Sci-Fi Says No Presents My Favorite Science Fiction Shows that Got Screwed Over by Networks
Ask me what pisses me off about modern sci-fi and I’ll show you five fantastic science fiction shows that deserved better from audiences and algorithms alike. Spoiler alert: they all got canceled.
Sci-Fi enthusiasts take great pride in our media literacy. We watch years worth of space operas until we can recite lines of dialogue verbatim. We know which reboot or remake is tolerable and which should be avoided at all costs. We learn to construct better death-rays than whatever gung-ho space colony is rebuilding this week.
We’re also judges of quality television. Some of us work in aerospace industries. I’ve spent forty years designing airplanes and rocket engines, during which I’ve probably spent half that time reading science fiction. My wife has lovingly termed this my “healthy obsession.”
Healthy or not, there’s nothing I like more than finding a science fiction show that actually respects its viewers intelligence. Shows that understand there’s more to science fiction than CGI monsters punching holes through lightspeed battleships. So you can imagine my disappointment when Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Syfy, or whichever pile of garbage cuts my favorite shows after three seasons.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my geek cred as much as the next die-hard Trekkie. I’m still watching Star Trek: The Original Series reruns for the hundredth time while I write this post, volume two of Romulan Steel Hughes fucking Gratzer blasting through the speakers. But as a aerospace engineer who loves science fiction, there’s something special about watching shows that ground their speculation in reality. Watching this speculative future come crumbling down at the hands of network executives who’d rather greenlight reality’s-fattest-girl version of Zardoz infuriates me.
So here are five science fiction shows that deserve more love than they got—both from the viewing public and the television companies responsible for canceling them:
Dark Matter ran for three seasons on Syfy between 2015 and 2017, which should tell you everything you need to know about how treating quality science fiction these days. Networks don’t let decent shows run their course—they set fucking timers on them. The premise is simple: six people awake from cryosleep on an exploration spaceship with no memories of who they are or how they got there.
Spoilers for a seven-year-old television show: they’re not. Dark Matter morphs from mystery into meditation on character development and whether trauma determines your future self.
I’ll admit, I was dubious about the premise when I first read the description. Amnesia plot? Really? But the writers (helmed by veteran science fiction author Joseph Mallozzi) understood that plot device was just to give the characters something in common. Once they start poking at their shared past, what really drives the series is the question of what these characters want to become.
Their backstories range from ridiculous to jaw-droppingly tragic, but the cool part is we get to decide how these characters define themselves. One clearly has leadership skills, but is he the good guy? Two is a bisexual woman of colour with a cybernetic arm. Four blasts first and asks questions later. Science-wise, Dark Matter isn’t a hard sci-fi show by any stretch, but the rules they establish have some scientific basis. The technology onboard the Argus makes sense. Hell travel has limitations. When someone shoots you in zero-g, you actually stay dead.
No, what really sold me on Dark Matter was their character dynamics, particularly during the first two seasons. None of these characters are caricatures—at least not for very long. The groups pseudo-leader? Traitorous corporate assassin. Sexy lady with the hacking skills? Lesbian cyborg assassin. Generic-companion blonde chick? Well-protected genetically engineered soldier with unreal telekinesis.
My only complaint with the show is that it got canceled at the literal worst possible moment. Mallozzi has been fundraising for a Dark Matter feature-length film ever since, and if any show deserves a last hurrah Dark Matter’s got it.
Counterpart premiered on Starz in 2017 and ran for two seasons until 2019. If you aren’t watching Counterpart right now, grab some popcorn and watch both seasons because it’s probably the most underrated sci-fi show of the last decade. The setup is admittedly gimmicky: throughout the cold war, scientists developed technology that accidentally created an access point into a parallel dimension. The connection point, monitored by several UN agencies, allowed communication and limited travel between the two Earths until both governments deployed fighter jets to spray murder around.
The magic isn’t the alternate world—they do that decently enough—but rather what they do with the concept of having a parallel version of yourself living across the street. Simmons plays Howard Silk, a third-level manager at a document translation company who discovers not only is his cushy government job a front for spy work, but there’s another Howard Silk working across the street who is everything he’s not.
Howard might be wet behind the ears now, but there’s another Howard out there who’s been playing the game far longer. Counterpart leans into the sci-fi by rarely explaining how the other world was created, but dives deep into the what happens when two timelines diverge for thirty years. The pacing is the shows biggest weakness—most episodes unfold like short stories, with deliberate plot progression that probably doomed it among mass audiences.
From a science stand point, they barely touch the sci-fi elements beyond establishing that there is another Earth. Truth be told, they barely explain how the other world was created in the first place—which I like. They never ask the question why. It just happened, and everyone moves on. What’s interesting about Counterpart is how different decades of geopolitical decisions have created to worlds that are both eerily similar and completely alien at the same time.
J.K. Simmons carries both seasons, but the supporting cast ranges from interesting to “Holy shit that’s Damien Lewis as a cybersecurity analyst.” My only criticism is the show ends on a cliffhanger. Season 2, Episode 10 leaves you hanging, hungry for answers only the writers know.
There’s a reason The Expanse is considered the gold standard for hard science fiction on television. Started as a trilogy of novels by James S.A. Corey (pen name for two writers), the show takes place a few centuries in our future where humanity has expanded out into the solar system, but without the technology to travel faster than light. All of the tech in Expanse is grounded in real-world science, with enough handwavium to allow room for storytelling. If you want to see how ships would actually fly in space, watch The Expanse.
Yeah, they flip when they speed up and flip again when they slow down. Characters inject themselves with chemicals to help maintain consciousness during high-g manuevers. There’s no gravity on the ships besides what’s provided by acceleration or gravity boars. Someone punches a hole in the hull and gets exposed to space—not flamboyantly explodes like some Hollywood airlock monster mash-up.
It’s everything I dreamed of as an aerospace engineer who loves science fiction put on display. Admittedly, the characters could be stronger and they lost me a bit when cheesy mono-lipped Russian showed up, but overall the show understands that space is hard and spacecraft are dangerous.
It’s also a brilliant metaphor for modern politics. Earth = America. Mars = China. Everyone else = everyone else, specifically the Belt who have been screwed out of accessing resources by the two larger powers. Add in a terrifying GIANT ROBOT that can DESTROY PLANETS and you’ve got one hell of a show.
Created by Nicholi Reyheart and Brendan Fallis, Travelers premiered on Netflix in 2016 and ran until 2018. I binged both seasons during a lazy weekend (also known as my favorite way to watch television) and spent the following week harassing former coworkers about quantum particle theory.
I won’t sugarcoat it: Travelers is cheating. They teleport human consciousness back in time to relive lives of deceased patients. Patients who are killed during the process so their mind can ‘hack’ into their new host body. It’s science fantasy not hard science, though they at least attempt some realism with the host bodies limiting the amount of time their traveler can survive. Travelers existed in an apocalyptic future where they were trying to undo the events of that future by embedding their consciousness in the past.
Honestly, that might be my favorite twist on time travel since Greg Benford’s short story “Timescape.” Benford is one of my favorite science fiction authors (possibly my favorite), so having a show basically rip off his idea was thrilling enough to keep me binge-watching.
Travelers asks a lot of questions about identity that most time travel shows don’t, primarily how our choices define us as individuals. If you stole someone else’s body, would you feel like yourself? What if you suddenly had to maintain someone else’s marriage? There’s lots of sci-fi bonanza happening underneath the surface that most travelers missed.
The OA aired on Netflix from 2016 to 2019 and is honestly a show you either love or hate. Probably should have seen that coming from the description: a woman who’s been kidnapped for seven years returns to her family claiming she can travel to other dimensions by… singing?
Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, amirite?
Look, here’s the thing about The OA: it’s not really science fiction—or at least it’s science fiction by way of fantasy grounded in pseudoscience. A meth-addicted girl with magical powers who can go to other dimensions by singing interpretive dance had me running for the hills faster than you can say “sympathetic magic.”
Except…I kinda loved it?
The OA dares you to take it seriously and delivers a story so out there that it might actually work. At least I think so? The writing’s strong. Honestly, Patty Jenkins should take notes on how to write active female characters who kick ass without beating you over the head with it. (The Last Jedi should’ve watched these pilots, too.)
The OA flies by some of the strongest pilots any TV series has ever done and then veers far, far out into fuck-knows-what-land. The finale of season 1 is a masterclass of weird that only concludes with our heroine warping into another dimension by breakingdance. Netflix canceled it after two seasons, thankfully allowing Natasha Lyonne to pursue her lifelong dreams of playing Spider-Man.
John spent forty years designing real spacecraft before turning his attention to fictional ones. Writing from Oregon, he brings a scientist’s curiosity to sci-fi—separating good speculation from bad physics while keeping his sense of wonder firmly intact.