As we barrel towards the new year, it's a time for reflection. A time to look back on the best sci-fi TV shows of 2025 and say "blimey, that was pretty damn good".
The top sci-fi TV shows of 2025 are a mix of big franchises, returning hits, and exciting new additions. The voyages of the starship Enterprise continued in "Strange New Worlds", the Fifteenth Doctor had his second and final spin in the TARDIS, and "Andor"'s phenomenal second outing pushed the boundaries of what a "Star Wars" show could be. Even those famously antisocial Xenomorphs came to Earth for the very first "Alien" TV show.
Elsewhere, the last year has seen the continuation of several prestige TV hits, including "Foundation", "Silo", and "Black Mirror". Our small screen playlist also found room for some mould-breaking originals, most notably "Murderbot" and "Pluribus" — not to mention a memorable BBC documentary about the post-Apollo years of the space race. So, let's start the countdown on Space's 12 favorite shows of 2025, starting with…
12. Invasion: season 3
Cast: Golshifteh Farahani, Shioli Kutsuna, Shamier Anderson, India Brown | Watch on: Apple TV
Thought the titular alien invasion was done and dusted in season 2? The needs of ongoing drama mean that life — and hostile ETs — tend to find a way, and two years after the fall of their mothership, it turned out that planet Earth's foes never really went away.
While many of the characters returned from previous years — at least one of whom was presumed dead — this season was, in some ways, a soft reboot for a show that seemed to wrap up several key plotlines last time out. The storytelling remained ambitious and the effects impressive, notably the introduction of the translucent, squid-like apex aliens. Nonetheless, "Invasion" had the feel of a 2000s/2010s network TV show given an epic budget, particularly in comparison to the brilliant sci-fi shows elsewhere on the Apple TV menu screen.
11. Doctor Who: season 2
Cast: Ncuti Gatwa, Varada Sethu, Millie Gibson, Jemma Redgrave | Watch on: BBC iPlayer (UK)/Disney+ (rest of the world)
And so, after just two seasons, the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) regenerated into… unless we're very much mistaken, Billie Piper. It was an unexpectedly early departure for the Time Lord and marked the end of the BBC's partnership with Disney+. But how will his final batch of adventures through space and time be remembered? Probably as a mixed bag.
Although she was sidelined in the second half of the season, Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) started out as a memorable companion, gradually warming to her Gallifreyan tour guide while yearning for home. Cartoon villain Mr Ring-a-Ding was a visual effects tour de force, "The Well" gave a brilliant David Tennant-era monster an unexpected comeback, and penultimate episode "Wish World" landed in a truly chilling alternative universe. But with just eight episodes to play with, the arc plot overpowered everything else in the season, with its big reveal (about returning Time Lord villains the Rani and Omega) not quite worth the wait.
10. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: season 3
Cast: Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, Rebecca Romijn, Melissa Navia | Watch on: Paramount+
Has any TV show ever revelled in its prequel status quite as much as "Strange New Worlds"? The third leg of the show's (now-confirmed) five-year mission continued to go big on references to the original series, with familiar characters showing up on the Enterprise (Roger Korby, Trelane) and plenty more moments that boldly went where "Star Trek" had gone before.
As in season 2, a weakness for gimmicky episodes (including a holodeck outing) got in the way of the Starfleet-standard of seeking out new life and new civilisations. Even so, the Vezda instantly established themselves among the franchise's scariest villains, while Lt Ortegas (Melissa Navia) shared a brilliant two-hander with a crashed Gorn. The show also never forgot that its trump card remains its crew, one of the most watchable in "Star Trek" history.
9. Foundation: season 3
Cast: Jared Harris, Lou Llobell, Lee Pace, Pilou Asbæk | Watch on: Apple TV
"Foundation" could only have existed in the streaming age. After all, no old-school broadcaster would have had the patience — or the budget — to persist with two opening seasons that went all-in on exposition. Indeed, the show went so deep with its ambitious, centuries-spanning story that it seemed like ages before the interstellar skirmishes kicked off in earnest.
Season 3 still indulged the show's hard sci-fi leanings, of course — the mathematical models, the spectacular spaceships, the idealistic construct of the Foundation — but it also remembered the best blockbuster space operas have a bit of "Star Wars" in their DNA, too. Telepathic villain the Mule (Pilou Asbæk) would probably have felt right at home in the Mos Eisley Cantina, and he brought some much-needed chaos to a series that hasn't always excelled at having fun.
8. The War Between the Land and the Sea
Cast: Russell Tovey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jemma Redgrave, Ruth Madeley | Watch on: BBC iPlayer (UK only)
In 2009, "Doctor Who" spin-off "Torchwood" reinvented itself for its third season. "Children of Earth" ditched the show's previous monster-of-the-week structure in favor of a single, hard-hitting story told over five episodes. The result was a sci-fi masterpiece.
Sixteen years later, showrunner Russell T Davies resurrected the format for "Who"-adjacent drama "The War Between the Land and the Sea", and while it couldn't quite live up to its aforementioned predecessor, it was definitely cut from the same cloth.
Classic "Who" monsters the Sea Devils were the ideal antagonists, waking from a lengthy deep-sea slumber to punish humanity for its mistreatment of the oceans. But despite the global scale — and unforgettable images of cities being buried under mountains of trash reclaimed from the seas — the series never lost focus on the touching (and pivotal) relationship between unlikely human ambassador Barclay (Russell Tovey) and his aquatic counterpart Salt (Gugu Mbatha-Raw).
7. Murderbot
Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Noma Dumezweni, David Dastmalchian, Tamara Podemski | Watch on: Apple TV
You only have to look at the sheer volume of Apple TV shows on this list to see that the streamer's had a hell of a 2025 — in fact, it's become the go-to destination for discerning sci-fi fans. Perhaps the oddest of its entries here, however, is this adaptation of Martha Wells' "The Murderbot Diaries" book series.
Although the title suggests otherwise, "Murderbot" was not some tired rehash of "The Terminator". The eponymous security droid protagonist (played by Alexander Skarsgård) actually chose its own name and, thanks to some off-the-books hacking, developed free will. It also had plenty of disdain — expressed via sardonic voiceover — for the humans it was programmed to protect.
Extremely violent and very, very funny, this show was as unconventional as its surprisingly relatable lead — like Murderbot, we've all had days when going to work feels much less worthwhile than sitting back and watching your favorite TV show.
6. Silo: season 2
Cast: Rebecca Ferguson, Tim Robbins, Steve Zahn, Harriet Walter | Watch on: Apple TV
Apple TV went even deeper underground with the second instalment of its big-budget adaptation of Hugh Howey's "Silo" novels. If season 2 couldn't quite live up to the compelling first outing, that's mainly because protagonist Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) spent most of this year trapped in the (mostly) deserted Silo 17. Meanwhile, the real drama and intrigue was taking place back home in Silo 18.
Minor flaws aside, this was slow-build storytelling of the highest order, drip-feeding answers to its many mysteries as the bunker residents realized the so-called "Pact" might not be as benign as they'd been led to believe. Duplicitous mayor Bernard Holland (an excellent Tim Robbins) continued to be a thorn in everybody's sides, while the unstable Solo (Steve Zahn) gradually revealed himself as tragic collateral damage in Silo 17's sad fate.
And then there was that final scene, a major game-changer ahead of the already-confirmed seasons 3 and 4.
5. Black Mirror: season 7
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Cristin Milioti, Peter Capaldi, Rashida Jones | Watch on: Netflix
Charlie Brooker's techno "Twilight Zone" arguably went off the boil during its last two seasons, but the long-running anthology series was back on form this year. "Black Mirror"'s latest six-episode run even indulged fans with a couple of sequels, courtesy of "Plaything" (a follow-up to the choose-your-own-adventure "Bandersnatch") and "Into Infinity", a return to the pitch-perfect "Star Trek" pastiche of "USS Callister".
Whenever this show is at its best, it runs the gamut from comedy to tragedy to raw emotional power, sometimes in the space of a single episode. Season 7 was no exception. While anthology shows are notoriously punishing on creatives, there was little sign that Brooker and co are running out of ideas. And even when a premise was slightly derivative (the tech that allows Paul Giamatti to enter old photographs in "Eulogy" has echoes of classic "Red Dwarf" episode "Timeslides", for example), the writers managed to lift the stories to the next level.
4. Alien: Earth
Cast: Sydney Chandler, Timothy Olyphant, Samuel Blenkin, Alex Lawther | Watch on: Hulu (US)/Disney+ (rest of the world)
How do you make the Xenomorph scary again? "Fargo" creator Noah Hawley's ingenious solution to a decades-old conundrum was to make the double-jawed beastie a supporting player in its own TV show. He instead shifted the focus to bickering multinationals, a bunch of kids running around in state-of-the-art synthetic bodies, and — best of all — a whole new menagerie of icky extra-terrestrial fauna.
Visually and sonically, the first-ever "Alien" TV show was lovingly faithful to Ridley Scott's original movie, yet also had the handy knack of knowing which bits of franchise lore it could discard. And, in the long-established tradition of Weyland-Yutani and their competitors, the human characters turned out to be much more dangerous than their extra-terrestrial guests — at least you didn't see them selling each other out for a goddamn percentage.
3. Once Upon a Time in Space
Cast: Anna Fisher, Carl S McNair, Aleksandr Lazutkin, Sergei Viktorovich Zalyotin | Watch on: BBC iPlayer (UK)
The stories of the "The Right Stuff" pioneers of the Mercury program and the Apollo astronauts that followed have been told many times, but the experiences of later spacefarers are less well known. This excellent four-part BBC documentary rectified the shortfall by telling the story of the Space Shuttle, Mir, the ISS, and the rise of commercial spaceflight, with compelling (and often entertaining) contributions from the astronauts, cosmonauts, and ground-based participants who experienced it first-hand.
"Once Upon a Time in Space" was, of course, a celebration of the men and women who made it all happen, but also a peek behind the curtain (both iron and metaphorical) of NASA and its Soviet/Russian counterparts. This was a story of bravery, ingenuity, and, inevitably, tragedy (the Challenger and Columbia disasters were both discussed at length), told against a backdrop of rapid political and economic transformation.
2. Pluribus
Cast: Rhea Seehorn, Karolina Wydra, Carlos-Manuel Vesga, Miriam Shor | Watch on: Apple TV
Vince Gilligan's place in TV history is assured, as the brains behind both "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul". He also has impeccable sci-fi credentials, having written numerous episodes of "The X-Files" and co-created the short-lived spin-off "The Lone Gunmen". "Pluribus" is the result of that stellar resumé colliding with a big Apple TV budget, and it's proved to be every bit as spectacular as we could have hoped. It's also, according to Apple TV, the platform's most-watched series ever.
This is a highly unconventional alien invasion drama, in which an extra-terrestrial broadcast unleashes a novel virus that… well, makes everybody kind and considerate. "Better Call Saul" star Rhea Seehorn is a revelation as a cynical romantasy author who, unaffected by the infection, became a lone rebel against a billions-strong collective of people who just want to be her friend.
"Pluribus" is slow-burning, beautifully written, and utterly unique — the breakout sci-fi show of 2025.
1. Star Wars: Andor season 2
Cast: Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgård, Genevieve O'Reilly, Adria Arjona | Watch on: Disney+
"Andor" creator Tony Gilroy never made any secret of where his show was going to end. It didn't matter, however, that we knew the fates of many of the characters, or that existing canon had set many key moments in stone. Few TV shows have ever been as tense or edge-of-the-seat gripping as the second season of this "Rogue One" prequel — "Andor" season 2 was up there with the best "Star Wars" there's ever been.
This was a political thriller in sci-fi clothing, a powerful examination of a corrupt, totalitarian regime that felt timely and relevant despite being set in a galaxy far, far away. But for all the Empire's dastardly deeds, there was still room for hope, as Cassian Andor, Mon Mothma, Luthen Rael, and the other proto-Rebels — the ensemble cast is uniformly brilliant — fought the power against the most impossible odds.
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