The best multi-season sci-fi shows to binge on Apple TV
The best multi-season sci-fi shows to binge on Apple TV
Some of these shows span centuries, while others unfold inside a single building. All are seriously addictive.
Prestige sci-fi TV is something Apple TV is absolutely owning right now. I’m talking huge budgets, incredible world-building, awesome set design, and stories that pull you into an impossible reality and make it feel perfectly normal. Because Apple TV is a relatively new streamer, many of these shows haven’t finished airing yet. So, while they make great binges, you’ll have to wait a little longer for the full series payoff. I promise it will be worth it, though, and there are still multiple seasons to dive into for each show. Here are the best binge-worthy sci-fi shows streaming on Apple TV right now.
Best binge-worthy sci-fi shows streaming on Apple TV
Best alternate-history sci-fi binge: ‘For All Mankind’
All great sci-fi stories start with the magic “what if.” What if a spaceship crew accidentally brought a deadly alien aboard? What if an ordinary farm boy discovered he was supposed to help overthrow an evil galactic empire? What if the Soviet Union actually beat the U.S. to the moon? Those are “Alien,” “Star Wars” and… “For All Mankind.” And in the latter, it sets off a space race that lasts for decades.
What’s most fun about this show is the sheer scale. You get decades of storytelling, as the show goes from exploring the moon to colonizing Mars. Every season (there are five seasons out now, with the final sixth season dropping in 2027) jumps forward about a decade, so you get to see the characters as they age, and watch as technology transforms everything. And the stakes are sky-high — dangerous space missions, conflicts between countries, and personal sacrifices of the characters all build toward pretty epic season finales. If you’re looking for sheer storytelling scale, “For All Mankind” is literally out of this world.
For All Mankind
Explore an aspirational world where NASA and the space program remained a priority and a focal point of our hopes and dreams as told through the lives of NASA astronauts, engineers, and their families.
Best epic space-opera binge: ‘Foundation’
“Foundation” is even larger than “For All Mankind,” giving Apple TV its definitive “space opera.” I read Isaac Asimov’s novel of the same name a few years ago, and it took me a while to get used to the sheer scale of it. The story kicks off with a mathematician predicting the collapse of a Galactic Empire, and so he builds a colony called the Foundation to preserve civilization and try to keep the coming dark age as short as possible.
You get a lot of different sci-fi elements all packed into one here. There are clones, ancient sentient robots, thousands of planets and rival civilizations, different religions — all packed into a series that spans not decades but centuries. And the visual design is incredible, easily feature film quality and one of the most cinematic series on TV (in the ballpark of “Dune”). Add in great character dynamics between the three cloned emperors, wars, betrayals, and three seasons with a fourth on the way, and you’ve got one heck of an epic sci-fi binge.
Foundation
Follow a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire.
Best mind-bending mystery binge: ‘Severance’
Season 1 of “Severance” is one of my favorite seasons of TV ever. The central “what if” is as good as any I’ve heard or seen: what if you could separate your work memories from your personal ones, basically creating two different people who are strangers? I mean… come on! Adam Scott plays Mark Scout, an employee at Lumon Industries who has surgically separated his work life from his personal life. But what is he really doing at work? Why are the employees of his department so isolated from other departments? And who’s pulling the strings?
The binge factor here is definitely the mystery, and a desperate need to see the ramifications of this kind of life. And you get to play along, trying to connect the dots alongside Mark as to what is really going on. Season 2 slows the pace a little bit, but I’m hopeful that Season 3 will blow the doors wide open. Compared to our first two shows, this one is far more focused. You’re with Mark pretty much the entire time, so the scale is much smaller. But emotionally, I think it’s the strongest of all the shows on this list.
Severance
Mark leads a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives. When a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, it begins a journey to discover the truth about their jobs.
Best world-building binge: ‘Silo’
“Silo,” like “Severance,” is more contained, but in a literal sense. It follows a society living in an underground bunker because the outside world is poisoned. You follow Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson), an engineer who starts asking questions no one wants her to ask, and getting answers no one wants her to get. The show starts small and then slowly (and successfully) expands in the second and third seasons into some of the best sci-fi, connect-the-dots storytelling out there.
At first, your binge will be driven almost entirely by the mystery at the center: what’s really outside? But the more answers you get across seasons, the stranger (and bigger) the questions become. The Silo is fun to explore, with different factions (levels), conflicts between Judicial / IT (the ruling bodies) and Mechanical (they keep the lights on), and the mystery around artifacts (pieces from the “before times”) that becomes very important later on. Tara and I found a bit of drag in the middle of Season 2, but once we pushed through, we were absolutely hooked for Season 3. For a sci-fi binge, “Silo” is as good as anything on Apple TV.
Silo
In a ruined and toxic future, thousands live in a giant silo deep underground. After its sheriff breaks a cardinal rule and residents die mysteriously, engineer Juliette starts to uncover shocking secrets and the truth about the silo.
More binge-worthy sci-fi TV shows on Apple TV:
‘Dark Matter’
Dark Matter
Jason Dessen is abducted into an alternate version of his life. To get back to his real family, he embarks on a harrowing journey to save them from the most terrifying foe imaginable: himself.
‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
After surviving Godzilla’s attack on San Francisco, Cate is shaken yet again by a shocking secret. Amid monstrous threats, she embarks on a globetrotting adventure to learn the truth about her family—and the mysterious organization known as Monarch.
‘See’
See
A virus has decimated humankind. Those who survived emerged blind. Centuries later when twins are born with the mythic ability to see, their father must protect his tribe against a threatened queen.
‘Invasion’
Invasion
Earth is visited by an alien species that threatens humanity’s existence. Events unfold in real time through the eyes of five ordinary people across the globe as they struggle to make sense of the chaos unraveling around them.