Over the last few years my family and I have binged all of Star Trek, then moved on to Star Trek adjacent shows like The Orville and Stargate. At the moment we’re not really watching anything sci-fi. I was wondering if anyone had recommendations for similar shows (or maybe some books) that fill the void left by Star Trek. In particular I really like the episodes that deal with interacting with other civilizations, diplomacy, and exploration more-so than say, an anomaly episode.
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I’d say the The Expanse fits the bill. It is a book series with a very successful television adaptation.
100%. Just finished watching the entire series a couple days ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Concur. I’m a huge Trek fan, and The Expanse fits that blend of optimism and realpolitik.
I’d have enjoyed it a lot more with a better main character. He really is the blandest white man in the universe.
Definitely. There were a few things that could have been optimized a bit more, like dat invented language wot dey speaking in. David Strathairn totally sounded like Bruce Lee when he tried to get the accent down. But I appreciated their attention to details, like requiring “juice” for high-g burns (as opposed to Star Trek ships hitting near light speed with the crew only needing to hold the edge of a nearby desk to handle the acceleration).
I’m still wondering what the heck the storyline idea was with those weird dog like creatures 🤷🏻♂️
the infuriating thing is that according to the books he is a pretty unique mix of … checking … ”the only child in a family co-op of five fathers and three mothers“
they could have done almost anything with the character in terms of appearance and chose this sigh
Thanks. Downloading it now.
Oh that’s one I’ve seen. I enjoyed the first few seasons but got kind of tired it after trying to watch the first few eps of a recent season. Around the time where that spacer started hucking rocks at Earth. I don’t know how it was gonna go from there, but it was starting to feel very… supervillain has a good point so let’s make them do awful things so you can’t sympathize with them. Idk, I could probably be convinced to give it another try if people thought it got good.
civilizations, diplomacy, and exploration
Babylon 5 - It has a bit of a slow start with the first season (just the 1990’s Trek shows), but it picks up about midway through season 1 and gets progressively better (higher stakes) until season 4. Season 5 is okay, and then there are series of movies, and recently even an animated show in the universe.
To add to this, they have been talking about remaking the show.
So what you’re saying is, I should watch it now so I can complain when the remake isn’t as good. /s
My favorites have all been mentioned, so consider this another recommendation for any duplicates:
- Farscape
- Battlestar Galactica
- Babylon 5
- Stargate (just all of it - including Universe, though it got cut short just when it got great it was still a fun watch.)
- Lexx (very sexual characters for some of it, b/c grade scifi, hilarious and fun but not for children, check reviews / common sense media / etc)
- Fringe (no aliens, weird discoveries and wild science)
- Firefly
- Caprica (BSG prequel)
- The Expanse
- Dark Matter (more about the people than epic scifi, fun show imo)
- Doctor Who
- Earth Final Conflict
- SeaQuest DSV/2032 (I thought it only showed up as 2023 on streaming services, turns out I was wrong and it may show up as the original DSV too)
I might also throw Quantum Leap, Lost Girl, and Adventures of Brisco County Jr as possibly of interest.
And if you haven’t watched Lower Decks, it’s one of the best Star Trek series imo.
^ This person right here knows their sci-fi. A lot of good recommendations here.
Special shout-out on Dark Matter. I found the first episode almost unwatchable, but that was because I went into it with the wrong attitude. If you don’t take it to seriously it’s a really fun show (as I discovered when I gave it a second chance). And it just gets better and better. Such a shame it was cancelled too soon (though that seems to go for about 95% of science-fiction TV shows!).
Lexx is fun too, just in a really weird and raunchy way.
Seaquest dsv is what they want. They changed it to seaquest 2023 for the last season, but I’d skip that anyway, I rewatched it a couple of years ago and that season is just straight garbage. Big changes to the cast, apparently the cast and the producers etc were constantly bickering, and boy does it show. Easy to see why it got canned before the season had even ended.
STARGATE!
Goofy, but also deep enough. It captures some of that Startrek: TNG vibe in a totally different way. Not a lot of modern stuff has come close to that balance, closest would be Orville and while closest that leans far more into the comedy (I also still effing love that show, I’m just saying it’s different).
Also totally agree re: SGU. I loved it. I get why it’s divisive, but it’s still one of my favorites.
::: It’s the first part of the series where humans are on the cutting edge, not behind. Everyone else is gone, everything we knew is outdated, we are finally carrying the burden of being “the fifth race”. It’s dark because it has to be. It’s an amazing addition that was just starting to spread its wings when it got cancelled, :::
It’s an amazing addition that was just starting to spread its wings when it got cancelled.
Very solid list. I have not thought about Seaquest in a very very long time. Might need to rewatch it here. I remember its originally airing like it was yesterday.
Also Sliders is a great 90s sci-fi TV show for up to the 3rd or 4th season from what I remember. As soon as the doc left it went down hill from what I remember 20 some years ago
Babylon 5 and Farscape are great.
Babylon 5 is more like Trek with diplomacy and semi-realisitic plots, while Farscape leans a bit more toward Star Wars; fun, campy, weird at times but well-written.
You may also like Red Dwarf which is like the IT crowd, but in space.
Yass red dwarf!! Grew up watching the series on public television.
This comment includes all the shows I would also recommend.
Babylon 5 came out about the same time as Star Trek DS9. The first season is sometimes hard to get through, but well worth it. The character development and storylines are mostly excellent as they grow and intersect throughout the show. Season 5 can take or leave.
Farscape is another one where some people are turned off by the Jim Henson puppetesque characters. Another older show but has some great storylines and character development.
Red Dwarf, older British Humor, silly.
Highly recommend giving Farscape and Bab5 a try.
Your last line has sold me on red dwarf 😂
Its very old, be prepared for some content that is not appropriate today.
Also if you do watch it. Kryten’s way of speaking is based on Robert Llewewllyns visit to vancouver canada and how he felt people in vancouver spoke, or at least thats the story i remember. Doesnt really factor into the show, i just thought it was an interesting choice given the distinct way Kryten speaks
Haha cheers for the heads up!
Kryten enunciates so precisely. His accent is easy to understand and a pleasure to listen to. British English has so many different accents that it is sometimes difficult to follow without subtitles.
Start with series 3, that’s where it was up to speed and you don’t miss much
You do miss out on how the show got better over time. It’s painful but its worth it for the overall enjoyment of the show.
Not trying to convince you though, just expressing a counter perspective for otthers on why it might be worth not skipping
I found Farscape impossible to watch because of the main character. The show suffers because of the classic misogynistic writing where all the female characters are tripping over themselves to get noticed by the bland, aggressive, stupid, and overly cocky “average Joe” that was thrust into an unusual situation. It’s extremely dated writing and as a woman, it really irritates me.
The rest of the show is great! But the main character just ruins it for me completely. Unfortunately that kind of writing is everywhere in older sci-fi. I started and gave up on Stargate: Atlantis for the same reason. I wish someone would release an edit with the more obnoxious parts removed because I can tell that I’m missing out on some great sci-fi but it’s just unwatchable to me.
On the other hand you’ve got shows like ST:TNG, ST:DS9, Battlestar Galactica, even Lexx, where either women are treated with respect and not overly sexualized, or if they are sexualized then so are the men, and the men are kind, intelligent, and curteous, or if they’re not then they’re probably a villain.
Mmm, I know exactly what you mean. I’m tired of limp lead characters who just tick the boxes of a target demographic to self-insert into.
The Expanse suffered a bit from that (the main guy had all the magnetism of limp celery) but was saved because every single other character was genuinely interesting. Farscape had a much smaller cast, so there was no escape!
I always thought Farscape could be amazing if they rewrote it and got some good actors. The plot of good and the character development could be magnificent. It is such a great concept.
That could be said of a lot of things … a great concept let down by lazy writing and poor casting. Yet these things get money thrown at them - great effects, lighting, locations, makeup, etc etc
Farscape gets… weird
I mean, the Expanse is fantastic sci fi, both book and show. It’s not that Star Trek like though.
In particular I really like the episodes that deal with interacting with other civilizations, diplomacy, and exploration more-so than say, an anomaly episode.
In light of this, and since you were able to work through the not-so-stellar episodes of ST, I’d strongly argue that Babylon 5 should be your next stop.
It has a slow start, some more mixed episodes, dated special effects and both main characters (they switched after season 1) are plain “heroic American leader” types, but virtually everything else is top tier even today. An excellent political plot, humor, great characters with genuine growth.
Just be aware that it is different from DS9 (personally, I like both).
Battlestar Galactica (the new one) and The Expanse are probably worth pointing out, too. To me, they’re the best high-production-value sci-fi shows that didn’t sacrifice their plot. Nevertheless, both are far more grim than the shows you’ve mentioned and overall “feel” different.
Was going to say Babylon 5, but yeah it’s very 90s at this point. I do love it very much
BSG (the 2003 remake) was amazing. So much better than the original version. And it really ushered in a new era of more gritty, darker science fiction on television. My only complaint with it was that they largely botched the ending (especially the whole Starbuck thing. But I won’t elaborate on that as it is spoiler-heavy).
For All Mankind is the Star Trek prequel we should have had. Co-created by Ron Moore (Deep Space Nine, Battlestar Galactica), the show has a bunch of Trek alumni working behind the scenes. It features human drama (and sometimes melodrama), geopolitical diplomacy, sweeping cultural change and scientific adventure against the backdrop of a multi generational future history, starting with the first moon landing.
I’m going to tag on to this and say another more adult themed Sci-Fi trip you should take on Apple TV+ is Foundation. It is somewhere between GoT, The Expanse, and Star Trek. It is loosely based on the Foundation book series by Isaac Asimov. I highly recommend it.
If you have read the Foundation books, the series will piss you off. Not just because it has very little in common with the books but because it goes against what the books stood for. And the most interesting parts of the Foundation tv series are the emperor arcs, which are original and arent from the books.
It seems to me that the creator wanted to make a scifi series of his own but just used the Foundation name for branding, name dropping and some abstract story elements. And then try to marry all the elements with some inane movie alchemy bullshit.
Huh. Watched the TV show and haven’t read the books. It did feel a little odd in a way that was hard to put my finger on. Maybe it’s that? What’s the pitch on the books if they’re that different from what I see in the show?
Some of the books are small stories that take part throughout the ages and have different characters. In the series they decided to have the same protagonists, so they went through insanely convoluted plot devices to achieve that and to move them around the place and have them being related.
But my real issue is that they really changed not only Hari Seldon’s and “Demerzel”'s characters but what the series is about. They are kinda making it a religion and then say “oh it isnt a religion thing, it is just a tool, oh nvm, it is a religion, ha just kidding, not a religion or maybe it is”. The foundation series is pretty atheistic in nature. And while religion is used(as a tool against the outsiders), the tv series makes Seldon a televangelist.
The tv series is full of deus ex machina and not even good deus ex machina. Maybe they felt the initial stories would appear somewhat simplistic and tried to modernize them and make them “edgy”. Generally, 90% of the plot isnt from the books.
“Demerzel” is a couple characters combined from the books but ultimately she is the most important character of the show(well i assume so, because she isnt a 1:1 character from the books). And she cannot be religious.
Most of these issues could be solved by simply renaming the series and some story editing to make it tighter and less convoluted. You dont need to have the same characters be everywhere, at every period and be related to each other, it is silly and cringe, just like Rey
PalpatineSkywalker.I will still watch future seasons and the show has many stories and scenes that are great(most of the Empire stuff, which are original). But even without knowledge of the books, i feel those artificial story arcs that try to connect characters are bad.
TLDR : If the books are Star Trek TNG, the series is Star Trek Discovery
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent
- Salvor Hardin
I can’t think of a better way to explain the difference between the books and the show then that quote.
Can you imagine Salvor of the show ever saying that?
This is the most parroted comment on this topic. Please actually say something original.
No.
What would you say the show is about? And not just the starting premise. Having seen the whole thing, what’s at the center?
I found it to be a huge morass of sound and fury orbiting an empty center.
I think the show has some decent themes that connect together alright. There’s a bit of a free will vs determinism thing going on. A bit of what is a human/transporter problem with the robot, the emperor clones, and Harry’s mind copies.
But there’s also a lot of other noise that kinda makes the show too unfocused to properly explore those ideas. There’s some war on terror/fall of Rome imagery. There’s the weird religious stuff around the Church of Seldon. The mentalists wanting to put their leader into Gale’s body, etc.
I read the books and ultimately didn’t like them very much. I recognize their value but they just weren’t for me. I don’t remember a lot about them, enough, say, to get upset about how they changed this or that character.
And I found that show to be an utter mess. Just a mess. It’s a mess absolutely chock full of stuff. It’s a very beautiful mess. It’s a mess with amazing production values. But it’s still a hot mess. Forget adapting the books… what in the world is it about at all?? Ultimately it seemed to just get stuck on its emperor character and invented various struggles to take him down. Totally empty in the end.
Nice to see For All Mankind getting some love. Absolutely fantastic show, and definitely feels true to Roddenberry’s vision.
Thanks. Downloading it now.
Man, FAMK was dragging its feet for me. Too slow, i could only force myself to watch the second episode before i stopped completely. Foundation however was damn good. Almost like Raised by Wolves but a different dimension.
Yeah, I just signed up for Apple TV primarily for this show! Haven’t started it yet npbut that may be my weekend
I’m curious about The Foundation as well, since that was one of my favorite book series, but I just don’t see that working on TV
As others have pointed out, Foundation isn’t a particularly faithful adaptation of Asimov’s stories, but there good things in it. It might be more accurately titled Foundation and Empire IMO, because it focuses as much on the Empire side of the story as the Foundation. The first season was lopsided. The Empire plotline was compelling, the Foundation ones were… not. Haven’t watched the second season yet, but apparently it’s more consistent.
Thanks. It is still on my list to check out, but I’m giving it three months to decide whether to keep that streaming service. So far, I’ve watched some fantastic shows and movies, but do get annoyed at the lack of separation between what I’ve paid for and what they want to sell me.
I’m still trying to figure out how to browse: all too often I’m guided toward things that cost extra instead of the things I’ve paid for. At least as importantly, after watching something, why do I see so many potentially I terestng choices that I can never seem to find by browsing? It seems like the Home Screen only lets you browse a limited selection, half at extra cost, and you can only see the rest if you happen to watch some5ing they think is related
The other science fiction series that I feel most-closely mimic the energy of Star Trek:
- Star Gate SG1/Atlantis - Episodic planetary exploration and adventure with overarching serial universe-building
- Babylon 5 - Space politics and looming galactic war (the show pitched to Paramount right before they made Deep Space Nine)
- The Orville - Space utopia and moral dilemma seen from the outside (The Next Generation with all the funny outtakes left in)
(This list is for anyone reading. Enjoy B5, OP! Let us know when you get to that part where everyone cries.)
The Expanse is an amazing sci-fi series that just gets better every season. Politics, war, discovery of new life, all within new civilizations cataloguing the early expansion of humans from the Earth to within our local system. Acting is top tier, graphics get better each season due to it’s meteoric rise in popularity.
But yeah, nothing quite like those pure gold episodes of Star Trek: TNG. The new Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is more like TNG than the other series going on right now, but only has 2 seasons at this point I believe.
If you like British comedy then Red Drarf was surprisingly good imo
The summary I just read sounds great, thanks for the tip!
Ooh… I’m not sure if a summary really can set expectations in this case. But do give it a try! It’s silly but it’s hilarious.
+1 for Red Dwarf. Cheesy in a great way
I don’t know if you gave Stargate Atlantis a try. It doesn’t reach the heights of SG1, but it has it’s moments and is enjoyable overall.
Stargate Universe was awesome. I will die on this hill.
Season 1 has some rough episodes, but the second season was great.
We watched Atlantis then some of the movies. When we looked into SGU it was on a different streaming service and we read it wasn’t great and got canceled early. Still worth seeing the little that’s there? Does it feel like it got to end on its own terms or is the cutoff jarring?
Yeah, SG1 was outstanding, SG:Atlantis had its moments but was annoying, SGU was just bad.
I personally couldn’t get into SGU. I don’t know how it ends because I never finished it. It felt like it was trying too hard to be like the Battlestar Galactica reboot.
Highly recommend the Culture Novels by Iain M Banks. They’re not necessarily family friendly due to some adult themes and moments, but diplomacy, exploration and intrigue are the main focuses with a bit of action sprinkled in.
The obvious answers are outside TV media.
Mass Effect 1, the video game, was originally conceived as a Star Trek game, but they couldn’t secure the IP rights, so ended up pivoting to a new universe that feels Star Trek like. Play it on story mode.
In print, there are literally a hundred reasonable options, some more or less like different elements of Trek. A good choice (in my opinion) is The Spiral Wars – rogue ship and crew, diplomacy, great combat, alien civilizations that are non-monolithic… Or CJ Cherryh’s Alliance Union universe (a good entry point is Downbelow Station, a good overview of the universe) – many different scenarios and topics and a lot of ethical dilemmas that would make Trek proud.
Of course, if TV is your thing, try out Babylon 5, Stargate, or Farscape. They all sort of start slow.
If you’re not into games I can recommend the excellent playthroughs by NitaZera. There’s no player commentary, just pure game. It’s like watching a TV show. Of course you miss out on making your own choices but the author has made sure to pick interesting ones. There is continuity because the events of each game (and the choices) build on each other.
The way you describe it reminds me of Primitive Technologies.
Thanks for your post even though it wasnt for meant for me!
Or CJ Cherryh’s Alliance Union universe (a good entry point is Downbelow Station, a good overview of the universe)
I didn’t see this before posting my own comment about The Faded Sun trilogy by her. It’s in the same universe
I played through ME1-3. I didn’t know it was inspired by Star Trek but I could see it. I will say to anyone else that reads this, ME 1 feels really old and janky at this point. I got through it and enjoyed the story, but the gameplay was an unpleasant experience. ME 2 and 3 do a lot better in that regard, but then you have to get disappointed by the end of 3… so…
… (or maybe some books)…
.Then how about the Bobiverse series? That should fit the bill perfectly. Even has a Riker! I’m a big fan of the audio books.
And definitely Project Hail Mary as a one off.
And maybe Expeditionary Force. That one is a bit much militaristic for my taste but I got to love the audio books anyways.
Expeditionary Force is great fun, but it’s also a huge commitment. There’s 16 books so far plus spin-offs (that are required reading) and even an Amazon-exclusive radio play.
We just watched Scavenger’s Reign, If exploration is your thing. Not much diplomacy there tho
We watched that recently. Pretty good show. It kind of makes me wish Star Trek had some better ecology episodes. Although now that I’m thinking about it, Star Trek would have had a hard time with that kind of stuff because of the costumes and effects. You can make a lot weirder creatures with animation.
Yes, those were exactly my thoughts! The animations allow you to create all manner of creatures & environments that would be pretty hard to do otherwise
