their consciousness into the present, inhabiting the bodies of individuals just moments before their actual deaths. And all of this is in the service of trying to prevent some unprecedented catastrophe that the travelers’ society has somehow figured out is coming down the pipeline.
What distinguishes Travelers from other high-concept sci-fi shows is how well it allows viewers to invest in its high-concept premise–that of a time traveler occupying the mind of a contemporary person on the brink of death. In order to do this, it takes the time to set up some very relatable and emotionally resonant stakes, giving us an actual reason to care about these time travelers and the missions they undertake. The ensemble cast is thoroughly appealing, with “Will & Grace’s” Eric McCormack an excellent lead. The writing is good enough to raise some thorny ethical questions about what these time travelers are really up to, especially with the whole issue of identity.
While some Netflix originals may boast large budgets and the kind of marketing that brings the Oscars to mind, we think that the kind of series a show like Travelers is, one with a near 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (an uncommon achievement for Netflix Originals), should be remembered even in the award conversation. This show is heartfelt, has strong character development, and features some (underrated) performances by some of the cast members. Even if you haven’t seen the show, I would encourage you to look up what it’s about because the premise is really interesting and handles the themes of space-time and parallel universes well.
The OA lures viewers in with a slow, steady plot and a narrative structure that takes risks, some of which don’t seem to pay off completely but make the series feel bold and ambitious. This isn’t just a show that plays with sci-fi concepts; it toys with them, embraces them, and runs with them. Summarizing the “story” without giving anything away is difficult, and for some reason I’m not entirely sure of, it feels easier to let you in on the “hook” than to describe the series as a whole. So here’s the hook: a woman who went missing for seven years and was thought to be dead reappears and tells a story about what happened to her that’s so strange and so engaging that you have to hook into the next episode to find out more.
The OA isn’t really a mainstream show, but for those who have a spiritual connection with it, it is a profound experience. And if you are a sort of viewer who not only watches a show but also watches a show community form around it, then OA fandom is definitely a space where you’d want to set up camp. Why These Shows (The OA, Legion, Counterpart) Deserve More Love – The OA and Communities of Love
What I value most about watching criminally underrated sci-fi shows is the tight-knit community I become a part of along the way. The series that live within this space are not the ones dominating the conversation in the week-to-week cycle of social media, nor are they the ones basking in the glow of the glamorous billboards in Times Square. They live on through the word of mouth between friends, the passionate discussions in forum spaces that feel like private and homey places to gather on the internet, and the dedicated cosplayers who keep the flame alive at conventions—when I final put seeing Edge of Tomorrow in a private home theater reached for non-existent 3D glasses, I think I just reenacted a moment of cosplay performance art.
But these are also just moments of tweak with a show like Dark Matter—a Georgina Haig, who played an excellent character in an underrated show, joining my moment for a photo opportunity (my moment with Rebekah Mikaelson, a.k.a. Georgina Haig, in a private space).
Fans of Dark Matter are just as vocal as any fan base about wanting a continuation of the saga, even if it’s just a single movie to tie up the many loose threads left dangling at the series’ end. And series like these do have communities, making it all the more rewarding to explore their not-so-little worlds. Travelers—and, to an extent, The OA—are sorta kindred spirits, by which I mean that they offer up some serious sci-fi storytelling. And The OA in particular tells a kind of story that, as I’ve pointed out, is all too rare in mainstream entertainment: one with actual thoughtful engagement with what might happen in our world if you mix scientific inquiry and the kind of crazily expansive imagination that actual great writers have.
What makes this all the more irritating is that these platforms tend to cancel shows right when they’re beginning to find their audience. The OA is the ideal case in point—it amassed a devoted fanbase but left its viewers with nothing but a grasping sense of “could have been” after it was unceremoniously canceled. And Counterpart? If it was too cerebral for mass appeal, it was also a show that had cerebral fans hooked on an intricate narrative and consistently morally ambiguous characters. Streaming is now a sci-fi show’s best bet for survival, but it’s also a space where shows have to fight much harder and be way more innovative just to stay afloat—imagine the amount of life support a show like Counterpart would have needed when it was on HBO, just to edge into the common parlance of “good but canceled.”
The supporters of Travelers have been known to push for a Season 4 even years after the last episode was shown, while The Expanse uncovered a totally new audience once it reached the streaming services. This indicates that even when a show seems to have departed before its time, it can still be unearthing fresh followers who might even be inspiring new creators—those who cherished the series as much as we did. Here’s something all these shows share: They’re built around the big, universal themes that give science fiction its power. Take Dark Matter, for example. At the story’s core, don’t be fooled: It’s not really about the high-concept “what ifs” that it plays with.
It’s about identity—our amnesiac crew members deal with the fundamental question of whether, when you don’t remember your past, you can change who you are.
Many of us relate deeply to the theme of change, whether we’re dealing with our own life transitions or simply savoring a good story. The Expanse, however, examines the human desire for exploration and expansion on a much larger scale. It doesn’t shy away from the darker sides of colonization and resource wars, which seem so relevant these days, but it also profoundly respects — indeed, celebrates — the spirit of discovery that drives the human race ever outward. There isn’t enough room here to do justice to the show’s subtle and not-so-subtle political debates, which weave in and out of the narratives of power, coming to a head in the not-always-pleasant politics of change at both the Solar System and the Earth levels.
The OA is about how people relate to one another, how they seek and create meaning in their lives, and the tantalizing possibility that something lies beyond our comprehension. It’s a show that can’t be easily categorized—sci-fi, fantasy, drama, or something else?—and that, I think, makes it all the more special. You can almost feel the writers daring to tell a story that asks viewers to believe in something impossible, and to also believe that the power of belief itself is a worthy topic for a series. And I’ve held on to this memory, too; I never finished the series, but I did start it with my wife, and what I did see got me wondering and speculating.
If you have reached this point in the text, then I trust you have been persuaded of the worthiness of these underrated series. Indeed, they do not boast the enormous fanbases nor the blockbuster budgets of other vehicles of pop culture, but what they do have in spades is heart. When you watch them, you know—because they have shown you—that the stories they are telling are not only entertaining but often as complex as anything else you might be engaged with. And because they can take risks that bigger shows often cannot (or will not), when you watch them and these four in particular, you know you are in for something special.
The first time I watched Counterpart, I remember being hooked by the end of the pilot. The premise—two parallel universes engaged in a peaceful, decades-long Cold War—was tantalizing, but what kept me riveted was Howard’s quadrant and half arc attempting to understand his other self. Dark Matter—also an engaging mystery and always worthy of some rewatch time—has this umpteenth flavor of a lost in space story with its many meanderings and meanderers scattered throughout the quadrants of the universe. I use these terms loosely, of course; Dark Matter was producing very satisfying character moments—character growth—while I was still trying to map the plot back to its evident starting point.
Thus, if you seek your next exceptional sci-fi series to binge-watch or wish to relive a program you might have skipped the first time, I cannot recommend these highly enough. They are not merely excellent examples of the sci-fi medium; they are tales that remind us of the timeless appeal of the genre. They beckon us to move in and inhabit their strange, new worlds, where we can ponder the “big” questions that often seem more relevant than they ought to. And they offer up characters who—visionary hand-waves and all—seem as real and vital as anyone we know.
Isn’t that what any good sci-fi series strives to deliver?
Concluding Thoughts—Let’s Continue the Discourse
The magic of science fiction is that it is always growing, always coupling new ways to reflect the elation, fear, and dreams of the world. It is a living, breathing, democracy-espousing genre. It’s about what could happen next; it’s about our hopes, fears, and dreams. And it’s way too easy to just hang around the big franchises and never find what’s happening in the underbelly of the genre. In these two shows, though, I think we can find what’s happening in the award-worthy writing drifting away from the more popular series. So let’s have a chat about these two series.
What are your theories? What were your favorite parts? And what was the climax that left your jaw unhinged?
And really, who can say? It could be that someday we’ll witness a revival of Dark Matter or a continuation of The OA. Until that fabled day arrives, though, we can keep our discussions alive, sharing our love for the stories that remind us why we look to the stars.
