It’s hard to believe, but here we are at the end of 2023. This year has been a huge one for genre television, with a massive slate of TV shows on hand to scratch that fantasy and science fiction itch. Some were new classics which we’ll be talking about for years to come; others shone a light on how the drive for “content” can make for uneven viewing at best.
Let’s look back on our favorite sci-fi and fantasy shows from this year. This comes with the disclaimer that any such list is bound to be subjective; these are my personal picks, but yours may be very different. Come for me in the comments if you dare.
10. Black Mirror season 6
Sometimes, it’s not just the quality of the art itself that makes it stick out in our minds; the timing of how it lines up with current events can also elevate the experience. Nowhere on TV was that more evident in 2023 than on Black Mirror, which dropped its sixth season over the summer just ahead of the Hollywood actors strike. Of course, it helps that the art itself was also great.
Black Mirror is an anthology series where each episode serves as its own cautionary sci-fi tale, similar to The Twilight Zone. Season 6 wasn’t the most consistent of the series. It made some major swings for the fences that resulting in some of the show’s best episodes, as well as a few that were less than stellar. But when it worked, it worked.
Really, Black Mirror warrants being on the list for its season premiere episode alone, and everything else is just a bonus. “Joan Is Awful,” about a woman whose life is recreated more or less in real time by an AI, perfectly encapsulated how AI could be a threat to artists and actors right at a time where that very thing was being debated in the real world during the strikes. The Black Mirror episode came up more than once during media coverage of the strike. You can’t fake that kind of real-world influence from a television show.
For sheer entertainment value, Black Mirror also crushed it this year, with a lot of variety. “Joan Is Awful” is classic Black Mirror, thought-provoking, sobering and hilarious by turns. “Loch Henry” was an outright terrifying exploration of the true crime genre. “Beyond the Sea” was a bleak exploration of the psychological effects of deep space travel and leaving behind everything you’ve known. Black Mirror isn’t just a show that makes us think, it’s an engrossing watch, too.
9. Star Wars: Ahsoka
Lucasfilm dropped two big Star Wars shows on Disney+ this year: the third season of The Mandalorian and the first season of Ahsoka, which is one part Mandalorian spinoff and one part sequel to the Star Wars Rebels animated series. Based on the quality of its season as well as its overall significance in the Star Wars mythos, Ahsoka takes the prize between them.
Ahsoka Tano first made her debut back in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series, where she was the padawan learner to Anakin Skywalker. She’s a character beloved by many, so for her to finally get her own live-action series starring Rosario Dawson was a big moment for fans.
But Lucasfilm and Star Wars guru Dave Filoni didn’t stop there. Not only did Ahsoka get a sweeping new chapter in her story, but the show also served as a way to reunite the cast from Star Wars Rebels, standing as an homage to the animated series as well as a follow-up which finally revealed the fate of long-missing characters like Ezra Bridger and Grand Admiral Thrawn. Thrawn is one of the new big bads of the Star Wars universe, and after the events of Ahsoka he’s poised to appear in upcoming shows like Skeleton Crew or The Mandalorian season 4. The stakes in Ahsoka were high, but its effect on other series will be even higher.
Plus, we got Hayden Christensen back as Anakin Skywalker! Ahsoka was giant treat for fans who’ve stuck it out with the greater Star Wars extended universe for all these years.
8. Good Omens season 2
Ah, Good Omens, a show where the fans most certainly make their love known. Back in 2019, Prime Video released the first season of this charming show about an angel named Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and a demon named Crowley (David Tennant) who decided to stave off the biblical apocalypse so they could go on enjoying their lives on Earth. That season covered the entirety of the original Good Omens book written by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, so there weren’t many expectations that the series would return.
But return it did, and the good times continued rolling. This year we got Good Omens season 2, which went off-book in order to set up a potential third season based on plans Gaiman and Pratchett had made before the latter’s death. And lo! Good Omens was just as charming as ever, with Aziraphale and Crowley navigating the sudden appearance of the Archangel Michael (Jon Hamm), who appeared without his memories or a stitch of clothing. They got up to a bit of match-making as well, which made for fun on both the human and celestial levels.
This season also delivered on a long-standing fan hope by actually having Aziraphale and Crowley kiss and grapple with their feelings for one another. Fans have long shipped these two, holding on to the subtext which already existed in Good Omens season 1 as well as the book. Now they’ll always have this moment with the ineffable husbands, written into the annals of fantasy history. And we now know that Good Omens is returning for season 3!
7. Gen V
I’ll admit, when I heard that The Boys was doing a college spinoff, I was nervous. Was Amazon’s subversive superhero show spreading itself too thin?
Those fears were for naught. I binged Gen V over the course of the two days because it was not only a good spinoff, it was just great in general. I might have even liked it more than a regular season of The Boys if I’m being honest. It still has all the raunch, humor and commentary from the main show, but by focusing on college students figuring out their lives, Gen V allows for an even deeper layer of thematic resonance with how these young adults navigate their powers. Gen V explored ideas of self-harm and self-acceptance in ways that I didn’t expect, and it was surprisingly powerful.
Of course, it’s entertaining as hell, too. The cast is excellent, from Jaz Sinclair’s reluctant hero Marie to the gender-shifting supe Jordan Li (London Thor and Derek Luh) to an absolute standout performance from Lizzie Broadway as Emma Meyer. There are some great action scenes, including a finale that’s on par with anything from the mothership show. And yes, there are even some very good cameos from The Boys stars as well. For fans of the franchise, this show delivered.
Gen V totally won me over, to the point where I’m eager for its second season even though the idea of an expanding The Boys cinematic universe has me on edge.
6. Silo
Out of all the TV hits of 2023, Silo was the one that came most out of nowhere. Before it dropped, I had hardly heard anything about the post-apocalyptic show that Apple TV+ was developing based on the (bestselling) book series by Hugh Howey. Then it came along in early summer and established itself as the biggest original series yet for the streaming service. Not bad!
Silo explores the lives of the last surviving group of humans following a devastating apocalypse event. They live in the titular Silo, a massive underground bunker designed to sustain life for the long term. There’s one overriding rule to life in the Silo: if you say you want to go outside, you are put out from society and exiled to the surface, where you immediately die from the adverse conditions. Or at least, that’s what the powers that be would have people believe.
At the heart of the show is Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson), a gifted mechanic who is thrust into the position of Sheriff for the Silo and begins to unravel the mystery of what’s really going on with the place. The way this show unraveled layer upon layer of mystery while always leaving yet more questions was reminiscent of Lost, and it had a fantastic cast including Game of Thrones veteran Iain Glenn, Common, and more.
Silo was a breath of fresh air for sci-fi TV, with a riveting story that kept me guessing right down to its fateful finale. Work has already begun on the show’s second season, and after how good the first was, I’ll be counting down the days until it arrives.
5. Loki season 2
2023 was a rough year for Marvel Studios, with a few box office bombs like The Marvels and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania as well as a TV dud in the form of Secret Invasion. But amidst all the turmoil was also a shining green gem: the second season of Loki.
Loki was one of the streaming platform’s original hits, and was the first MCU show to be renewed for a second season. The finale of the first season essentially kickstarted the Multiverse Saga which has now spanned so many of Marvel’s projects, leaving off with the great cliffhanger that the Time Variance Authority was now under the control of Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors).
Season 2 took that thread and ran with it, pitching Loki (Tom Hiddleston) back and forth to different TVAs across the timeline as he struggled to keep the organization together. On the whole, it was a solid season, bringing Ke Huy Quan (O.B.) into the cast and giving established presences like Owen Wilson (Mobius) and Hiddleston time to shine. It was a fun, mind-bending journey.
But where Loki really set itself above many other shows was in its finale. The final episode of Loki serves not just as a season finale, but also a capstone to the long run Hiddleston has had playing the character since the first Thor movie back in 2010. It was an emotional, powerful ending that elevated the series, buoyed by great writing and effects as well as stellar performances from the cast. The show capped things off so well that if Loki never returned, his ending would be completely satisfying. But since this is Marvel, you know they’ll find a way to bring back the God of Mischief at some point.
The MCU may have had some misfires this year, but Loki was not one of them. Instead, it reminded us of just how good Marvel Studios’ stories can be.
4. The Witcher season 3
Netflix’s monster-hunting fantasy series The Witcher had a big year, debuting its third and final season with actor Henry Cavill in the lead role as Geralt of Rivia. When next the show returns, it will be Liam Hemsworth slicing and dicing monsters and evildoers. How was Cavill’s sendoff?
I suppose it depends on who you ask. There was quite a lot of moaning online about how The Witcher season 3 wasted his final episodes, but from where I’m sitting it was easily the best that the show has ever been. I’ve been pretty outspoken about my issues with prior seasons, so imagine my surprise when season 3 came along and totally blew me away. Not only was it far more faithful to Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher novels than season 2, it also featured some of Cavill’s best material as Geralt, from quiet tearjerker moments to adrenaline-fueled fight scenes. The rest of the cast also finally stepped into their own as proper co-leads; the show no longer feels like it’s resting primarily on Geralt’s shoulders, which is just right for this point in the saga. It’s all about Ciri from this point on, my friends.
The biggest victory of The Witcher season 3 is how it adapted the Thanedd Coup in Episode 6. Yes, before you come for me in the comments, I’m well aware that the coup goes down differently in the books, where it’s more of a political summit gone wrong than a gathering of mages which is attacked. But the show hit on most of the major beats from the coup in one way or another, and it absolutely nailed the most important bit: Geralt’s duel with Vilgefortz of Roggeveen. If we were to sit down and pick the most iconic moments from The Witcher books, there’s no doubt that brutal duel and its aftermath would be one of them. It’s the sort of thing many fans wondered if they’d ever actually get to see on screen. That The Witcher pulled it off as well as it did feels like an important landmark.
The Witcher season 3 still had its blemishes, but overall it was highly entertaining fantasy television. It’s a shame that there’s uncertainty about how the show will handle the transition to Hemsworth, because after three seasons and two spinoffs it feels like The Witcher really has its feet under it for the final stretch to the story’s ending.
3. One Piece
Thinking back on 2023, it might be the year of underdog adaptations exceeding expectations. Live-action adaptations of manga and anime don’t have a great track record…but just like how HBO’s The Last of Us broke the video game adaptation curse, Netflix’s One Piece stretched far beyond what many viewers thought was possible to actually deliver a show worthy of the beloved manga series by Eiichiro Oda.
One Piece is a grand adventure that follows aspiring pirate Monkey D. Luffy (Iñaki Godoy) as he assembles a crew and sets out on the high seas. Luffy’s goal: to become king of the pirates and find the renowned horde of treasure — known as the One Piece — left behind by the last pirate king. One Piece has a pitch perfect cast, some absolutely stunning sets and special effects, and a compelling story that leans into the zaniness of the source material. Yes, this is a series with fish-men and marines with mouse ears; yes, it is just as fun as it sounds.
The beauty of One Piece is how accessible it is, which allowed it to bring in tons of new fans whether they were familiar with the manga and anime or not. You didn’t have to be a One Piece aficionado in order to appreciate Luffy’s pure-hearted antics or relatable journey. One Piece is all about following your dreams. The show always kept the simple beauty of that idea at the forefront even when it delved into murkier waters, such as the climactic showdown between Luffy the fish-man Arlong. It was so wholesome and such a great time.
It’s clear that One Piece was an enormous labor of love for all involved. Pulling off the rare trick of pleasing both longtime franchise fans as well as newcomers, One Piece has firmly established itself as one of the biggest fantasy shows of the year. And it’s coming back for season 2!
2. The Wheel of Time
If 2023 was a banner year for fantasy TV, a big part of why was Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time. Based on the massively popular book series by Robert Jordan (and finished after Jordan’s death by Brandon Sanderson), The Wheel of Time is classic fantasy at its finest. There are huge magical clashes, there are monsters, there are deep-running conspiracies and political intrigue and more prophecies than you can fit inside a library of tomes. The Wheel of Time captures the wonder of the fantasy genre, while still infusing it with a big, twisty story that kept both fans of the books and newcomers alike glued to the screen.
The Wheel of Time had a tall order to fill for its second season. The first season had a notoriously rocky production due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in a key role being recast. That cascaded into season 2, necessitating a full rewrite of the season to accommodate the fact that several major players were now in very different places than their book counterparts. Could The Wheel of Time right the ship?
The answer from where I’m sitting is a resounding yes. While it got off to a little bit of a slow start, The Wheel of Time season 2 grew into the sort of appointment fantasy viewing that’s hard to find outside of Westeros. The back half of the season contained some absolutely standout episodes, especially “Eyes Without Pity,” which focused on the torture of Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden) at the hands of Seanchan invaders.
The Wheel of Time still has plenty of room to grow. There are 15 books total in Jordan and Sanderson’s series, and the show is clearly setting up for the long haul. After season 2, there’s no doubt that it can go the distance if Amazon keeps backing it. And if there was this huge a leap in quality between its first two seasons, I can only imagine how much better it’s going to get by the time the Last Battle rolls around.
1. The Last of Us
The Last of Us was the first big genre television hit of 2023, and sitting here at the end of the year, it’s still the best. It feels weird to think of The Last of Us as an underdog, but back when it first came out it had a lot to prove. We’d never seen an HBO-quality adaptation of a video game done well before. On the other hand, there’s a long history of video game adaptations going wrong.
Fortunately, The Last of Us took already brilliant source material — Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us games — and reinvented it for the small screen, making the most of the transition between mediums. At the heart of the show is Joel (Pedro Pascal), a hardened smuggler who needs to escort a teenaged girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across a post-apocalyptic United States infested with fungal zombies and violent marauders. Early on in the season premiere, we see that Joel lost his daughter on the day the apocalypse started; as he travels with Ellie, he rediscovers a part of himself that he’d thought was lost. At the same time, Ellie learns what it’s like to have a parental figure who sticks by her through thick and thin.
The Last of Us is just as much about the deep, personal stories of connection between people at the end of the world as it is about the grand, sweeping tale of survival. It’s not only one of the best genre shows of 2023, it’s one of the best shows of 2023 period. I’m hard pressed to think of another series that could pull off a moving, decades-long queer love story in one episode and then deliver a pulse-pounding zombie showdown with devastating consequences only a couple episodes later. The Last of Us was A+ television, through and through.
That brings us to the top of the list. But there are some honorable mentions we need to touch on as well before we say adieu to 2023…
As mentioned at the start, these are subjective rankings. This year also reminded us that there is so much quality genre television out there that it’s practically impossible for one person to watch it all. I say that as someone who’s literal job it is to watch these things; there’s a lot.
As such, let’s hit on a few honorable mentions. These are either notable series I didn’t watch, or which didn’t make the list for one reason or other. We’ll keep it brief:
- The Fall of the House of Usher — Mike Flanagan’s latest was a dark and delectable story that mashed up the works of Edgar Alan Poe, and it was amazing. The only reason this one didn’t make it onto the main list is because it’s pretty much straight horror, rather than fantasy or science fiction. But it was still easily one of the best shows of the year.
- Invincible season 2 — Prime Video’s gritty animated superhero show is based on a comic by The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman. Season 2 caught us up with Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun) after his catastrophic showdown with his father Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons), launching the story into outer space. I didn’t watch Invincible, but the people who have seem to be stanning it hard. It doesn’t make the list both because I’m not familiar with it, but also because it only aired half a season in 2023; Amazon is holding the rest back for 2024.
- Outlander season 7 — As with Invincible, we got the first half of Outlander’s seventh season this year; the rest will be along in 2024. But what we did get seemed to be a return to form for the series after a somewhat rocky season 6 that was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. I didn’t watch this one because after six seasons of Outlander using sexual abuse as a go-to storytelling mechanic I’m reluctant to return to Frasier’s Ridge. But for those who’ve been waiting out the Droughtlander, it was a cause for celebration.
- Star Trek — There are a ton of Star Trek shows on right now, but I haven’t watched ’em. (Told you there was too much TV.) But if I had watched ’em, one would probably be on this list somewhere. The two big Trek shows this year were the final season of Star Trek: Picard and season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Trekkies, sound off in the comments and let me know which of the two you preferred!
- Doctor Who specials — Special episodes of Doctor Who have been airing, and they’re a bigger deal than usual. David Tennant and Catherine Tate returned to the series for the first three before new Doctor Ncuti Gatwa takes over for the Christmas Special. It’s hard for a handful of specials to compete with full seasons of TV shows, thus this ends up in the honorable mentions category. Expect to see Doctor Who leap up the list next year when we spend more time with Gatwa.
- Monarch: Legacy of Monsters — Another show I hear is excellent but have not personally watched. Winter Is Coming’s resident kaiju expert Camila Servello has been singing the praises of this series since it started dropping on Apple TV+. Expanding cinematic universes are always a dicey proposition, but from the sounds of things this addition to the Monsterverse is punching above its weight class. Plus it stars Kurt Russell and his son Wyatt Russell as younger and older versions of the same character, and that is some excellent casting right there.
And so concludes our rankings for the best fantasy and science fiction shows of 2023. It’s been a wild ride through time, space, and fantastical worlds with all of you this year. Here’s to many more good shows to come in 2024!
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