36 best science fiction TV series, ranked worst to first

facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
17 of 36
Next

Image: Warner Bros. Television

20. Babylon 5

J. Michael Straczynski created the science fiction TV series Babylon 5 in 1993 — a show that was clearly influenced heavily by Star Trek.

Babylon 5 takes place in a future where Earth is ruled by one unified government and there are also colonies throughout the solar system and beyond that is part of the Earth Alliance. The cast of the portrays aliens of all sorts living and working together.

Babylon 5 is the name of the space center that the main cast resides on and this science fiction television series is about prophecies, social issues and political intrigue in the realm of a space opera.

While very similar to Star Trek: Deepspace NineBabylon 5 was the sci-fi series that really helped show what kind of graphics and effects could be used on television at the time and the series revolutionized the science fiction TV genre.

It won two Hugo Awards for Best Dramatic television and took science fiction and made it purely adult in storytelling — something that Battlestar Galactica perfected years later.

Babylon 5 aired for five seasons — which is what Straczynski said was the original plan when developing the series. While five seasons was all that the series planned, they also added six made-for-TV films in the world of the series.