It is 20 days to Christmas, and while you may be excited to get presents, you are also waiting for Stranger Things Volume 2, given Netflix’s desire to split it up into three parts and release them all on holidays.
Well, that’s quite a wait, so you may want some similar programming to tide you over. Netflix has a lot of quality sci-fi offerings, and while I cannot recommend these are for all ages, they are some of my favorites, and all worth checking out.
Dark – One of the best sci-fi shows ever made, not just on Netflix, and some may even consider it the best show on Netflix. It’s a twisting time-travel drama, one so complex you may need a whiteboard to figure it out, but it’s one of the only genre films that actually does make sense logically in the end. An incredible ride across all three seasons. It’s German, just read the subtitles, it’s worth it.
Altered Carbon (season 1 only) – Altered Carbon remains one of the biggest tragedies on the service, as season 1 with Joel Kinnaman is one of the best seasons of a sci-fi show I’ve ever seen, adapting one of my favorite books. Season 2 with Anthony Mackie is awful and should not be watched at all. And then it was cancelled. But season 1 of the body-jumping storyline taking on class inequality through covert ops is a can’t-miss.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners – The anime series is one of the highest-scored programs in Netflix history, and for good reason. A side-story branching off what has become one of the best video games of all time is action-packed and emotionally devastating along the way. Don’t skip it just because it’s animated.
Pantheon – Surprise! More animation. Pantheon is a perfect 100% scored series that also boasts a 95% audience score. A woman is contacted by what she believes is her dead father, but discovers he’s been uploaded to the cloud, along with many others. Bonus recommendation here is Scavengers Reign, on loan from HBO Max (which Netflix may now own). Similarly awesome, amazing animation.
Kingdom – I’m going to count zombies as science fiction here, and Kingdom is probably the best zombie series ever made, even beating out The Walking Dead. Its two seasons are set in 17th-century Korea as the population deals with a newfound zombie plague sweeping the country. Bonus zombie recommendation here is Black Summer, where season 2, in particular, is one of the best zombie stories I’ve ever seen. You don’t even need to watch season 1.
Those are my picks. There are more to choose from, certainly, but I think these are the right places to start.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2025/12/05/five-netflix-shows-like-stranger-things-to-watch-while-waiting-for-volume-2/
