They say there are no second acts in American lives. But they don't say squat about British science-fiction programs. From 1963 until today—with only one significant gap, which to a Time Lord is just a sneeze—em>Doctor Who has been dazzling audiences with sharp writing, great characters, witty plots and effective design, even during its lean-budget years.
To some, the Doctor is a weirdo with a long scarf on PBS; to others he's a debonair dreamboat you download because you can't wait for the American airing. Doctor Who fans all share a love for adventure and a vehicle known as a TARDIS, an anachronistic Police Call Box that is, as they say, bigger on the inside, than it is on the outside.
Doctor Who has branched into every additional form of media you can think of (even the rarified world of the Christmas special). And considering that the storyline is built for regeneration, there's every indication that, long after we're gone, this is a series nothing will be able to EXTERMINATE.
02. The X-Files
To some, the Doctor is a weirdo with a long scarf on PBS; to others he's a debonair dreamboat you download because you can't wait for the American airing. Doctor Who fans all share a love for adventure and a vehicle known as a TARDIS, an anachronistic Police Call Box that is, as they say, bigger on the inside, than it is on the outside.
Doctor Who has branched into every additional form of media you can think of (even the rarified world of the Christmas special). And considering that the storyline is built for regeneration, there's every indication that, long after we're gone, this is a series nothing will be able to EXTERMINATE.
02. The X-Files
Why do we watch science fiction? Because we want to believe! For nine seasons starting in 1993, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully battled monsters of the week and trudged their way through a confounding "mytharc." And they left us humming the world's catchiest theme song as they did it.
Mixing sci-fi tropes with a healthy dose of distrust of authority, Mulder and Scully's exploits led to two spin-offs and two feature films. But it's the individual episodes that still resonate. From the cannibal Virgil Incanto to the Cher-loving sideshow freak The Great Mutato to the Arctic Worms to the deviant-sex-loving quasi-Amish murderers (to really just name a few), The X-Filesmay have had the best rogues' gallery in all television.
The ongoing paranoid mytharc and its iconic "Cigarette Smoking Man," which slowly got Scully to see things Mulder's way, was going on just as Congress was passing new laws against Big Tobacco in the real world. Coincidence? The truth is out there.
Mixing sci-fi tropes with a healthy dose of distrust of authority, Mulder and Scully's exploits led to two spin-offs and two feature films. But it's the individual episodes that still resonate. From the cannibal Virgil Incanto to the Cher-loving sideshow freak The Great Mutato to the Arctic Worms to the deviant-sex-loving quasi-Amish murderers (to really just name a few), The X-Filesmay have had the best rogues' gallery in all television.
The ongoing paranoid mytharc and its iconic "Cigarette Smoking Man," which slowly got Scully to see things Mulder's way, was going on just as Congress was passing new laws against Big Tobacco in the real world. Coincidence? The truth is out there.
03. Star Trek: The Next Generation
From 1987 through 1994 and then for four feature films after, this jumpsuit fest was, and in many ways still remains, the richest and best space opera we ever saw. From Picard's bridge, LaForge's engine room, Guinan's Ten-Forward, Crusher's sickbay, Riker's quarters and all the craziness on the holodeck, TNG dominated the science fiction conversation. Even when it was cheesy—it was good.
The crew of the Enterprise-D gelled in a way few other large ensembles ever did, and even if Wesley's rainbow sweater was an embarrassment, the fair-but-firm management style of Patrick Stewart can't be topped. These are characters that are more important to me than all my distant relatives.
04. Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009)
The crew of the Enterprise-D gelled in a way few other large ensembles ever did, and even if Wesley's rainbow sweater was an embarrassment, the fair-but-firm management style of Patrick Stewart can't be topped. These are characters that are more important to me than all my distant relatives.
04. Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009)
The finest artistic reaction to the 9/11 terror attacks is the Battlestar Galactica reboot. Furthermore, the episode "33," from the first season, right after the initial miniseries that kicked off the series, is my favorite sci-fi television episode of all time.
With all that hyperbole out of the way, let's talk about this frakkin' show. BSG kept its tech to a minimum; this was a blunt, gritty military show about a society trying to prevent total implosion after a debilitating sneak attack by the new and improved Cylons. Each of the characters ended up being sympathetic, even the bad guys. And I can't think of a fictional character I'd be more likely to take a bullet for than Edward James Olmos's "Old Man," Admiral Adama.
Paranoia, religious fanaticism, political factionalism, social theory, and military tactics rooted every show, but on top there was action, sex, surprise twists, and extremely quotable lines. While Battlestar lost some of the momentum by season four ("They have a plan?" Really, now?), the characters and propulsive plotting made for one of the best shows of the last decade. Yeah, I don't really understand what happened to Starbuck, either, but BSG is still worth its weight in tylium ore.
05. The Twilight Zone
The counter-argument goes: "Didn't you just imply that The Outer Limits was more real sci-fi, and Twilight Zone was frequently just supernatural morality plays?" Yes. But this one's got Rod Serling's voice and that opening music. That counts for a lot.
For five seasons in the late 1950s and early 1960s, those tense opening notes meant only one thing: Some sort of eerie, twist-ending comeuppance was headed your way. The mysterious anthology series sometimes dipped into horror, sometimes sci-fi, but it was always a gem of a short story, a perfectly sealed example of classic literature redefined to capitalize on mid-century American fears.
Creator Rod Serling wrote 92 of the 156 episodes, some of which feature plot points so iconic we've forgotten where they come from. The twists in "To Serve Man," "Eye of the Beholder" and "Time Enough at Last" all seem so perfect, so obvious, it's almost impossible to remember what it was like to see them for the first time.
And the title phrase is still commonly used a half-century later.
06. The Prisoner
The vibe of the 1960s counterculture didn't present itself all that much on TV (I, Spy doesn't count) but this British head-trip that mixed 007, Alice in Wonderland, fashion-forward design, and near-panic-attack levels of paranoia perfectly captured whatever magic was getting puffed into the air.
Patrick McGoohan is a secret agent who wants to retire, but is kidnapped and sent to a mysterious "village" surrounded by mountains and water, and watched by white balloons called rovers that are so absurd they actually come off as terrifying. For a youth culture looking to rebel, shouting "I am not a number, I am a free man!" in a sharp British accent was just too cool to resist.
Besides, if you inspire an Iron Maiden song, you automatically make it into the top 10 on my list.
07. Neon Genesis Evangelion
A huge franchise in Japan featuring video games, feature films, and even a theme park, Neon Genesis Evangelion had an initial mid-90s run that was, in many ways, the perfect anime, especially because it hasn't been quite embraced by the American mainstream.
After a catastrophic meteor event (or so it seems), half the world's population is killed and the Earth tilts on its axis, leading to massive tsunamis and general mayhem. In Tokyo-3, young Shinji Ikari is recruited by NERV, a paramilitary group that controls giant mechas (called Evangelions) that must defend themselves against enormous otherworldly beasts (called Angels.) This is essentially a robots-versus-monsters story, but there are also traces of Freudian, Christian, Existentialist, and Humanist teachings. If you thought you could get lost reading about Lost online, pour a cup of strong coffee and prepare yourself to dig into this one.
08. Fringe
Bald dudes in hats. Parallel universes. LSD. A loose affiliation with J.J. Abrams. These are the ingredients needed to make a thick, juicy sci-fi show filled with both season-wide arcs and mind-scrambles of the week.
Business-suit-wearing federal agent Anna Torv is predestined to mix it up in Fringe Division, an anything-goes branch of inquiry into all things unexplainable. With mad scientist John Noble and his son (or is he?) Joshua Jackson, the group digs in to an expanding, paranoid conspiracy that involves mind control, time travel, teleportation and, in extremely brief cameos, Leonard Nimoy, who is either a puppet master or dead. Or both. You can see why Fringe has its devoted following.
09. The Outer Limits
Despite being an obvious Twilight Zone copycat when it popped up in 1964 (just as the other show was finishing its five-year run), ABC's spooky anthology series quickly differentiated itself. It seemed willing to dive further into traditional science-fiction territory and evocative photography, or to freak out the audience on a less cerebral, more visceral level. It was edgy, it was creepy, and it rarely held back.
Time travel, disgusting creatures, shape-shifting, interplanetary adventure —each week you could bet on something this awesome popping up. The show also featured young versions of William Shatner, Bruce Dern, Robert Duvall, and Adam West. Among its writers were Psycho screenwriter Joseph Stefano, Robert Towne, and Harlan Ellison. Ellison's episode "Soldier" kinda sorta resembles the plot of The Terminator—at least enough that the litigious Ellison shoved a lawsuit in James Cameron's face.
10. Firefly
Normal people will read this and say "wow, this show got ranked 11th, it must be good!" Browncoats will look at its low standing and call out for my head. So it goes. Okay, that's an unfair portrayal of Firefly fans. You have to give them credit for being quick to recognize the brilliance of a show whose episodes were shown out of order (that is, the ones that were originally shown at all.)
Nathan Fillion's Captain Mal Reynolds is a classic outlaw with a code, forever loyal to his shipmates aboard the Serenity. Our heroes, the descendants of Earth via generation ships, are everyday survivors caught between the stultifying Alliance in the core planets and the dangerous, chaotic freedom of the wild-west-style outer landscapes. Among Firefly's cooler aspects is its intricate cultural mash-up, blending codes of the American Cowboy and Asian futurism. Whedon was quoted as saying the opening image of the ship soaring over a herd of horses was everything you needed to know about the show in 5 seconds.
11. Lost
It's no coincidence that Lost dominated pop culture just as broadband Internet became the norm. Blog posts about hatches and smoke monsters and three-toed statues and who was playing backgammon against whom were the coal that fired the engine of Web 2.0. Lost was the first television show that most viewers didn't just watch and discuss; they also felt compelled to launch a personal investigation.
Today, with the show behind us, it's easy to just shrug and say "ugh, Lost, what a let-down." But if you can't handle the show's ending—or accept that not every long-form show is perfectly sketched out from its pilot— you're forgetting what a ride the show's six seasons gave us.
Some might argue that the show isn't sci-fi, but I'm of the belief that some of the best sci-fi takes a far-out hook and goes for an emotional impact. By this measurement, Lost was an unmitigated success.
12. Stargate SG-1
More than 200 episodes is quite a run for a spin-off to a mediocre Roland Emmerich movie.
In SG-1, a military team explores distant worlds not by traveling in ships, but by moving the chevrons on their Stargates and jumping through spacetime to a new destination. The goal, at the beginning, is to seek aid in the fight against the Goa'uld parasites that have been troubling our species for centuries without our knowledge. Stargate SG-1 served up a mix of Egyptian, Norse and Old English myths, "explained" through their true interplanetary lens.
The real joy of the show, though, was the characters. Richard Dean Anderson and Amanda Tapping had outstanding chemistry, and the alien creatures were outstanding. Two followup series, an animated show and a TV movie kept the brand alive until 2011.
13. Quantum Leap
Scott Bakula, an endless string of "butterfly effects," and a finale to each episode that promises the next one is going to be even better: That was the winning formula of Quantum Leap, a five-season hit from the late 1980s/early 1990s that was adventuresome and fun and just strange enough to be innovative.
A lab accident sends Bakula's Sam Beckett on a tour of his lifetime, where he temporarily inhabits the body of different people for a little while. Remember when he became Lee Harvey Oswald? Or Marilyn Monroe's chauffeur? Or a glam-rocker? Or a chimpanzee named Bobo in the space program?
Quantum Leap could have been one afterschool-special-style morality play after another, but the Bakula/Dean Stockwell chemistry worked even if the show's science was vague at best.
14. Torchwood
Torchwood wasn't the only Doctor Who spin-off, but it was certainly the best—the only one whose title was an anagram of the original show. (There's a 50/50 chance you just went "oh, no WAY!")
Set in Cardiff, Wales, at an extra-government agency that investigates alien encounters and otherworldly technology, Torchwood is a juicy, supernatural mystery of the week with a science-fiction bent. Starring John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, a roguish time traveller from the 51st century, there's more gruesome violence and steamy sex on Torchwood than on most of the other shows on this list, but it still has the clever writing and panache we've come to expect from British productions.
The show wrapped up nicely in late 2011, but this is British TV. You never know when something is going to reawaken.
15. Babylon 5
Set on a gigantic diplomatic space station, Babylon 5 sees its humans mix with Minbari, Vorlons, Centauri and Narn, as well as representatives of the Non-Aligned Worlds, all of whom had unique relationships with one another. J. Michael Straczynski, a veteran of nerd-friendly children's fare like He-Man, She-Ra, and Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, wrote 92 ofBabylon 5's 112 episodes. The few scripts he didn't write fell to heavy hitters such as D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold and Neil Gaiman.
Few shows of any genre can compare to Babylon 5's complex backstory and depth of mythology. Straczynski developed each of the five seasons like a novel within a larger saga. The show tackled issues including ethnocentrism, the pros and cons of patriotism, addiction, homophobia (or lack of it) and religious tolerance. It was devised as a show for grown-ups—not a whiz-bang utopia but a reasonably believable vision of what a future world (with aliens) might look like.
With all that hyperbole out of the way, let's talk about this frakkin' show. BSG kept its tech to a minimum; this was a blunt, gritty military show about a society trying to prevent total implosion after a debilitating sneak attack by the new and improved Cylons. Each of the characters ended up being sympathetic, even the bad guys. And I can't think of a fictional character I'd be more likely to take a bullet for than Edward James Olmos's "Old Man," Admiral Adama.
Paranoia, religious fanaticism, political factionalism, social theory, and military tactics rooted every show, but on top there was action, sex, surprise twists, and extremely quotable lines. While Battlestar lost some of the momentum by season four ("They have a plan?" Really, now?), the characters and propulsive plotting made for one of the best shows of the last decade. Yeah, I don't really understand what happened to Starbuck, either, but BSG is still worth its weight in tylium ore.
05. The Twilight Zone
The counter-argument goes: "Didn't you just imply that The Outer Limits was more real sci-fi, and Twilight Zone was frequently just supernatural morality plays?" Yes. But this one's got Rod Serling's voice and that opening music. That counts for a lot.
For five seasons in the late 1950s and early 1960s, those tense opening notes meant only one thing: Some sort of eerie, twist-ending comeuppance was headed your way. The mysterious anthology series sometimes dipped into horror, sometimes sci-fi, but it was always a gem of a short story, a perfectly sealed example of classic literature redefined to capitalize on mid-century American fears.
Creator Rod Serling wrote 92 of the 156 episodes, some of which feature plot points so iconic we've forgotten where they come from. The twists in "To Serve Man," "Eye of the Beholder" and "Time Enough at Last" all seem so perfect, so obvious, it's almost impossible to remember what it was like to see them for the first time.
And the title phrase is still commonly used a half-century later.
06. The Prisoner
The vibe of the 1960s counterculture didn't present itself all that much on TV (I, Spy doesn't count) but this British head-trip that mixed 007, Alice in Wonderland, fashion-forward design, and near-panic-attack levels of paranoia perfectly captured whatever magic was getting puffed into the air.
Patrick McGoohan is a secret agent who wants to retire, but is kidnapped and sent to a mysterious "village" surrounded by mountains and water, and watched by white balloons called rovers that are so absurd they actually come off as terrifying. For a youth culture looking to rebel, shouting "I am not a number, I am a free man!" in a sharp British accent was just too cool to resist.
Besides, if you inspire an Iron Maiden song, you automatically make it into the top 10 on my list.
07. Neon Genesis Evangelion
A huge franchise in Japan featuring video games, feature films, and even a theme park, Neon Genesis Evangelion had an initial mid-90s run that was, in many ways, the perfect anime, especially because it hasn't been quite embraced by the American mainstream.
After a catastrophic meteor event (or so it seems), half the world's population is killed and the Earth tilts on its axis, leading to massive tsunamis and general mayhem. In Tokyo-3, young Shinji Ikari is recruited by NERV, a paramilitary group that controls giant mechas (called Evangelions) that must defend themselves against enormous otherworldly beasts (called Angels.) This is essentially a robots-versus-monsters story, but there are also traces of Freudian, Christian, Existentialist, and Humanist teachings. If you thought you could get lost reading about Lost online, pour a cup of strong coffee and prepare yourself to dig into this one.
08. Fringe
Bald dudes in hats. Parallel universes. LSD. A loose affiliation with J.J. Abrams. These are the ingredients needed to make a thick, juicy sci-fi show filled with both season-wide arcs and mind-scrambles of the week.
Business-suit-wearing federal agent Anna Torv is predestined to mix it up in Fringe Division, an anything-goes branch of inquiry into all things unexplainable. With mad scientist John Noble and his son (or is he?) Joshua Jackson, the group digs in to an expanding, paranoid conspiracy that involves mind control, time travel, teleportation and, in extremely brief cameos, Leonard Nimoy, who is either a puppet master or dead. Or both. You can see why Fringe has its devoted following.
09. The Outer Limits
Despite being an obvious Twilight Zone copycat when it popped up in 1964 (just as the other show was finishing its five-year run), ABC's spooky anthology series quickly differentiated itself. It seemed willing to dive further into traditional science-fiction territory and evocative photography, or to freak out the audience on a less cerebral, more visceral level. It was edgy, it was creepy, and it rarely held back.
Time travel, disgusting creatures, shape-shifting, interplanetary adventure —each week you could bet on something this awesome popping up. The show also featured young versions of William Shatner, Bruce Dern, Robert Duvall, and Adam West. Among its writers were Psycho screenwriter Joseph Stefano, Robert Towne, and Harlan Ellison. Ellison's episode "Soldier" kinda sorta resembles the plot of The Terminator—at least enough that the litigious Ellison shoved a lawsuit in James Cameron's face.
10. Firefly
Normal people will read this and say "wow, this show got ranked 11th, it must be good!" Browncoats will look at its low standing and call out for my head. So it goes. Okay, that's an unfair portrayal of Firefly fans. You have to give them credit for being quick to recognize the brilliance of a show whose episodes were shown out of order (that is, the ones that were originally shown at all.)
Nathan Fillion's Captain Mal Reynolds is a classic outlaw with a code, forever loyal to his shipmates aboard the Serenity. Our heroes, the descendants of Earth via generation ships, are everyday survivors caught between the stultifying Alliance in the core planets and the dangerous, chaotic freedom of the wild-west-style outer landscapes. Among Firefly's cooler aspects is its intricate cultural mash-up, blending codes of the American Cowboy and Asian futurism. Whedon was quoted as saying the opening image of the ship soaring over a herd of horses was everything you needed to know about the show in 5 seconds.
11. Lost
It's no coincidence that Lost dominated pop culture just as broadband Internet became the norm. Blog posts about hatches and smoke monsters and three-toed statues and who was playing backgammon against whom were the coal that fired the engine of Web 2.0. Lost was the first television show that most viewers didn't just watch and discuss; they also felt compelled to launch a personal investigation.
Today, with the show behind us, it's easy to just shrug and say "ugh, Lost, what a let-down." But if you can't handle the show's ending—or accept that not every long-form show is perfectly sketched out from its pilot— you're forgetting what a ride the show's six seasons gave us.
Some might argue that the show isn't sci-fi, but I'm of the belief that some of the best sci-fi takes a far-out hook and goes for an emotional impact. By this measurement, Lost was an unmitigated success.
12. Stargate SG-1
More than 200 episodes is quite a run for a spin-off to a mediocre Roland Emmerich movie.
In SG-1, a military team explores distant worlds not by traveling in ships, but by moving the chevrons on their Stargates and jumping through spacetime to a new destination. The goal, at the beginning, is to seek aid in the fight against the Goa'uld parasites that have been troubling our species for centuries without our knowledge. Stargate SG-1 served up a mix of Egyptian, Norse and Old English myths, "explained" through their true interplanetary lens.
The real joy of the show, though, was the characters. Richard Dean Anderson and Amanda Tapping had outstanding chemistry, and the alien creatures were outstanding. Two followup series, an animated show and a TV movie kept the brand alive until 2011.
13. Quantum Leap
Scott Bakula, an endless string of "butterfly effects," and a finale to each episode that promises the next one is going to be even better: That was the winning formula of Quantum Leap, a five-season hit from the late 1980s/early 1990s that was adventuresome and fun and just strange enough to be innovative.
A lab accident sends Bakula's Sam Beckett on a tour of his lifetime, where he temporarily inhabits the body of different people for a little while. Remember when he became Lee Harvey Oswald? Or Marilyn Monroe's chauffeur? Or a glam-rocker? Or a chimpanzee named Bobo in the space program?
Quantum Leap could have been one afterschool-special-style morality play after another, but the Bakula/Dean Stockwell chemistry worked even if the show's science was vague at best.
14. Torchwood
Torchwood wasn't the only Doctor Who spin-off, but it was certainly the best—the only one whose title was an anagram of the original show. (There's a 50/50 chance you just went "oh, no WAY!")
Set in Cardiff, Wales, at an extra-government agency that investigates alien encounters and otherworldly technology, Torchwood is a juicy, supernatural mystery of the week with a science-fiction bent. Starring John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, a roguish time traveller from the 51st century, there's more gruesome violence and steamy sex on Torchwood than on most of the other shows on this list, but it still has the clever writing and panache we've come to expect from British productions.
The show wrapped up nicely in late 2011, but this is British TV. You never know when something is going to reawaken.
15. Babylon 5
Set on a gigantic diplomatic space station, Babylon 5 sees its humans mix with Minbari, Vorlons, Centauri and Narn, as well as representatives of the Non-Aligned Worlds, all of whom had unique relationships with one another. J. Michael Straczynski, a veteran of nerd-friendly children's fare like He-Man, She-Ra, and Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, wrote 92 ofBabylon 5's 112 episodes. The few scripts he didn't write fell to heavy hitters such as D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold and Neil Gaiman.
Few shows of any genre can compare to Babylon 5's complex backstory and depth of mythology. Straczynski developed each of the five seasons like a novel within a larger saga. The show tackled issues including ethnocentrism, the pros and cons of patriotism, addiction, homophobia (or lack of it) and religious tolerance. It was devised as a show for grown-ups—not a whiz-bang utopia but a reasonably believable vision of what a future world (with aliens) might look like.