There's a lot of good sci-fi and fantasy fare to watch on Netflix this year. Let's hit some of the highlights coming round the corner, starting with...
1. Avatar: The Last Airbender (February 22)
Avatar: The Last Airbender began life as an animated series on Nickelodeon back in the mid-2000s. Inspired by myths and legends from East Asia, the series bewitched fans with its story of a young man and his friends charged with saving the world. The show was smartly written, charmingly animated, and featured characters who could control the four elements riding through the skies on the back of a flying bison. It was destined to become a classic.
There was an unfortunate live-action movie version of The Last Airbender made in 2010, but most fans want to forget that it ever happened. Will Netflix's new live-action TV version be any better? The trailers look pretty good, but some fans have concerns. We'll soon be able to judge for ourselves.
2. 3 Body Problem (March 21)
Liu Cixin Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy is a landmark series of science fiction books that challenged readers with its frightening story about mankind's first encounter with a hostile alien race. The books span multiple generations, take place across the stars, and are not afraid to throw a lot of technical and scientific jargon at us. Adapting them for TV will be a challenge, but if anybody can do it, it's David Benioff and Dan Weiss, the guys behind HBO's Game of Thrones. They're back after a four-year hiatus from big-budget TV, and they've brought some friends with them.
The new show will change things from the books, bringing some characters from later in the trilogy into the first part and dividing the duties of others up among several newcomers. Plus, the show will have to find a way to represent visiually what Liu Cixin spends copious amounts of ink explaining in words. It's a big risk that could yield big rewards.
3. Damsel (March 8)
In Damsel, Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven) plays Elodie, a medieval maiden who marries a handsome prince...only for him to turn around and sacrifice her to a dragon. Elodie must escape the dragon's lair in this twist on the traditional princess-meets-prince fairytale.
The premise of this movie is simple, but Oscar-nominated director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo could bring some heft to it. As for Brown, she's one of the biggest stars to come out of Netflix, headlining not only Stranger Things but also the Enola Holmes movies. Clearly, she and Netflix aren't done with their partnership.
That takes us through next month. What about the rest of the year? Click the button below for more:
4. Rebel Moon: Part 2 — The Scargiver (April 19)
Rebel Moon is director Zack Snyder's take on Star Wars. A tyrannical, interstellar empire threatens the peace on an agrarian moon. A ragtag band of rebels unite to step the interlopers, preserve their freedom, and send a message to the rest of the galaxy: don't tread on me.
Rebel Moon is a two-part movie event. The first part, subtitled A Child of Fire, came out last December and got some of the worst reviews of Zack Snyder's career, although audiences were a bit kinder than critics. Everyone agrees that the movie has Snyder's stylistic flair — if you've seen movies like 300 or Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, you know to expect lots of gloomy slow-mo and shots of muscular bodies glistening in the heat of battle — but many complained that the first movie was too much setup and not enough payoff. One suspects that will come in Part 2.
Should Snyder have just cut down his movie until it was digestible in one sitting? Perhaps, but the man behind Zack Snyder's Justice League has never been known for his succinctness. Plus, it feels like Netflix wants to build a cinematic universe on top of Rebel Moon. Much will depend on how people receive Part 2.
5. Bridgerton season 3 (May 16 and June 16)
Okay, Bridgerton isn't really a sci-fi/fantasy show, but period dramas often get grandfathered in under the "fantasy" umbrella. I mean, they're riding horses and wearing corsets, they're halfway there.
Netflix's Regency-era romance show has become a monster hit, part romanic comedy, part bodice ripper, all addictive TV perfection. Each season has focused on a different couple. The upcoming third season will revolve around Colin Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington, played by Luke Newton and Nicola Coughlan.
Season 3 is based on Julia Quinn's book Romancing Mister Bridgerton, the fourth book in her Bridgerton series (the show is skipping the third book, although it could come back later). Viewers know that Penelope has been nursing a crush on Colin for some time, but she's seemingly abandoned it after hearing some disparaging things he said about her in season 2. When he comes back from his summer travels with a renewed sense of swagger, he attempts to win back her friendship. But could these friends become...something more? Outlook seems likely.
And Penelope will be walking through this romantic minefield all while trying to maintain her secret identity as Lady Whistledown. Get ready for more romantic misadventures when the first four episodes of season 3 drop on May 16. The back four will follow a month later on June 16.
6. Sweet Tooth season 3 (2024)
This odd duck of a series will come to an end with its third season this year. Sweet Tooth is set in a post-apocalyptic world where much of the population has been wiped out by a mysterious illness and some children are randomly born with animal body parts. Our hero is Gus, a young boy who is half-human, half-deer. He's off on a quest to find his mother, and maybe solve the mystery of how the world became like this in the process.
Post-apocalyptic series are a dime a dozen. With its young hero looking for his family, Sweet Tooth has more of a fairy tale vibe than, say, HBO's The Last of Us. The show will end with season 3, which is apparently how creator and showrunner Jim Mickle always wanted it.
7. The Umbrella Academy season 4 (2024)
The fourth and final season of The Umbrella Academy will bring to an end the twisty story of the Hargreeves family, siblings with superpowers grand enough that they've saved the world three times over and dysfunctions deep enough that a century in therapy would only scratch the surface. Also, while they always do always end up saving the world, they usually have something to do with why it's in danger in the first place. They're highly imperfect heroes, at best.
They are charming, though. The Umbrella Academy has always been equal parts superhero action, absurdist comedy and family drama. It's got heart, it's got a wacky sense of humor, and in the first season it had Mary J. Blige blowing up a diner. It's not for everybody, but the fans know exactly who they are.
The third season of The Umbrella Academy was a little weaker than the two before it, but the show still deserves a chance to go out on its own terms. Hopefully that's what it'll do in the six-episode fourth season.
8. Cobra Kai season 6 (2024)
This is another show that's not quite sci-fi or fantasy, but then again, I don't know what else to call a drama where half the kids in the local high school belong to rival dojos and where martial arts battles regularly break out in the halls. Martial arts movies often take place in a heightened reality where every conflict big or small is solved with a flurry of fists and feet, so we're grandfathering this show in.
Cobra Kai is a direct sequel to the 1984 movie The Karate Kid, with Ralph Macchio and William Zabka returning as former rivals Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, now much older and as wise as they can be given that they're still solving their problems with karate. Over the first five seasons, the drama has gotten increasingly soap operatic, as our team of high-kicking underdogs fights against the disciples of the well-funded Terry Silver. He's in jail at the end of season 5, but it's hard to picture a grand finale without him.
And this is the finale. Season 6 of Cobra Kai will be its last. Fans have had to wait longer than usual for this final season, but hopefully the climax will be worth it.
9. Squid Game season 2 (2024)
Squid Game, a Korean drama about a group of people so hard up for money they're willing to put their lives on the line for the entertainment of a bunch of bored billionaires, is the most successful show in the history of Netflix. The second season will pick up where the first one left off: with Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) determined to put a stop to the shadowy cabal behind the Squid Games before anyone else gets taken advantage of and killed.
The first season of this show was electrifying, impeccably made and extremely relevant in a time when the gap between the haves and have-nots just keeps widening. Recently, Netflix released a game show version of Squid Game that seemed to miss the point of the original show, but it proves that people are stiill interested in this conceit.
Will lightning strike twice for Squid Game? We'll find out sometime towards the end of the year. This could be the biggest Netflix show of 2024.
10. Atlas (2024)
Let's end with science fiction icon Jennifer Lopez tiring of that whole music industry sidequest and returning to her roots. In Atlas, Lopez plays a data scientist with a deep mistrust of artiificial intelligence. She joins a mission to capture a renegade robot with which she has a mysterious past. When things go awry, as we all knew they would, she realizes that the only way to save humanity may be to trust the very machine intelligence she so reviles.
With its focus on AI, Atlas sounds like a timely story. It's stacked with stars, too. In addition to Lopez (who's character's name is Atlas Shepherd, FYI), the movie stars Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown and Mark Strong.
Netflix has plenty in store for sci-fi and fantasy fans this year. But if it's not enough, you have lots of other options:
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