The 20 best sci-fi TV shows of the 21st century

Yes, “Futurama” did debut in March of 1999. However, the events of the pilot literally begin on New Year’s Eve 1999 with Fry being frozen and sent into the future just as the new millennium was about to begin. That makes “Futurama” feel like a new-millennium show. Also, “Futurama” is great. Well, the original FOX run was great.

There was an animated “Star Trek” back in the day, though that was basically the original series but cheaply animated. “Lower Decks,” though, was a different story. Starting in 2020, this animated show focused on the crew members on the, well, lower decks of a Starfleet ship. “Lower Decks” is also notable because it is a comedy for adults, making it different from the usual “Star Trek” fare.

“Clone High” was an of-the-time spoof of teen soap operas, but with the clones of famous historical figures in the mix. But not Gandhi. Definitely not Gandhi. The raunchy, goofy cartoon originally only aired one season on MTV, and it sat as a cult classic. However, “Clone High” was rebooted on HBO Max in the 2020s, and it actually managed to capture much of the spirit of the original season.

Of course “Phineas and Ferb” is a sci-fi show. A bunch of kids build impossible machines and travel into space and through time. Also, a mad scientist obsessed with taking over the Tri-State Area builds a series of absurd doomsday devices and does battle with a platypus secret agent. Just because “Phineas and Ferb” is a breezy, family-friendly Disney sitcom doesn’t mean it isn’t also a sci-fi show.

Unlike “Clone High,” this cult favorite has not gotten a revival. The show aired one season on ABC Family, and it was a lot of fun. Wendy Watson (played by a then-unknown Natalie Morales) is a struggling artist who stumbles into being the apprentice/assistant to The Middleman. Who is The Middleman, exactly? Well, he makes “exotic problems” go away — problems that tend to involve aliens or ghosts or other sci-fi matters.

The Teen Titans include an alien, a boy who can turn into animals, and a cyborg. That sounds sci-fi to us. This Cartoon Network show made on a very aggressive production schedule takes the popular Teen Titans from DC comics and drops them into a bananas, joke-a-second comedy. That made “Teen Titans Go!” polarizing, but personally we’re all for it.

Yes, the original run of “MST3K” was largely in the ‘90s, but the show was rebooted here in the new millennium, so we’ll count it. The show about a man and some robots stranded in space to watch bad movies at the behest of mad scientists is mostly an excuse for riffing over cheesy films. After a Kickstarter campaign, “MST3K” was rebooted on Netflix. Jonah Ray stepped in as the host, and the two Netflix seasons are solid. They also did another season that is best left buried.

We could go with any of the modern “Star Wars” shows, but the only other one we really want to shout out is “Andor.” Personally, we prefer the fun of “The Mandalorian.” Pedro Pascal plays the titular anti-hero as he goes about the universe with Baby Yoda having adventures and just generally being a fun hang.

As with the “Star Wars” shows, the only other MCU show we want to shout out is “Loki.” “Loki” is a better show than “WandaVision,” but we appreciate the ambition of “WandaVision.” Well, at least at first. It did devolve into your usual “two superheroes throw magic at each other” conclusion. Before that, though, we saw Wanda and Vision living in different sitcom realities, but with clear cracks in the world around them.

A TV show based on a video game franchise always carries with it a healthy dose of skepticism, though “Fallout” had a richer world than some video games. Fortunately, the darkly-comedic, post-apocalyptic show delivered. The only shame is that the Amazon Prime show takes Walton Goggins, who plays The Ghoul, away from his true passion: Being in commercials for massive corporations.

“Stranger Things” isn’t just the definitive sci-fi show of the last decade or so. It’s also in the running for the definitive show of the last decade, full stop. The Netflix behemoth started with one tween going missing and another tween with strange powers showing up in Hawkins, Indiana out of nowhere. From there, the universe of “Stranger Things” built out, stars were born, and a cultural phenomenon was born.

The 1973 movie “Westworld,” written and directed by Michael Crichton, is simple. Humans go to an amusement park with different lands populated with androids. Then, one day, those androids begin to malfunction, and The Gunslinger tries to shoot down the humans in Westword. The HBO show ostensibly based on “Westworld” is decidedly grander in scope. It has Ideas about The Way Of The World. Great cast, though.

The Weitz brothers, who first broke through with “American Pie,” are now making an action-comedy show called “Murderbot.” Those two contain multitudes. Based on a book series, the main character is a security android who coins itself Murderbot. Then, Murderbot gains autonomy, which of course it must hide, because autonomous androids are not what society is looking for. The first season on Apple TV proved quite successful, and it’s easier to have hope about a show going forward when it has a whole book series to rely on.

Remember when SyFy (formally Sci-fi Channel) could have a show just casually run for five seasons and 65 episodes? That’s the run that “Warehouse 13” got. Something of a sci-fi dramedy, “Warehouse 13” focused on a team of government agents who are tasked with finding enchanted artifacts so that they can be stored in the titular warehouse away from dangerous hands. Yes, in essence “Warehouse 13” is basically this: What if the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was considered a happy one?

“Lost” was a true phenomenon and also maybe one of the death knells for ambitious network dramas. The issue the “Lost” crew had was that ABC, naturally, wanted a bunch of episodes of the hit show. That left the show spinning its wheels for episodes, and sometimes even seasons. While many disliked the ending of “Lost,” you can’t deny its cultural impact and early popularity.

Among the many CW shows based on DC comics, “Legends of Tomorrow” was the one most in the science fiction budget. Also, after it stopped being so serious, the most fun. “Legends of Tomorrow” used its time travel elements and its roster of C-tier DC characters to become a breezy, meta show with a lot of comedic elements. That was for the best.

“Fringe” started a little slow on FOX, but it picked up as the show figured out its mythology. The Fringe Division of the FBI, led by the eccentric scientist Walter Bishop, is tasked with investigating phenomena related to a parallel universe. By delving into that parallel universe more, “Fringe” developed a cult fandom that pushed it to five seasons.

A sci-fi show can be set in the past. That’s where alternative history comes into play. “For All Mankind” posits a world where the Soviet Union, not the United States, gets to the Moon first. This leads to a never-ending space race, with each season taking place in a new decade. “For All Mankind” is still ongoing, with the plan to end up covering 70 years, which would make this a sci-fi show set in the future at that point.

The trippy Netflix miniseries “Maniac” was a showcase for director Cary Joji Fukanaga, who co-developed the show and directed every episode. “Maniac” has very distinct visuals, really indicating who was the driving force behind the show. Emma Stone and Jonah Hill are two strangers who sign up for a pharmaceutical trial that leads to a mind-bending series of adventures that take them in and out of reality, both together and apart.

“Pluribus” was promoted opaquely, which Apple TV could get away with. After all, it was able to promote this as the new show from “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan, and also note it stars “Better Call Saul” standout Rhea Seehorn. Now that the show is here, we have some sense of what “Pluribus” is. Also, we know that it is really good. An alien virus (of sorts, it's complicated) infects the minds of almost every single human being on the planet, at least those who didn’t die in the process. Seehorn plays Carol, who wasn’t affected and who is one of the only unaffected people who is alarmed by this turn of events.