The Last of Us and 14 other fantasy/sci-fi shows that won’t be back in 2024

3. Stranger Things season 5 (Netflix)

Netflix’s small sci-fi thriller Stranger Things has gotten more ambitious as it’s gone on, and as its scope has grown, so has the wait between new seasons. The fifth season will be the show’s last, and you know creators Matt and Ross Duffer will want to go out with an ’80s-themed bang.

And that will take time. As with a lot of shows on this list, the producers of Stranger Things were taking measures to make sure new episodes could come out sooner rather than later — after all, the longer we wait, the harder it becomes to pass off the young cast members as high schoolers — but then the strikes happened, things shut down, and we viewers are left checking out watches, wondering when the next bus to Hawkins arrives.

The cast and crew of Stranger Things have always turned out a quality season of television. Season 5 will be just as good if not better, but we’ll have to wait until 2025 to watch it.

4. The Mandalorian season 4 (Disney+)

If Disney put their mind to it, they could probably get us a new season of The Mandalorian each year. Fans loved the inaugural adventures of Mando and Baby Yoda when the show premiered on Disney+ back in 2019, and we got a follow-up season the year after.

But after that, things slowed down. Part of that is beyond Disney’s control. As with many other series, production on The Mandalorian season 4 has been delayed by the writers and actors strikes. But part of it is due to Disney’s strategy with its Star Wars TV shows. Rather than produce new episodes of The Mandalorian year after year, Disney hit us with lots of new series, including Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka. It doesn’t want to overload us, so even if they strikes hadn’t happened, the plan was probably always for The Mandalorian to take a gap year.

We’ll have Star Wars shows to watch next year — in fact, we may have more than we can handle — but we won’t see more of Din Djarin and Grogu until 2025. Personally, I think I’d have preferred it if Disney had just concentrated on The Mandalorian from the start, but your mileage may vary.

5. Foundation season 3 (Amazon Prime Video)

This one’s easy. The second season of Foundation, an ambitious adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s high-minded book series, aired on Apple TV+ this year. Apple renewed the show, but not until near the end of the year. That means the cast and crew have to write a new season, shoot the episodes, and do post-production. There’s no way that’ll all get done by the end of 2024. Foundation season 3 will air in 2025, and if there are obstacle I could even see it getting pushed past that, but we’ll hope for the best.

6. Upload season 4 (Amazon Prime Video)

Upload is a sci-fi comedy from Greg Daniels, the guy behind The Office and Parks and Recreation. Those are some serious comedy credentials. It’s about a programmer (Robbie Amell) who dies prematurely and gets uploaded into a digital afterlife. It’s gone for three seasons, but we don’t have an official renewal announcement yet. Daniels was hopeful as of October 2023, but if it hasn’t been renewed already, we can’t imagine it will air in 2024.