25 Best Fantasy TV Series, Ranked Worst to First
By Shawn Lealos
For many years, genre television has remained a great source of entertainment, and there might not be a better genre for the small screen than sci-fi and fantasy TV series.
While science fiction has always enjoyed great success, with the various Star Trek series leading the way, fantasy television has experienced a lot of success as well, with its witches, monsters, vampires and dragons. With so much mythology and fantasy elements to pull from, there seems to be a fantasy TV series for everyone, regardless of their individual tastes. These aren’t just relegated to the SyFy Network anymore either, as some of the top premium cable networks rely on fantasy television as their backbone.
When it comes to this list, we eliminated hard science fiction television series, which eliminated space-based series like Star Trek and Firefly, science-based series like Fringe and straight sci-fi like X-Files. Also eliminated were superhero TV shows (a ranking of the best superhero TV shows exists here). Finally, we also eliminated all animated TV shows from the list, so there is no Avatar or Trollhunters listed here either. This countdown is a list of pure fantasy based live action television shows.
Without further ado, here is a list of the 25 best fantasy TV series of all-time, ranked from worst to first.
25. The Man in the High Castle
Amazon has started to put out some great original programming over the past few years, but nothing might be as groundbreaking as their fantasy TV series The Man in the High Castle. The series is based on the 1962 novel by none other than Philip K. Dick. When it comes to fantasy, mixed with a bit of sci-fi, it doesn’t get any better than Dick and Amazon have returned to the well to create the new anthology series Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams this year.
The Man in the High Castle tells the dystopian story of what would happen if the Axis powers had won World War II instead of the Allies. The story takes place in America, which was divided in two by the victors, the Nazis getting the east (Greater Nazi Reicht) and the Japanese getting the west (Japanese Pacific States).
The series then follows some people who watch some propaganda films that shows a different history than the one they are living in. While controversial in today’s political landscape, the pilot was the most-watched Amazon original series of all-time and garnered two seasons, with a third coming in 2018.
The idea of parallel worlds, and the chances of seeing what happens in those other worlds, solidly puts this in the realm of fantasy TV. The first two seasons contained 20 episodes and the third season looks to keep that pace.