Science fiction has long been a mainstay on television since first appearing on our screens in the 1930s. Back then shows were heavily influenced by the writings of literary greats such as H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, with the likes of Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and Philip K. Dick influencing the later generations. Many of the early sci-fi shows featured space travel and humans venturing out into the great unknown, with the genre hitting its stride in the 50s and 60s with shows like Star Trek and Flash Gordon propelling sci-fi into the mainstream. By the time the 80s hit, science fiction had become 🎐a w🌸ell-respected genre with shows tackling a variety of social and political issues. Then the 90s hit.
The 90s was a great time for television. Free to air stations found competition from cable and satellite networks, meaning there was a wider range of shows being developed to satisfy growing audiences. Reality TV got it's first big break with MTV's The Real World while the American sitcom was transformed by groundbreaking shows such as Seinfeld and South Park. The 90s also gave birth to some of the best science fiction shows ever developed. The X-Files gave us Mulder and Scully investigating paranormal incidents for the FBI, Sliders featured a colorful cast of characters led by Jerry O'Connell traveling between parallel universes, and the complex political and social plotting of 2257 helped Babylon 5 become a fan favorite. These shows🐽 revolutionized the genre while also being highly praised by critics and gaining huge fan bases.
Of course, not every show was a winner. For every great show, there were a dozen misfires, including Timecop (based on the Jean-Claude Van Damme film of the same name), William Shatner's TekWar about mind-altering substances, and the abomination Meego. To help with your viewing I'🌌ve written about the best 15 sci-fi shows of all time while also giving you the 15 worst so you don't waste your time on them.
30 🦋 Worst: Good Movie, Terrible Television Show
I don't care what people say about my main man Jean-Claude Van Damme but the Muscles From Brussels has starred in some of the best action films of the 80s and 90s, with Timecop certainly👍 one of his better offerings. Amazingly time tra😼vel had been made possible in 1994 as Van Damme's US Federal agent Max Walker weighs on whether to join The Time Enforcement Commission (TEC) after the passing of his wife. Fast forward 10 years later and Walker's taken up the offer and working for the TEC who use time travel to go back and stop crimes from happening. He uncovers a conspiracy as the film jumps between 1994 and 2004, leading to Walker finding out who ended his wife's life and getting his revenge.
The film was a smash hit and remains Van Damme's highest grossing film, so a spin-off was inevitable. Timecop the series hit screens in 1997 but failed to capture the spark of the original film. None of the cast returned, with Van Damme replaced by little known Ted King. The show followed Walker as he went back in time stopping crimes but was let down by repetitive storylines and a lack of grittiness or violence. The acting was also questionable, with Timecop failing to ꧑finish its first season run with only nine of 13 episodes aired. If only they could have convinced Van Damme to stay on this show mig🧸ht have turned out alright.
29 🍃 Best: Setting The Tone
I have to admit my interest in Babylon 5 is passing but at the request of my editor, I couldn't leave it out of the top 15 science fiction shows of the 90s. After testing the waters with the direct to television film Babylon 5: The Gathering, Warner Brothers commissioned a full season of Babylon 5 and never looked back. Running for five seasons from 1993 to 1998, Babylon 5 was a masterclass in how to write an in-depth and engaging sci-fi series featuring trem🥃e𒉰ndous dialogue, political and social intrigue, and the right mix of drama and humor.
Few sci-fi shows have been as involving as Babylon 5 over the years.
Focusing on the people living on spaceship Babylon 5, the series depicted the interactions between humans and many different alien life forms as they tried to establish trade and diplomacy links amongst their home countries. Coming at the time when Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) was becoming part of normal programming, Babylon 5 featured some fantastic special effects and a colourful cast of characters helped by the likes of Claudia Christian (Commander Susan Ivanova), Jerry Doyle (Michael Garibaldi), and Andreas Katsulas (G'Kar), who all went on to become Hollywood regulars. The show was so successful it spawned a spin-off series, Crusade, along with a number of movie length features and is considered by many to be on the level of Star Trek.
28 🐈 Worst: "Prey" For A Better Show
Before breaking out with the hilarious Will & Grace, Debra Messing starred in the horrible first and only season of Prey. Playing Dr. Sloane Parker, an anthropologist studying genetic variations in humans, Messing and her mentor, Dr. Ann Coulter, discover a gene in people that makes them predisposed to violent and evil behavior. Trying to use the evidence they have found to put a serial criminal behind bars, the convicted felon escapes and puts an end to Coulter. Parker finds data on Coulter's body explaining humans with this gene are different to normal people and an entirely new species of human who could be on the verge of wiping out mankind. The escaped life-taker then cu🗹ts a path of demise and destruction through California as Parker teams with FBI agent Tom Daniels to track him down and discover more about these new genetic traits.
If it all sounds a little too hard to believe, it is, with the show failing to capture my attention despite multiple attempts at watching. The evil gene plot is nothing new and while interesting, isn't handled great across the 13 episodes due to poor writing and low production values. For her part, Messing does a capable job, although there is no hint at how big she was going to be, while character actor favourites Frankie Faison and Larry Drake provide some relief. Despite a promising premise, Prey is best left as a distant 90s memory.
27 ꧋ Best: 🔴Sliding Through The Comptetition
As a kid growing up in the 90s, Sliders was one of my favorite 💙shows. It was a fun and enjoyable sci-fi romp that offered something new every episode. Centring around four friends who have developed a way to "slide" between parallel universes, t𝔉he show delved into the adventures they got up to on each parallel earth as they tried to find their way back to Prime Earth, where they originated from. A countdown clock monitored how long they had on each new dimension before the vortex closed, meaning if they didn't make the jump they would be trapped there for 29.7 years.
The best thing about Sliders was finding out what new Earth the quartet woꦏuld encounter each episode. The first season was dominated by alternative histories of earth, such as the British having won the Revolutionary War, while the second introduced the evil humanoid species called the Kromaggs. Things got a little murky during the third season when two of the main cast members quit and were replaced by new characters. This led to the show being axed by Fox but picked up ဣby the Sci Fi Channel for a remaining season that tied many of the loose ends together. For some reason a fifth season went into production but without mainstay Jerry O'Connell, resulting in the worst entry into the series. Although the final season was all over the place, the first four are still fantastic and warrant the show being on this list. The acting was great, if a little hammy, the special effects top notch for the time period, and the plots often enjoyable if a little over the top.
26 𝓀 Worst: Swing And A ♋Miss
When a television show only runs for six episodes before getting the boot you know you're in for something horrible, and that's exactly what Meego was. The show starred Bronson Pinchot (best known as Balki Bartokomous from Perfect Strangers and Serge from Beverly Hills Cop) as an alien called Meego who has found himself on earth after his spaceship crashes. Di🌳sguising himself as a human, he somehow finds himself a job as a nanny to a single father's three children. Telling people he's from Canada to hide his strange ways, Meego plans to fix his ship and travel back to his home planet ꧋but becomes attached to the children and stays on earth, or that's what we are led to believe as the show never lasted that long.
The show bombed from the day it aired and failed to find an audience.
Although aimed at kids, it went head to head with Boy Meets World, one of the most popular shows on television at that time, and was smashed in the ratings. There's nothing interesting or different about the storylines that we haven't seen in a million similar shows focused around young children, and despite being a fan of Pinchot, his approach to the alien Meego just doesn't do it for me. The only shining light of the show was Michelle Trachtenberg, who went on to have great success in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but more on that later.
25 Best: An🎃 Animated Beauty 🥃
The less said about the 2005 Charlize Theron adaptation the better, but the original 90s animated series of Aeon Flux was one for the ages. Taking place in the year 7698 after an environmental disaster that's destroyed the majority of the population, two large cities still exist in what's left of Europe. Flux is a life-taker hailing from the city of Monica, an anarchist society, who's sent to infiltrate Bregna, a polic♐e state. The show involves some high concepts and thought-provoking themes and was remembered for its inventive storylines and eye-catching animation. It's known as one of the few grown-up cartoons that's more like a drama than a comedy thanks to the shows well-written characters and plot lines, with the early episodes featuring hardly any dialogue and employing a variety of sound effects to push the story forward.
First premiering on MTV's Liquid Television experimental animation show, Aeon Flux ran as a six-part series in 1991 and was followed by 5 episodes in 1992 and 10 in 1995, with a comic book and video game following suit. While often overlooked on lists like this, Aeon Flux had a huge impact꧟ on what could be achieved with grown-up cartoons and was a big influence on mꦓodern-day cyberpunk culture.
24 Wors🌌t: Getting Of Trax
It's the year 2193 and one hundred criminals have escaped captivity and used a time machined called Trax to travel back in time. Police Officer Darien Lambert is sent back to 1993 to capture as many of the criminals as possible and send them back to the future. Sound familiar? It's true Time Trax is eerily reminiscent of Timecop but I have to point out that Time Trax aired a year before the Van Damme flick hit the big screen. Unfortunately, that didn't help Time Trax🔴, with the show another great idea that failed to live up to ex🍃pectations.
Filmed in Queensland, Australia, but set in Washington DC, Time Trax managed to last for two seasons before finally getting the axe. I must admit, like Timecop, the premise is fantastic but the execution left a little to be desired. Dale Midkiff is a decent actor but not leading man material, while his sidekick SELMA (Specified Encapsulated Limitless Memory Archive), an extremely small yet powerful computer that can take the form of a credit card or a holographic woman, is portrayed by Aussie Elizabeth Alexander who just doesn't have the presence need for the role. Much like Timecop, your best bet is to forget this show and watch the Van Damme class💟ic.
23 🔴 Best: An Sci-Fi Television Masterpiece
While not necessarily a sci-fi show by definition, The X-Files contained enough alien related propaganda to make this list. It's also one of the greatest television shows of all time and deserves t🅠o be on any list about the best tv shows. Revolving around FBI special agents Fox Mulder (a subdued David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (a wonderful Gillian Anderson) who investigate unsolved cases involving the paranormal, the show was an intriguing look into the unknown, with many episodes inspired by real life events.
Initially running for nine seasons the show was made of predominately one-off episodes focusing on some kind of bizarre phenomenon while a wider series-spanning story arc about nefarious Government agencies and the covering up of alien life forms was ever present. The key to the show's success was not only the weird and wonderful plots but the relationship 🃏between the believer Mulder and skeptic Scully, with the twꦉo becoming close friends and eventually romantic partners. Although Duchovny stepped away from the show after the first seven seasons and only appeared intermittently, Robert Patrick provided great support as Scully's new partner John Doggett along with Annabeth Gish as Monica Reyes. The show's success has been evident with two feature-length films reuniting Mulder and Scully and the show returning last year for a tenth season and an eleventh that is currently screening. The truth is out there.
22 Worst: Great Concept, Terrible Execution ⛦
The success of the aforementioned X-Files meant a host of similar shows went into production, with Dark Skies easily being the worst of a bad bunch. The show was released with the tagline, "History as we know it is a lie," with the show explaining aliens had been living amongst u📖s since the 1940s, trying to infiltrate society by manipulating h💃istorical events and famous figures. The show followed John Loengard and Kim Sayers as they navigated the 60s and tried to unearth the alien conspiracy while staying one step ahead of Government agency Majestic 12, who had their own mysterious agenda.
I have to admit the concept sounded great and the inclusion of historical figures and events in the plot made Dark Skies interesting enough, but it was all a bit of a mess on the screen. It didn't translate well when watching, with the show coming off as a poor mans X-Files. The production quality wasn't great either and the storylines often moved too quickly, with the first and only season covering a time period of seven years over 20 episodes. It's a pity the show couldn't live up to the ideas incorporated as the cast was magnificent, with Eric Close, J. T. Walsh, and Jeri Ryan all featured. Pass on this and stick with The X-Files.
21 Best: It Slew Other𒊎 Shows
Another show that's not technically a sci-fi show but did include science fiction elements, Buffy The Vampire Slayer was a supernatural drama following the life of teenage slayer Buff Summers as she must stop the end of the world from happening multiple times during her teen years. Created by Josh Whedon, the show was well received not only for it's well written scripts, fantastic fight scenes, and depictions of youths facing everyday problems, but for the depiction of Buffy as a smart and strong female lead. This helped a large number of shows with female leads get commissioned, with the likes of Veronica Mars, Dead Like Me, and iZombie getting the chance to shine thanks to Buffy.
Running for seven seasons, the show elevated Sarah Michelle Gellar to the upper echelon of Hollywood while it also made stars out of David Boreanaz, Alyson Hannigan, Charisma Carpenter, and Eliza Dushku, to name a few. The show was praised as much for it's supernatural plots as it's emotional content, with episodes based around Buffy and her crew's emotional issues and how they worked through them while battling evil. Buffy is considered one of the greatest shows of the past 20 years and spawned a successful spin-off, Angel♑, along with comic books, no🔥vels, and a variety of merchandise.