12 Critically Reviled Sci-Fi TV Shows (That Weren't Actually That Bad)
The spin-offs, rip-offs, revivals, and rift-trips which time (and audiences) forgot...
Sci-fi TV has been home to some of the medium’s greatest achievements. Whether it’s as early as Star Trek’s utopian vision for humanity or as recent as The Walking Dead’s uber-bleak post-apocalyptic vision, some of TV’s most beloved staples have been sci-fi shows and there’s a diverse range of stories which can come from the medium.
Some writers have fused the genre with the anthology format, such as The Twilight Zone’s scribes, whilst some have opted for satire, horror, and comedy genre hybrids, but in every case sci-fi TV has been home to huge hits for decades. As a result it sometimes seems as if critics, professional contrarians that they can on occasion be, are more ready to take down a sci-fi TV show than any other genre.
Maybe it’s because geeky subcultures have become more mainstream over the last few decades, maybe it’s because sci-fi enjoys larger budgets and lovers of slow, soon-to-be-cancelled indie dramas are annoyed—whatever the case, TV critics seem all too happy to take sci-fi shows down a notch. That being the case, we’ve compiled a stack of shows which didn’t deserve the drubbing they received upon release for your viewing pleasure—so you can make up your own mind about which, if any, of these did anything to earn our ire.
12. The Lone Gunmen
Cancelled after a single season—and a brief one at
that, with the series limited to a short 13 episode run—The X-Files lighter
spin-off The Lone Gunmen followed the exploits of the titular trio. Often enlisted
to assist Mulder in the show proper, the Gunmen were a triumvirate of conspiracy
nuts who ran a magazine detailing various government plots and schemes whilst
also foiling said shenanigans themselves.
The show was a fun ride met with little love when it debuted in 2001, and despite featuring the talents of future Breaking Bad scribe Vince Giligan in its writer’s room it was canned after a sole season. Now it’s mostly known for an episode which shockingly predicts the events of September 11 with uncanny accuracy, and for Giligan’s regret that he decided to kill of the three heroes when they returned to their home turf of The X-Files in season nine’s appropriately-titled “Jump the Shark”.
Revisit this one, but beware that like most conspiracy fiction, it’s a little less fun when half the zany theories seem to have come true.