What would you do with unlimited power? That’s the question the best science fiction and fantasy stories all ask in one way or another. What if you had superpowers? Or discovered a death-defying new drug? Or if every single other human being on Earth was desperate to make you happy by any means necessary? Would you wield that power to make the world a better place, or give in to your basest instincts?
These TV shows all grapple with this question in one way or another (except Andor, which is about the powerless rising up against an authoritarian government… in space). Below, you’ll find our ranking of the 10 best seasons of science fiction and fantasy television this year.
10
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
Despite being around for over 60 years, Spider-Man is consistently being reinvented and reinterpreted by new creators. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man offers a fresh take on the wall crawler’s early days, blending elements of his essential comic stories with ideas pulled from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and elsewhere to create something that feels fresh and worth investing in.
Instead of being out on his own or having fellow hero Tony Stark as a mentor, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’s Peter Parker quickly forms ties with Norman Osborn, who’s just the leader of Oscorp at this point, not a glider-riding supervillain. Their partnership ebbs and flows, and through it Peter becomes his own man and his own hero, learning the lesson of responsibility that’s so deeply entrenched with the character. —Austin Manchester
9
Hazbin Hotel season 2
Vivienne Medrano’s giddily transgressive adults-only musical series, born from a crowdfunded pilot and an organically built online fandom, fully hit its stride in season 2, with a more expansive story and more elaborate musical numbers. By the end of season 1, a climactic battle and a critical new revelation changed the nature of the war between Heaven and Hell. In season 2, the ambitious TV demon Vox (Broadway and Smash star Christian Borle) takes control of the narrative, setting off a series of escalating, explosive conflicts that inevitably end in song.
On first watch, it feels like season 2 is missing a viral-hit breakout moment on the level of season 1’s catchy earworm “Loser, Baby.” (57 million views on YouTube!) But it turns out that’s because everything in season 2 is more ambitious and interdependent: the action sequences, the character exploration, and especially the music. Season 2 features plenty of drama on both a personal level and a fantasy-action level, and it moves the story forward dramatically within its tight eight-episode run. But while Medrano built her brand around swoony relationships and wild dark-fantasy world-building, season 2 is another reminder that Hazbin Hotel is also just weird, wild, far-out fun. —Tasha Robinson
8
Daredevil: Born Again
Netflix’s Daredevil is one of the greatest superhero shows of all time, bar none, so its spiritual successor on Disney Plus had some rather large shoes to fill. While development issues forced the team behind Daredevil: Born Again to start from scratch at one point, it was worth the extra weight. The series follows Matt after his secret identity as Daredevil is exposed, leaving him vulnerable to enemies old and new in a slightly revamped version of the original series.
The first episode of Daredevil: Born Again was explosive, and showrunner Dario Scardapane delivered that familiar feeling fans of the series have been craving ever since the Netflix series was abruptly canceled in 2018. Although the next few episodes pivoted into new territory, Daredevil: Born Again’s first season finishes strong. Season 2 can’t come soon enough. —Isaac Rouse
7
Common Side Effects
I did not have “the guy behind Scavengers Reign made his own Breaking Bad with a King of the Hill sense of humor” on my 2025 bingo card but here we are, and lo and behold, it rocked.
Adult Swim vet Joe Bennett, along with comedy writer Steve Hely, teaming up with legends Greg Daniels and Mike Judge, easily could have gone the spoof route in telling the story of a nerdy fungi expert who unearths a mushroom that can cure anything, and the many forces who will stop at nothing to snuff his life-changing discovery out of existence. But while the animation medium allows the pair to travel across America and capture salt-of-the-earth quirkiness on a budget, the saga of Common Side Effects unfolds with the utmost seriousness of a ’70s paranoia thriller. With… jokes. DEA agents are hunting down our hero Marshall Cuso (voiced by writer Dave King), who’s been framed for murder. Marshall’s old high school lab partner is his only ally in finding a way to cultivate the plant, but even she wonders if handing it over to her biotech company would do the world a better good. Meanwhile, everyone from Big Pharma CEOs to vengeful scientists are out to steal the goods for their own greedy purposes. It’s no surprise Marshall pops more than one of his shrooms over the course of the 10-episode first season just to stop from bleeding out.
True to Scavengers Reign, and living up to the Breaking Bad comparison, Common Side Effects isn’t all plot either. Bennett and the show’s directors take the drug-fueled odyssey in hallucinogenic directions, with a whirlwind (and woodwind!) score by Nicolas Snyder adding to the unnerving, often violent mood. There are bigger mysteries afoot over what this mushroom does to people, and as long as whoever owns Adult Swim in the future sticks to current plans, a season 2 is blessedly on the horizon to answer the burning questions. —Matt Patches
6
Fallout season 2
I absolutely love Fallout, especially Fallout: New Vegas. So when it was teased that the cast of Prime Video’s Fallout would be heading to New Vegas in season 2, I was thrilled. And while the new batch of episodes is not an adaptation of that game, showrunners Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, along with executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, have deepened the mystery of their sprawling story about life after a nuclear apocalypse even further.
One of the hardest things to juggle in the show is something Fallout has, thus far, managed to do well. There are multiple different stories being told across this sci-fi-flavored hellhole, from different points of view in different locations. It all comes back to control and escaping it, though. Whether that’s those still locked in vaults, Lucy (Ella Purnell) attempting to stay out from under her father’s oppressive thumb while trying to bring him to justice, or even Maximus coming to terms with the reality of the Brotherhood of Steel and attempting to distance himself from it.
While this certainly isn’t the New Vegas-based season I thought we were getting, I’m more than happy to go on the ride as Fallout‘s lore continues to grow deeper and deeper. Surely, this will all mean something whenever Fallout 5 finally happens. —Chris Hayner
5
Invincible season 3
Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley’s adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s Invincible comic book series continues to hit hard in season 3. The bloody coming-of-age story sees Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun) training intensely to prepare for a coming Viltrumite invasion, trying to instill good values in his superpowered half-brother Oliver (Christian Convery) and pushing back against the way the Global Defense Agency treats him and his family. It also delivers the most brutal fight scene since Invincible and Omni-Man duked it out in season 1.
Mark’s physical and emotional limits are constantly put to the test. He has to grapple with foes that are much stronger than him, the unintended consequences of those battles, the necessity to sometimes kill, and the price of hesitation. Invincible season 3 also delivers some excellent arcs for the rest of the cast, particularly GDA head Cecil Stedman (Walton Goggins) and Guardians of the Globe member Rex Splode (Jason Mantzoukas). —Samantha Nelson
4
Peacemaker season 2
Thanks to James Gunn’s newly elevated status as co-head honcho of the DC Universe, his anti-hero series Peacemaker suddenly leveled-up from amusing sideshow to crucial canon-building TV. Peacemaker season 2 delivers on that front, establishing new DCU lore and setting the stakes for future team-ups — but it also tells a powerful story on its own terms.
When Chris Smith (John Cena) finds an alternate dimension where his life is seemingly perfect, he ignores all the obvious warning signs — it’s a literal Nazi dimension, complete with swastika flags and Hitler murals — and abandons his old life for a better one. In a year when America IRL seems closer than ever to slipping into fascism, Peacemaker inadvertently became the most relevant show around. —Jake Kleinman
3
Severance season 2
Severance season 2 didn’t waste any time jumping right back into the mind-boggling events taking place at Lumon, while also expanding its uncanny world. Episode one introduces a new character named Ms. Huang (Sarah Bock), a young girl who inexplicably works on the severed floor as a deputy manager, reporting to Mr. Milchik (Tramell Tillman, who once again steals the show every time he’s on screen). Ms. Huang’s very existence raises about a thousand different questions, and the story only gets wilder as the season progresses.
The show’s sophomore season is just as gripping as the first. It’s also arguably more satisfying, providing answers to many of the questions set up in season 1 while giving viewers a much clearer picture of the life of protagonist Mark (Adam Scott) prior to getting severed. It also expands the world of Severance with a deeper look at both Lumon’s bizarre history and the lives of supporting characters like Irving (John Turturro), Dylan (Zach Cherry), and Mr. Milchik.
Naturally, Severance season 2 raises just as many questions as it answers, which makes for a thought-provoking (yet narratively satisfying) viewing experience with a jaw-dropping season finale that leaves audiences with plenty of questions to ponder as they await season 3. —Claire Lewis
2
Andor season 2
Tony Gilroy concluded his experiment in unearthing the political relevance of Star Wars — and its potential as the stage for a really cool spy thriller with a mournful, Le Carré edge — with a magnificent second season for Andor. Without sacrificing the depth of their characters or the eloquence of their writing, Gilroy’s team (including his brother Dan, who wrote the best episodes) painstakingly set the stage for a series of tense, heart-wrenching, and politically cutting set-pieces, including the brutal massacre on Ghorman, and Mon Mothma’s barnstorming speech to the Senate and subsequent, terrifying extraction. The very end labors too hard to tie up every loose end and then loop them into Rogue One, but overall the season is still very potent stuff. Landing in the first months of the second Trump administration, Andor season 2 presented a precise and damning anatomy of the murder of democracy — and a lucid argument for the necessity of resistance, despite its bitter cost. —Oli Welsh
1
Pluribus
In a year where the science fiction TV choices were heavily dominated by brand-extension stories set in familiar worlds, Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus was a consistent breath of fresh, strange air. When a signal from space sets off a chain of events that subsumes nearly everyone on Earth into a blissful, peaceful hivemind, the dozen or so seemingly immune people worldwide are offered anything that will make them happy, from hedonistic luxury to — well, that would be telling.
Protagonist Carol Sturka (Gilligan’s Better Call Saul teammate Rhea Seehorn) sees the new world order as a terrifying violation of human individuality, and wants to reverse it. But as the season goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that she wasn’t any happier in her old life, and didn’t fit in any better before the world changed. Season 1 unfolds as a terrific character piece about a curmudgeon navigating her own loneliness and unhappiness in a crisis that highlights everything she’s missing in life.
Pluribus is also an impressively flexible metaphor that can be read many different ways, and invites many different kinds of stories. It’s a terrific discussion-starter. It’s also mesmerizing TV: well-written, well-acted, thoughtful, beautifully shot, surprisingly funny, and bringing new conversation fodder to the table with every episode. —TR
Honorable mention: Murderbot
A security construct that calls itself Murderbot (Alexander Skarsgård) breaks free of its corporate controllers and learns what it is to be human in this Apple TV adaptation of Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries. Showrunners Paul and Chris Weitz capture the quirky nature of the original story, while Skarsgård nails the protagonist’s dry wit and painfully awkward human interactions. —SN
