The best new science-fiction shows of 2026 include Fallout and Neuromancer

New Year is a time of reinvention. In that spirit, I would like to shake up this preview of 2026’s best sci-fi and science-related TV with a radical act: including a series that started last year. That may seem strange, but the second season of Fallout (Amazon Prime Video) aired in only mid-December, so, for my money, it counts.

Set in a retrofuturistic US, generations of humans have lived inside radiation-proof bunkers sold to them by the shadowy Vault-Tec corporation. Last season, former vault-dweller Lucy (Ella Purnell) went surface-side to find her missing father, encountering cowboys and cannibals along the way. Now, she’s on a new quest, accompanied by The Ghoul (Walton Goggins), an irradiated gunslinger with red skin and no nose. What could be more fun?

The must-watch Fallout is just one of a wealth of bunker-based dramas slated for 2026. On 23 February, the second season of Paradise (Hulu/Disney+) begins, with Sterling K. Brown as Secret Service agent Xavier Collins, who lives in a subterranean city built to shelter the elite from an apocalypse. After solving the murder of US President Cal Bradford and learning that others survived the cataclysm, he is headed to what’s left of Chicago in search of his long-lost wife.

Later on in the year, we can expect the third instalment of Silo (Apple TV+), perhaps the bleakest show on television. Last season ended with a tantalising hint of what led the surface world to turn so toxic – stay tuned if you like your TV gloomy and conspiratorial.

Staying dystopian, The Dream Lands (BBC iPlayer) sounds intriguing. It’s 2039 and Chance is living in the British seaside town of Margate. With the world ravaged by climate change and with inequality rampant, she turns to crime to help her family get by. But when her community becomes part of a government rejuvenation scheme and Chance falls in love with Franky, a young woman with ties to the establishment, it becomes clear that something sinister is going on. Filming ended in mid-2025, so it should reach screens soon.

We won’t have to wait long for the much-anticipated TV version of The Testaments (Hulu/Disney+), the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, also written by Margaret Atwood. It arrives in April and follows a new generation of young women in the totalitarian theocracy of Gilead. As they train to become subservient wives and mothers to Gilead’s elite, they are forced to search for allies in their fight for freedom.

To lighten things up, let’s take a look at what the sci-fi juggernauts have in store for us. First out of the gate is Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (Paramount+), a new series arriving on 15 January. Set in the 32nd century, it follows a group of Starfleet cadets training to become officers while navigating friendship, rivalry and romance. Its Gen Z cast appears alongside stars (ahem) such as Holly Hunter, Tatiana Maslany and the great Paul Giamatti. I am excited to see what a young-adult spin on Star Trek looks like – it sounds like fantastic family viewing. And that’s not all: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is set to return for its fourth and penultimate season in the first half of the year.

After the tremendous success of Andor in 2025, we are short of live-action Star Wars series on Disney+ this time round. Only season two of Star Wars: Ahsoka seems likely to arrive, though that isn’t yet confirmed. For now, we await the return of the former Jedi apprentice. But we can expect more animated adventures. Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord sees the Sith Lord rebuilding his crime syndicate a year after the Clone Wars, while the anime series Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi continues the story of Jedis Ethan and Kara.

Elsewhere on Disney+, the similarly named, but less punctuated, VisionQuest is rumoured to be arriving in late 2026. This Marvel series will see android superhero Vision, newly resurrected after the events of the excellent 2021 series WandaVision, attempting to recover his memories. Many Marvel AIs will return in the show, including the villainous Ultron (James Spader).

Away from franchise land, if you prefer your robot drama on a smaller scale, then look out for Ann Droid (BBC iPlayer), a sitcom from comedian and actor Diane Morgan. She plays Linda, a social robot created as a healthcare companion for older people. The last thing Sue (Sue Johnston) wants is to have an insipid attendant foisted upon her, but once she realises Linda can help her settle some scores, an unlikely friendship emerges. Ann Droid has a cast of TV legends, so I will be tuning in when it arrives sometime in 2026.

For more robot comedy, there’s an outside chance that the second season of Murderbot (Apple TV+) will air before the end of the year – here’s hoping.

A different sort of artificial intelligence awaits us in Neuromancer (Apple TV+), the upcoming adaptation of William Gibson’s genre-defining cyberpunk novel. After hacker Case (Callum Turner) is caught stealing from his employer, his nervous system is damaged to prevent him from accessing the immersive, virtual-reality world of the “matrix”. Down on his luck in near-future Tokyo and desperate to get back online, he is recruited to steal a disc containing a human consciousness, but Case and mercenary Molly Millions are soon embroiled in a far more elaborate conspiracy.

Neuromancer is one of two cyberpunk series that have yet to get a fixed date on the schedule. The other is Blade Runner 2099 (Amazon Prime Video). We know vanishingly little about this long-awaited series, beyond the year in which it is presumably set, but we do know that Michelle Yeoh will play a replicant called Olwen who is near the end of her life.

For a very different kind of tech drama, check out two promising series: The Altruists and The Audacity. Clearly neither heeded the advice to “drop the ‘the’ – it’s cleaner” given in the mother of all tech dramas, The Social Network, a film scripted by Aaron Sorkin .

The Altruists (Netflix), expected in late 2026, is a limited series dramatising the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, and the turbulent romance between its founder Sam Bankman-Fried and his partner Caroline Ellison. The Audacity (AMC), meanwhile, is a wholly fictional story set in Silicon Valley. Data-mining CEO Duncan (Billy Magnussen) is seeking to turn his information and influence into profit, but is plagued by power struggles and public scandals. Absolutely no real-world parallels in this series, then.

Let’s leave Earth for a moment and explore the extraterrestrial. Here, we have an embarrassment of riches, but I am most excited about Star City (Apple TV+), a spin-off of the excellent alternate history series For All Mankind, which will also return for its fifth season in 2026.

While its sister show takes a US perspective on a timeline where the space race never cooled down, Star City will show us the Soviet side of things. Described as a propulsive, paranoid thriller, the first season will follow the cosmonauts, engineers and intelligence agents who worked tirelessly to put the first person (a Russian) on the moon.

Other space-based highlights include the return of Doctor Who in December and potentially the second season of 3 Body Problem, an epic adaptation of Cixin Liu’s novel series about humanity preparing for an alien invasion in 400 years’ time.

We have time for a last pick – for those with strong stomachs. In The Beauty (FX/Disney+), FBI agents Cooper Madsen (Evan Peters) and Jordan Bennett (Rebecca Hall) become immersed in high fashion after supermodels begin dying in gruesome ways. A sexually transmitted infection seems to be turning normal folk into paragons of physical perfection, but with deadly consequences. I can’t wait for its premiere on 22 January – a popular time for physical reinvention.