15 fantasy/sci-fi TV shows to catch up with in 2024 before the next season drops
By Anwesha Nag
4) The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2
Amazon Prime Video’s dream Lord of the Rings project, The Rings of Power, debuted in 2022 to mixed reviews. Many loved the prequel spinoff that followed a young(er) Galadriel around Middle-Earth as she investigated Sauron’s rise to power thousands of years before the events of the original trilogy. The majority of the criticism had to do with asking whether the show lived up to the movies, which in my humble opinion is quite pointless a yardstick. The show ended well, revealing the identities of Gandalf and Sauron. The latter was a pleasantly surprising twist. The second season is expected to drop sometime in 2024.
5) Stranger Things season 5 (final season)
A Netflix mainstay from 2016, Stranger Things is filled to the brim with '80s nostalgia and very obvious references to the works of Stephen King and Stephen Spielberg. The incredibly successful series, which single-handedly launched the career of Millie Bobby Brown and other actors, is among the most-watched shows on Netflix. It has occasionally caused some subscribers to experience website/app crashes upon the release of new episodes. With a delay in production due to the Hollywood strikes in 2023, Stranger Things is scheduled to film from January to September of 2024. Fans can expect the final season to drop in the spring or summer of 2025 at the earliest.
6) The Umbrella Academy season 4 (final season)
After two back-to-back exhilarating seasons, The Umbrella Academy lost its charm a little bit in the third. Despite an interesting build-up, the finale failed to deliver on what it promised. The ending also forgot to explain many things that initially seemed important and left fans with a hodge-podge of sentiments and symbolism. However, the season had its moments, especially the rare scenes where the Hargreeves siblings bonded with each other. At the end of it all, they successfully prevented yet another apocalypse but ended up in a different timeline where they no longer wielded their signature superpowers.
The Netflix staple, written by Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, is expected to go out with a bang this year. Netflix has not shared a release date beyond ‘2024’, so you may still have enough time to catch up with the first three seasons before the fourth and final one comes along.
7) Star Trek: Discovery season 5 (final season)
The show that kickstarted the new era of Star Trek shows on Paramount+ in 2017 will come to an end with a fifth and final season in April of 2024. While old-school Star Trek fans have found things to complain about in the show, the series has managed to create its own following as well. If time jumps, alternate universes, and space travel are your things, it is not too late to start the series. You may also want to catch up with spin-off series Star Trek: Short Treks, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and Star Trek: Section 31. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Prodigy will also return in 2024.