Though TV commissioners were slow to recognize it, science fiction and comedy actually work pretty well on the small screen. Here are ten of the best sci-fi sitcoms.
10. Quark
No, it’s not the Ferengi bartender from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but a long-forgotten 1978 curio that aired for one season on NBC before being canceled. The titular spaceman (Richard Benjamin) is an ambitious type who dreams of a glamorous command of his own – and is given a galactic garbage hauler instead. The premise sounds promising, and the show aimed not altogether unsuccessfully at satirizing the cinematic sci-fi boom ushered in by the success of Star Wars, but it’s safe to say that Golden Globe winner Benjamin had done better work.
9. Hyperdrive
Despite a talented cast including five-time BAFTA nominee Miranda Hart, stalwart comic actor Kevin Eldon, and Shaun of the Dead star Nick Frost in the lead role as a bumptious starship captain, this BBC show about the misadventures of a crew of misfits was big on silly aliens, but short on chemistry and laughs, and was canceled after just two seasons. However, the central premise, which involves the crew attempting (and mostly failing) to attract galactic businesses to Britain, lands altogether differently post-Brexit.
8. Spaceballs: The Animated Series
This animated TV version of the hit 1980s film aired for one season in 2008, and benefited from the voice talents of Mel Brooks, Joan Rivers, Dee Bradley Baker, and others. As with any parody anthology series, the show’s success depended largely on which show or film was being sent up, and the hit-and-miss affair only really gets it right when the source material is sufficiently hefty to give the creators something to work with.
7. Supernova
This ambitious Australian-British sitcom involved dull, bored astronomer Paul (Rob Brydon) who ditches his job and going-nowhere relationship for a position at an observatory in the blazing hot Australian outback. The show had its moments – some of the comic setups, such as a mysterious face in the skies that turned out to have a very prosaic explanation, paid off spectacularly – but the quirkiness of Paul’s new-found colleagues and friends was a bit too forced, and the show was canceled in 2006 after two seasons.
6. Star Trek: Lower Decks
We all know what happens on the bridge of the starship Enterprise – but what do the rank and file do when the cameras aren’t rolling? Arguably the Star Trek franchise’s most successful foray into animation, Star Trek: Lower Decks has been making laughs since 2020, and shows no signs of stopping. Tawny Newsome and Jerry O’Connell are the pick of the cast, providing the voices of Ensign Mariner and First Officer Ransom.
5. The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
The first televisual adaptation of Douglas Adams’ hit radio series and novel aired in 1981. The peculiar mix of whimsy and sci-fi tropes was difficult to pull off, but despite the sometimes shonky special effects and slow pacing, there’s still much to like about the production. Watch out for a near-unrecognizable Peter Davison – then starring in the BBC’s Saturday primetime slot as the Fifth Doctor in Doctor Who – doing a guest spot as the Dish of the Day.
4. Avenue 5
This Armando Iannucci creation had everything going for it – two cast-iron A-listers in Josh Gad and Hugh Laurie, big-bucks backing from HBO, and some jet-black comedic situations – but first COVID and then critical apathy doomed it to cancellation in 2021. A rewatch, however, is hugely rewarding; how will the crew of the off-course Avenue 5 eke out their eight weeks of supplies to last for years?
3. The Orville
It may have taken a while to get going, but Star Trek send-up The Orville is top-notch sci-fi comedy, with Seth Macfarlane getting lots of laughs as Captain Ed Mercer, whose urge to seek out new worlds is frequently hobbled by circumstance, and Adrianne Palicki as Commander Grayson, who cheated on Mercer with an alien. Bridge talk has seldom been more awkward.
2. Rick and Morty
Everyone’s favorite time travel comedy follows the adventures of mad scientist Rick and his impressionable, fretful grandson Morty across all of time and space. The Emmy Award-winning series has progressed from humble beginnings in 2013 into a nine-figure franchise, and has been commissioned through to season 10; the seventh season can currently be seen on Cartoon Network.
1. Red Dwarf
When this BBC sitcom debuted, despite the doubts of TV commissioners back in 1988, it’s hard to believe anyone thought it would still be going strong 35 years later, and it’s a testament to the chemistry between the principal cast that the setup continues to endure. Dave Lister (Craig Charles) is a bum in a dead-end job on a mining ship, who is placed in stasis for contravening ship’s regulations, and wakes up three million years later to find the ship’s crew dead and the ship lost in deep space, with a hologram of his dead superior officer (Chris Barrie), a creature evolved from his cat (Danny John-Jules), and a loopy android (Robert Llewellyn) for company. Expect send-ups of every sci-fi film and TV show imaginable, the odd existential crisis – and an awful lot of references to smegheads.