Netflix’s first original series, House of Cards, launched in 2013, and television was never the same. But even as Netflix and other platforms began to gain popularity, old-school network and basic cable channels continued to create edgy (and sometimes a bit unhinged) genre shows—the sort of programming that just a few years later would come to dominate the streaming landscape.
With that in mind, here are seven weird and wonderful sci-fi shows from the last era of TV before streaming well and truly took over.
Wayward Pines (2015-2018, Fox)
M. Night Shyamalan directed the pilot episode and served as executive producer on this adaptation of author Blake Crouch’s sci-fi mystery trilogy. Wayward Pines starts off as a sort of Twin Peaks riff—a federal agent (Matt Dillon) stumbles his way into a small town full of secretive people while looking for his missing partner.
Then comes the twist: it’s actually the 41st century, and everyone in the town is there because they were placed in cryosleep ahead of the apocalypse. In the intervening thousands of years, mutated humans took over the planet, and the barrier between 21st-century people and far-future “Abbies” (short for “aberrations”) is weakening by the day. Along the way, the show digs into some classic sci-fi questions, including “Who are the real monsters?”
Wayward Pines—whose cast included Carla Gugino, Toby Jones, Juliette Lewis, Melissa Leo, and Djimon Hounsou—ran for two seasons. Shyamalan’s next TV venture was Servant at Apple TV+, the same streamer hosting Crouch’s current project, an adaptation of his book Dark Matter. But you can still visit the roaring 4020s: Wayward Pines is streaming on Hulu; it also got a physical release.
Zoo (2015-2017, CBS)
For three seasons, viewers followed along as a ragtag group of reluctant heroes—a zoologist (James Wolk), a journalist (Kristen Connelly), a safari guide (Nonso Anozie), a French intelligence agent (Nora Arnezeder), and a veterinary pathologist (Billy Burke)—navigated a world where every “when animals attack” worst-case scenario suddenly happens at once.
From the start, there are conspiracies to investigate—a sinister biotech company looks awfully culpable, and you know there are going to be cover-ups galore—and a lot of Zoo, based on the James Patterson best-seller, featured its main characters zipping around from place to place looking for clues, guilty parties, and ways to fight back, including maybe even a cure.
Along the way, the show made plenty of room for crazed animals to do their thing (bears, birds, exotic escapees), eventually ushering in hybrid crazed animals, making Zoo even more unhinged than was originally promised. Zoo also incorporated humans among its horrifying mutations, in case you couldn’t get enough of that on Wayward Pines. You can buy all three seasons of Zoo through Amazon Prime; the show also got a physical release.
Limitless (2015-2016, CBS)
The 2011 film starring Bradley Cooper spawned this short-lived but entertaining sci-fi series starring Jake McDornan, who What We Do in the Shadows fans will now recognize as Nadja’s hapless fling Gregor (aka Jeff). It ran for just one season, but in old-school network terms, that meant a whopping 22 episodes.
McDornan plays an average-dude writer whose life is transformed when he takes a drug that makes him the smartest person in the world—but the genius comes with a time limit as well as dangerous side effects. It also puts him on the FBI’s radar, and though he uses his powers for good instead of evil, the wonder pill brings out the worst in an awful lot of people in his orbit.
Craig Sweeny, who also worked on Sherlock Holmes riffs Elementary and Watson, was the showrunner, and the supporting cast included Dexter’s Jennifer Carpenter and The Abyss’ Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, with Cooper stopping by to reprise his character from the film—who’s now a senator with a secret. You can stream Limitless on Paramount+; it also got a physical release.
Under the Dome (2013-2015, CBS)
io9 became so obsessed with Under the Dome—inspired by the Stephen King novel, and developed by famed comic book writer Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, Saga)—that for a time we even featured recaps written by the Dome itself. Whether or not that was a complimentary obsession as time wore on is perhaps debatable, but you can’t deny the delights of watching a show that makes you go “Wait… what?” multiple times over the course of an episode.
The premise: a small town suddenly finds itself encased in a dome. Where did it come from? What is its purpose? And how will they be able to survive trapped together under there? Also, aliens.
Under the Dome had a huge cast (Rachelle Lefevre, Natalie Martinez, Jeff Fahey, Dean Norris, Britt Robertson), and even if it fell off a little as it got into its third and final season, it still counted both King and Stephen Spielberg among its executive producers, and it managed to find its way to a satisfying ending. Even the cranky Dome can’t argue with that.
The Event (2010-2011, NBC)
The Event, or THE EVƎNT as it preferred to style itself, starred the always likable Jason Ritter as a guy whose girlfriend goes missing on a Caribbean cruise—leading him into bonkers events that involve an alien conspiracy dating back decades and an assassination plot against the U.S. president (played by Longlegs’ Blair Underwood). ER‘s Laura Innes co-starred as one of the extraterrestrial leaders.
With elements of a political thriller enmeshed in all the sci-fi plotting, The Event also leaned into social media in a way was innovative at the time, giving characters Twitter accounts (back when it was still Twitter) and giving one a blog to provide clues to the show’s central mystery… which never quite got solved. It was cancelled after just one season, but again—that was 22 episodes, making it beefier than most streaming series today.
You can watch The Event free with ads on the Roku Channel; it also got both DVD and Blu-ray physical releases.
Awake (NBC, 2012)
Before Star Trek: Discovery or The White Lotus, but after Event Horizon and the Harry Potter movies, Jason Isaacs starred in this police procedural that actually streamed its pilot on Hulu ahead of the show’s rollout on NBC. In Awake, he plays an LAPD detective whose existence fractures into two realities after a terrible car accident. In one, his wife survived, but his son died; in the other, it’s reversed.
Which is real? He doesn’t know, and neither does the audience, though Awake helpfully kept the two lives straight by filming one in warm tones and the other with a cool hue. Even so, it’s not a smooth co-existence for the character as he ping-pongs between realities while still working cases.
Though the high-concept series was met with positive reviews, it didn’t catch on with viewers and was cancelled before the first season aired its ambiguous final entry. It’s available to rent or buy through Prime Video.
Almost Human (2013-2014, Fox)
J.J. Abrams was among the producers of this action-packed series created by J.H. Wyman, who’d worked on cult-beloved Abrams co-creation Fringe. (Abrams also composed Almost Human’s theme music). Set in 2048, Almost Human imagined a near future where technology has evolved so rapidly that it’s caused crime to spike to dangerous new levels. The only solution for law enforcement, naturally, is to pair human cops with highly advanced androids.
There’s no choice in this arrangement, which of course infuriates the human officer (Karl Urban) who blames robotkind for the death of a fellow human cop, not to mention his own leg and head injuries. But of course, over time, he develops a rapport with his new partner (Michael Ealy), an older model that’s capable of almost human (ahem) emotions, rather than the more calculating, coldly mechanical newer versions.
There’s a Murderbot element, for sure, but with more running around urban dystopias solving brutal crimes. Despite a cool premise and a cool cast (Lili Taylor played the police captain), not to mention decent ratings, the show’s hefty budget appears to have been its undoing. You can see what the future of TV looked like over a decade ago by streaming Almost Human‘s single season on AMC+; it’s also available as a physical release.
What sci-fi shows that aired on a major network in ye olde mid-2010s do you think of fondly? Share your favorites in the comments below!
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