There are a lot of terrific sci-fi shows out there, but who has the bandwidth to watch all of them? A series like The Expanse is a modern classic, but at six seasons long, sitting through every episode requires time a lot of people just don’t have.
When you need something shorter and sweeter, these sci-fi miniseries will do the trick.
The Lost Room
Lost, eat your heart out
In the mid-2000s, Lost was the sci-fi show to end all sci-fi shows, a twisty tale where every answer led to new questions. Some of the fans who chased answers all the way to the end found themselves coming up empty-handed, and debates continue to this day over whether the ending made good on the show’s many promises.
The Lost Room runs only three episodes, and has a lot in common with Lost. Once again, the mystery is a big part of the point. Detective Joe Miller (Peter Krause) comes across a key that can open a door to a room that seems unmoored in time and space. After his daughter (Elle Fanning) becomes lost in the room, he’s determined to find her, which requires him to learn the nature of the room and the various Objects that have come out of it.
The Lost Room will have you trying to figure things out alongside Joe, and if not everything lines up perfectly by the end, at least you weren’t watching very long.
- Release Date
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2006 – 2006-00-00
- Network
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SyFy
- Directors
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Craig R. Baxley
- Writers
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Laura Harkcom
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Chris Bauer
Lou Destefano
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Ewen Bremner
Harold Stritzke
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Harriet Sansom Harris
Margaret Milne
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Julianna Margulies
Jennifer Bloom
Childhood’s End
Growing up, sci-fi style
Based on the 1953 novel by Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End posits an interesting dilemma: what if a race of space aliens visited Earth and turned it into a utopia, but only at the cost of art, culture, and individualism? Would you rather be comfortable but placid, or excited but vulnerable to pain, anger, and all the other frailties of the human condition?
That’s one of the questions posed in this 2015 Syfy miniseries. The alien Overlords bring peace and plenty to Earth, but at the cost of our freedom and potentially all that makes us human. At only three episodes, this moving, well-made miniseries will make you think without wasting too much of your time.
- Release Date
-
2015 – 2015
- Network
-
SyFy
- Directors
-
Nick Hurran
-
-
Mike Vogel
Ricky Stormgren
-
Julian McMahon
Dr. Rupert Boyce
-
Ascension
All aboard the generation ship
According to Ascension, back in the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy feared that Earth might be destroyed in the Cold War and that humanity would have to resettle elsewhere. He loaded a bunch of people onto a massive spaceship and sent them away to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star outside our sun.
The alternate history element recalls a show like For All Mankind, but Ascension is set 51 years into the 100-year space journey, so we don’t see anything of what’s going on back on terra firma. The story kicks off when there’s a murder on the massive ship, which leads to some of the people living there to question their mission.
Ascension runs for six episodes. It’s taut, pulpy, and full of twists and turns.
- Release Date
-
2014 – 2014-00-00
- Network
-
SyFy
- Directors
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Nick Copus, Rob Lieberman, Stephen Williams, Vincenzo Natali
- Writers
-
Philip Levens, Adrian Cruz
-
Tricia Helfer
Viondra Denniger
-
Gil Bellows
Harris Enzmann
-
Brian Van Holt
Captain William Denninger
-
Andrea Roth
Dr. Juliet Bryce
The Andromeda Strain
Michael Crichton comes to TV
Michael Crichton has had many of his books adapted as movies, including Westworld, Congo, and Jurassic Park. The Andromeda Strain is one of a few of his books adapted for TV, in this case into a two-part miniseries that aired on A&E in 2008.
When a U.S. military satellite crashes into a small town in Utah, it spreads a virus that kills all but two people. Scientists are dispatched to contain the spread of the so-called “Andromeda” organism. As reporters and military officers try to report on and weaponize the spread, respectively, the scientists discover something shocking about the origin of the strain.
Michael Crichton is famous for constructing compelling genre narratives, and The Andromeda Strain is no exception. And at only two episodes, it doesn’t demand much of your time.
- Release Date
-
2008 – 2008-00-00
- Network
-
A&E
- Directors
-
Mikael Salomon
Cast
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Benjamin Bratt
Dr. Jeremy Stone
-
Christa Miller
Dr. Angela Noyce
-
Ricky Schroder
Major Bill Keane
-
Tales From the Loop
And I loop
Tales From the Loop runs for eight episodes, which is on the long side of “short.” But most of them standalone, so you can dip in and out of the show as you please.
Tales From the Loop is set in the small fictional town of Mercer, Ohio, home to the Mercer Center for Experimental Physics, which produces a lot of magnificent gadgets. Townsfolk tend to come across these objects, for better or worse. In one episode, two friends switch bodies. A security guard crosses over to another dimension. A maintenance worker tries to make a security droid protect his family, with disastrous consequences. Each tale is surprising, dramatic, and thought-provoking.
- Release Date
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2020 – 2020
- Network
-
Prime Video
- Directors
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Andrew Stanton, Dearbhla Walsh, Jodie Foster, So Yong Kim, Charlie McDowell, Ti West
-
-
Robert Nahum Allen
Logan the Bartender
-
-
Devs
Set mind to blown
We have fewer excuses for Devs, except that it’s an excellent show that’s worth experiencing even it needs eight episodes to tell its story. Devs follows Lily (Sonoya Mizuno), a software engineer who works at a cutting-edge technology company called Amaya. When Lily’s boyfriend, who works in the company’s top-secret Devs division, turns up dead, she starts investigating, and finds that the Devs team has made a technological breakthrough that calls into question the notion of free will.
Devs is a moody, eerie, mind-bending show that will suck you in and not let go. Plus, it features a surprisingly creepy performance from Parks and Recreation veteran Nick Offerman as the egomaniacal Amaya CEO.
The Martian Chronicles
A classic comes to life
We’re going back in time for this one, a three-episode adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic 1950 book The Martian Chronicles, which aired on NBC in 1950. It tells the story of the first human settlers on Mars, and their conflicts with the few natives remaining. Some settlers are looking for a new frontier, some are looking for God, and some might just become honorary Martians themselves.
As with Childhood’s End, it’s great to see a classic sci-fi work like The Martian Chronicles be adapted for TV. Don’t let the old-fashioned look of the miniseries get in the way. The presence of stars like Rock Hudson and Bernadette Peters spices things up a bit.
- Release Date
-
1980 – 1980-00-00
- Network
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NBC
- Directors
-
Michael Anderson
- Writers
-
Richard Matheson
-
Barry Morse
Peter Hathaway
-
Darren McGavin
Sam Parkhill
-
-
Rock Hudson
Col. John Wilder
Straight-up anthology shows
If even those series shows are too much of a commitment, there are also sci-fi anthology series out there where every episode stands on its own. Shows like Black Mirror, The Twilight Zone, and Love Death + Robots tell entirely different stories with every installment, with very little crossover. And The Expanse is waiting for when you want to take on something epic.