The six best science-fiction shows of 2025

Cataclysms, conspiracies and rebellions featured in many of 2025’s biggest sci-fi shows. And while all that instability reflects poorly on the state of our world, at least it did make for fantastic television. Here are six series that should be on your to-watch list.

Two of the year’s best shows took their time to return for fresh seasons. When Andor (Disney+) first aired in 2022, it didn’t quite feel real. A Star Wars show that was as enjoyable for newbies as it was for seasoned fans? A prequel about Rebel Alliance spy Cassian Andor, written and performed with the kind of fervour usually reserved for Shakespeare? And it is actually good? You are having me on, I thought at the time.

But it really is brilliant. And somehow the second and final (sob) season of Andor is even better than the first. Now committed to fighting the Galactic Empire, Cassian steals ships and rescues operatives at the behest of the shadowy spymaster Luthen – but something bigger is on the horizon. Timely in our authoritarian era, hard-edged and beautifully written, Andor was undeniably the best show of this year.

The other laggard, also from 2022, was Severance (Apple TV), featuring a very different group of rebels. Set at the mysterious Lumon Industries, it follows a group of employees who have chosen to be “severed”: their memories of work have been separated from the rest of their consciousness, effectively creating another person, known as an “innie”, who has never known the light of the sun.

The parlous life of an innie means being terrorised in countless ways by Lumon middle managers, while the “outtie” who put them in this hellhole remains blissfully ignorant. Their only recourse? Death by resignation. Season two takes the innies in some terrifying directions, revealing more of the strange workings of Lumon. Severance is a satisfying mystery that is smart enough to burn through plotlines and actually answer your questions, even if it then supplies you with more.

Here’s a show that might not seem like a New Scientist pick: Paradise (Disney+/Hulu), which was an overnight hit back in January. It starts off as a pedestrian political thriller, albeit one with the good sense to cast Sterling K. Brown as Xavier Collins, a US Secret Service agent, and James Marsden as Cal Bradford, the president Collins is suspected of murdering. Their chemistry is terrific, the machinations frenetic.

It should have been a fun but forgettable binge-watch, but a sci-fi twist, which comes at the end of one of the finest first episodes I have seen in years, lifts Paradise from the merely entertaining to the gripping. No spoilers here, but it casts a chilling pall over the investigation and keeps things from getting too silly. Because it is silly – many key moments are set to waifish covers of 1980s power ballads – but to just the right degree.

Every year, the world ends a thousand times on television, but some apocalypses are better than others. One of 2025’s best was The Eternaut (Netflix), which brought the classic sci-fi comic by Héctor Germán Oesterheld into the present day.

After a deadly snowfall hits Buenos Aires, former soldier Juan Salvo dons a gas mask and waders to head into the streets, searching for his family. It soon becomes clear that the snow is just the start: Juan and a few other survivors must piece together what exactly has happened and how to stop it.

Steeped in the real-life history of the military dictatorship of Argentina in the late 1970s, and of Oesterheld’s murder at its hands, The Eternaut approaches its source material with the respect it deserves. This chilling series contains one of my favourite scenes of the year – a claustrophobic sequence in which huddled survivors in an apartment complex realise that Juan’s clothes let him survive outside, so they must take them from him.

If you prefer your dystopias on the warmer side, try Pluribus (Apple TV), the new series from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, set in the sunny climes of New Mexico. Its hero, jaded romance novelist Carol Sturka, isn’t much of a hero at all – especially once most of humanity is struck down by sudden-onset happiness. They are all keen to serve Carol, one of the few to remain unaffected, in whatever way she wishes. And if they find out how to fix whatever makes her different, all the better.

Suppose there was a utopia and not everyone got to enjoy it? Carol wants no part of this mandatory love-in, but finding out how to get things back to normal will be tricky – not least because there is plenty to like about a world with no war or selfishness.

Pluribus is achingly self-assured, taking you in directions you don’t expect, all anchored by a fantastic central performance.

Surprises in store

On the subject of happiness, let’s end on something lighter. Common Side Effects (Channel 4/Cartoon Network) is the show that surprised me most this year, not because it was good – which was all but guaranteed thanks to the involvement of Joe Bennett, co-creator of the excellent Scavengers Reign – but because it has attracted a big enough audience to be renewed for a second season.

In this animated series, fungi expert Marshall makes a remarkable discovery: a mushroom that appears to cure all illnesses and injuries. Naturally, the Blue Angel, as it is known, is a hot commodity that must be kept from the hands of Reutical Pharmaceutical – the firm that, unbeknownst to Marshall, employs Frances, his childhood friend, with whom he has just reconnected.

Soon, a host of foes are on his tail – but this isn’t just a conspiracy thriller or a tirade against big pharma. Common Side Effects is a thoughtful, funny show about building a better world. Let’s try to follow its example in 2026.