The Sci-Fi Fanatic BIG 3: Current Sci-Fi TV Series

It's been two years almost to the day since our last BIG 10 list. It was time. Instead, I've focused on the three essentials. A recent viewing of Season Five and Six of The 100 inspired me to record here at Musings Of A Sci-Fi Fanatic the three (3) very best, most compelling science fiction series currently on television as of this writing.




The Sci-Fi Fanatic BIG 3 Science Fiction TV Series right now (superhero, superhero comedy and zombie garbage excluded) are:





3. The 100. 6 Seasons+. Renewed for a 7th and final season.

The 100 is endlessly engaging and overly dramatic to be sure.

What one simply has to accept is how willing the writers are to have characters switch loyalties or betray friends on a dime even within a single episode maybe twice or even thrice. There are more twists than a game of Twister.



Still, the series is all about alliances, agendas and choices made and the consequences that result from those choices. It's a miracle anyone gets along but they don't really. Shots are constantly fired to stir more conflict and drama than you can shake a stick at.

One of the great aspects of any science fiction is less the monsters around us than the monsters within us and this show is all about the inner demons of its characters. External pressures merely bring out the best and worst in all of them. There is no shortage of violence or weapons and there is no rest for the wicked.



It may be post-apocalyptic survival insanity as men and women devolve into sickness even madness, but it's relentless and a hell of a lot of fun to watch despite the occasional eye rolls in logic. It mostly works as crazy as The 100 tends to be.

The young adult cast is generally sensational and fully committed to and invested in telling this story based on the books by Kass Morgan.

Apart from what this writer thought was a dip in quality for Season Three, the series quickly righted the ship (I'm so glad after a few years off I returned to this show) and the series continues to go from strength to strength with a heavy accent on some great science fiction tropes along the way.

Sticking with it to see the Murphy character sing to The Waterboys' This Is The Sea was a cherry on top.




2. Star Trek: Discovery. 2 Seasons+. Renewed for a 3rd season.

Star Trek: Discovery weaves the mythology of the classic series into a more compelling, even exciting dramatic weave seamlessly moving between interesting characters and a long form season story arc.

It builds and builds and keeps things surprising throughout. The sometimes unnecessary overt politics of today's writers have yet to creep into the series so I'm still optimistic as any Star Trek fan should be (American Gods was going to make this list but like Homeland that Season Two just had to go there) that this aspect will not corrupt the series.

This was truly a surprise for the long-running franchise. A sensational cast with adventurous writing has yielded quite a discovery indeed.




1. The Expanse. 4 Seasons+ (3 seasons with SyFy; picked up by Amazon for the 4th). Renewed for a 5th season.

Based on a long-running book series by James S.A. Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) this is literary science fiction at its finest. The long form storytelling is reminiscent of the kind of ongoing story intelligence penned by J. Michael Straczynski for Babylon 5 (1993-1998) but a whole lot more exciting.



The effects work here is far superior of course. The story is rich and filled with depth thanks to the source material and is also filled with an unexpected freshness and originality. Its nearly impossible to predict the direction of the show unless you've actually read those wonderful books, which the series generally adheres quite firmly to.

The Expanse takes us into outer space and is a compelling yarn about the evolution of humankind into the void despite its seeming inability to escape its own dark side and its devastating mistakes.

It is an epic sci-fi adventure with a limitless cast of fascinating characters.



And that's it folks. I've checked out others. Superheroes and zombies generally bore me though The Boys (Amazon Prime) was intriguing. Dark (Netflix) was atmospheric time travel and held some promise, but was ultimately unsatisfying.

A BIG 10 minus 7= a BIG 3. I knew that school math would come in handy.

These are undeniably The Sci-Fi Fanatic's current favorites.