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The 20 Best Sci-Fi TV Shows on Peacock: Twisted Metal, Three-Body Problem, Resident Alien & More
Aliens, assassins, superheroes, dystopias, and more!
Aliens, assassins, superheroes, dystopias, and more! If you're looking for good sci-fi — and it’s never a bad time to cozy up on the couch and watch some solid sci-fi television — Peacock has you covered.
Peacock has an impressive sci-fi TV roster, but if you don't want to do all the browsing yourself, here are some shows we highly recommend to help you scratch that sci-fi itch, whether you’re looking for something funny or lighthearted, or you're just in the mood for some serious space drama.
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The Continental: From the World of John Wick
Taking place in the late 1970s — nearly four decades before Keanu Reeves' world-weary hitman set out on a path of revenge — this limited prequel explores how Winston Scott (Colin Woodell) seized control of the hotel known for its killer — quite literally — clientele. After his older brother, Frankie (Ben Robson), makes off with a High Table coin press, Winston finds himself at the center of a deadly power struggle with the man who controlled the hotel before him: the sociopathic Cormac O'Connor (Mel Gibson). Taking full advantage of its disco-era backdrop, The Continental: From the World of John Wick makes for one groovy addition to the hit franchise.
Break out those gold coins! All three episodes of The Continental are streaming on Peacock here.
Twisted Metal
Who’s ready for a road trip? Twisted Metal is riding high on a wave of love from critics and fans who’ve been vibing with Peacock’s recent original series, with MCU veteran Anthony Mackie in the driver’s seat for a hellish do-or-die delivery mission across post-apocalyptic America. The warped, wacky, and wickedly funny sci-fi series brings the classic cars, characters, and carnage of the old-school Twisted Metal PlayStation video game franchise into bold and bloody live action, with fun starring turns from Mackie alongside costars Stephanie Beatriz (Encanto, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Thomas Haden Church (Spider-Man: No Way Home, Sideways), and the tag-team duo of Will Arnett (BoJack Horseman, the LEGO movie franchise) and wrestler Samoa Joe as demented killer clown Sweet Tooth.
Stream all of Twisted Metal Season 1 on Peacock here.
Mrs. Davis
Betty Gilpin (GLOW, The Hunt) plays a devout nun searching for the Holy Grail in Mrs. Davis, Peacock’s inventively wild original sci-fi series from the creative minds of Damon Lindelof (HBO's Watchmen, Lost) and Tara Hernandez (The Big Bang Theory). Part comedy, part drama, and part thriller (with a big dash of magical realism thrown in), it’s a totally unpredictable goose chase of a show as Sister Simone (Gilpin’s determined nun) takes aim at ending the societal stranglehold that the series’ titular AI seems to have on just about everyone on Earth besides Simone and her eclectic little band of AI-averse allies.
Stream Season 1 of Mrs. Davis on Peacock here.
La Brea
When a massive sinkhole appears in the middle of Los Angeles, a group of people find themselves battling for survival in a primeval world full of dangers thought to have gone extinct millions of years ago. David Appelbaum (an alum of The Mentalist and NCIS: New Orleans) created the NBC series, which just wrapped up its third amazing season.
Stream all three seasons of La Brea on Peacock here.
Quantum Leap
There’s a new leaper at NBC, with Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee) following three decades later in the footsteps of Scott Bakula’s iconic Sam Beckett from the 1990s original Quantum Leap series. The freshly-revived sci-fi show comes from O.G. Quantum Leap mastermind Donald P. Bellisario, with Bellisario, Steven Lilien & Bryan Wynbrandt executive producing. Of course that means Ben is tackling tons of topical issues as he careens from one historical era (and body) to the next, a winning formula that assured the series — which also features Caitlin Bassett, Mason Alexander Park, Nanrisa Lee, and Ernie Hudson — a Season 2 green light.
Watch the first two seasons of Quantum Leap on Peacock here. All five seasons of the original show can be found here.
Poker Face
Natasha Lyonne stars in Peacock’s Poker Face as Charlie Cale, a regular gal with an almost-supernatural gift for being able to suss out the lies that people tell. It’s a useful skill as she ducks and dodges her way across the country, solving Columbo-style murder whodunnits while staying on the run from the vile Vegas sharks who want her dead. Bearing loads of the same witty story intrigue that’s made creator Rian Johnson’s Knives Out movies such a smash, Poker Face warranted an early Season 2 pick up.
Watch the entire first season of Poker Face on Peacock here.
The War of the Worlds
Set in Edwardian England, this three-part event series adaptation brought an appropriately deft British flair to H.G. Wells’ timeless science fiction story. Throwing a socially frowned-upon unmarried couple (played by The Nevers’ Eleanor Tomlinson and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom actor Rafe Spall) in the midst of turn-of-the-20th Century chaos, the effects-lavish tale pits them and their scientist employer (Stargate Universe alum Robert Carlyle) against threats both alien and inhuman.
Don’t panic! All three The War of the Worlds event series episodes are streaming on Peacock here.
Resident Alien
Resident Alien is SYFY's hit series about an alien who crash lands on Earth and takes over the body of Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle (Alan Tudyk). Harry is most certainly a hilarious fish-out-of-water while posing as the local town doctor, but he is also still mostly bent on his original extraterrestrial mission — to destroy Earth. The series, which just wrapped its third season, is full of laughs — it stars Alan Tudyk, after all — and will fill your heart with joy.
Watch all episodes of Resident Alien on Peacock here.
Three-Body Problem
Based on the Hugo Award-winning novel of the same name by Liu Cixin, Three-Body Problem "is a complex web of secrets and revelations all revolving around the discovery of an alien civilization just a few light years away from Earth, in a system featuring three suns (hence the 'three-body problem' of the title)," writes SYFY WIRE's own Matthew Jackson. "The chronological narrative begins during China's Cultural Revolution in the mid-20th Century and continues through the present-day, eventually roping in everything from a secret government project to a floating colony with its own army to a virtual reality game with a surprising purpose. It's complicated, to say the least, and Three-Body aims to convey that complexity as faithfully as possible."
Stream all 30 episodes of Three-Body Problem on Peacock here.
Farscape
Farscape still has a dedicated fanbase even though it's been more than two decades since the show's premiere. The series follows human astronaut John Chrichton (Ben Browder) as he finds himself stranded on an alien world after accidentally getting sucked through a wormhole. In his effort to make it back to Earth, he joins a ragtag group of aliens on the run who soon become his newfound family. It's a show well worth a watch (or rewatch) if you're looking for some awesome space adventure.
You can watch Farscape on Peacock here.
Heroes
"Save the cheerleader, save the world," reads the tagline for the first season of Heroes, a show about ordinary people who started gaining extraordinary powers. The ensemble series centers around a group of these newly superpowered folks and how they react to discovering their abilities. Unsurprisingly, some become villainous rather quickly, and it’s up to the others to stop them, whether they want to or not.
You can watch Heroes on Peacock here.
Code 404
CODE 404 follows Detective Inspectors Major and Carver (played by Daniel Mays and Stephen Graham, respectively). The two are like many cop duos on television, except that Major was brought back from the dead via some Artificial Intelligence technology after he was gunned down on the job. Major's new A.I. persona is a bit buggy, to put it mildly, and the resurrected Detective Inspector also faces tension with Carver, who has gotten close to his partner's wife after Major's passing. Hijinks and case-solving ensue!
You can watch CODE 404 on Peacock here.
Brave New World
This series is an adaptation of the eponymous 1932 classic sci-fi book by Aldous Huxley. The 2020 show — a Peacock launch title — modernizes the story somewhat (there’s now an A.I. presence, for example), but the crux is the same — people in this future are living in a so-called utopia where everything (and we mean everything) is meticulously controlled by the government.
You can watch Brave New World on Peacock here.
The Triangle
Back in the Sci-Fi channel days at SYFY, this star-studded event series took a twisting, time-splitting journey through one especially intriguing theory to explain the sinister mysteries lying at the heart of the Bermuda Triangle. Jurassic Park royalty Sam Neill starred alongside Eric Stoltz, Bruce Davison, and Lou Diamond Phillips, with the show boasting a creative pedigree that counted sci-fi masterminds Dean Devlin (Stargate, The Ark, Independence Day) and Rockne S. O’Bannon (Farscape, Alien Nation) among its writers.
Dive into The Triangle if you dare: All three installments of one of 2005’s most original miniseries are streaming on Peacock here.
Primeval
A mix between Stargate and La Brea, Primeval follows a team of scientists investigating "a time anomaly which allows ancient creatures through." The show was created by the duo of Tim Haines (Walking With Dinosaurs) and Adrian Hodges (Survivors). "A lot of British shows look backwards," Haines told IGN in 2008. "And a there's a lot of the Hammer Horror kind of tradition. This is a very different tradition, a television tradition I guess. And modern shows like Buffy had managed that wonderful combination of humor, thrills, some adult stuff while still keeping it very accessible to kids and those were our ambitions."
Watch all five season of Primeval on Peacock here.
Sliders
Sliders is a 1990s television series that was way into multiverses before the MCU even existed. In it, a group finds themselves traveling through different universes after their “sliding” technology breaks down and they lose the coordinates to their home universe. It’s a fun show and it will make you remember the '90s fondly, if you happened to have been alive in that multiverse.
Watch all five seasons of Sliders on Peacock here.
SeaQuest DSV
SeaQuest DSV is another ‘90s show, but this one brings sci-fi to the ocean. In this series set in the “future” (2018, in the timeline of the show), we follow the voyage of the submarine called seaQuest DSV 4600, a vessel that protects Earth’s underwater colonies after humanity has basically used up all the resources on the surface. Intergovernmental strife still exists at the bottom of the ocean, however, and seaQuest’s crew finds themselves in the thick of it from the first episode.
Watch SeaQuest DSV’s two seasons on Peacock here.
Intergalactic
Ash Harper (Savannah Steyn) is a hotshot pilot and promising young cop, whose life suddenly falls apart when she's wrongfully convicted of a crime she didn't commit and sentenced to life imprisonment on a faraway colony. On the way to the planet-based prison, however, Ash's fellow convicts stage a mutiny and seize control of the ship. As the only pilot left alive, Ash strikes a tenuous partnership with mob leader, Tula Quik (Sharon Duncan-Brewster), in the hopes of reaching freedom amongst the stars of a distant galaxy.
Watch Intergalactic on Peacock here.
RoboCop: The Series
Running for just a single season, the 1994 small-screen spinoff series inspired by Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 original film starred Richard Eden as the titular cyber-crime fighter in a tamer, more kid-friendly TV version of RoboCop’s dystopian city-scape.
Watch RoboCop: The Series on Peacock here.
Space: 1999
Sadly, we didn't actually have a lunar base at the turn of the century, let alone one that went flying into space by accident. But that’s beside the point! Co-created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson — the masterminds behind the puppet-based Thunderbirds — Space: 1999 stars Martin Landau as Commander John Koenig, the intrepid leader of a lunar outpost hurtling through the cosmos.
Catch the short-lived series Space: 1999 in its entirety on Peacock here.
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Originally published Sep 5, 2023.
