By Joshua Tyler
| Published 17 seconds ago

The 1980s were a foundational piece in building what would become Sci-Fi’s golden age in the 1990s. Star Wars had been released in theaters and changed everything about the way Hollywood perceived the genre, and television executives wanted in on that cash-grab just as much as movie executives. In that wake, the small screen became a place of wild, sci-fi experimentation and big ideas that wouldn’t have made it in movie theaters. 

So fire up your quantum accelerator and travel back in time with me, for the ultimate ranking of 1980s sci-fi TV shows. They’re ranked in order by which shows are still the most watchable, which means you’re about to enter a new world of binge streaming.

23. The Powers of Matthew Star

The Powers of Matthew Star was a short-lived 1982 sci-fi series built around a simple hook: what if a teenage alien prince had to survive American high school? Matthew Star is secretly Prince Mattel of the planet Quadris, sent to Earth after a military coup wipes out his royal family. Hiding under a human identity, he’s protected by a guardian, played by the great Louis Gosset Jr., who poses as his science teacher while training him to someday reclaim his throne.

Matthew has telekinesis, super strength, energy blasts, matter manipulation, and limited precognition. Each episode mixed teen drama, bullies, girlfriends, school problems, with low-budget science fiction threats tied to his alien past.

The show aimed for a Superman meets after-school special tone but struggled with cheesy effects and inconsistent storytelling. Louis Gossett Jr. is fantastic in it and makes the show seem better than it is. Matthew Star lasted one season, 22 episodes, and became one of those ambitious early-80s genre experiments that couldn’t quite survive.

22. Galactica 1980

Galactica 1980 was the short-lived sequel to Battlestar Galactica. After the original series was canceled, ABC revived the property on a drastically reduced budget and shifted the premise: the fleet finally finds Earth, modern-day 1980 Earth, and must secretly protect it from the Cylons.

The big scale of the original show shrank immediately. Instead of space battles, much of the action takes place on Earth. The plot focused on Colonial warriors disguising themselves as humans while trying to upgrade Earth’s defenses. The most infamous addition for Galactica 80 was flying motorcycles. 

Dirk Benedict and Richard Hatch did not return as regulars, though Dirk Benedict did appear in a guest spot. Lorne Greene came back as Adama, but as you can imagine, he wasn’t at all thrilled with the new show’s direction.

Galactica 1980 took a mythic space opera and made it a low-budget Earth-set sci-fi procedural. It has its charms, but it effectively killed the franchise until Ronald D. Moore rebooted it decades later.

Ironically, the rebooted franchise would later repeat almost exactly the same mistake with Caprica, which we made a full video about. 

21. Misfits Of Science

In 1985, NBC aired The Misfits of Science, a quirky, super-powered teenager show notable for being one of Courteney Cox’s first projects. The future Friends megastar played Gloria, a telekinetic teenage delinquent limited in that she could only move what she could see. Alongside her was Johnny Bukowski, a rocker who drains electricity nearby so that he can unleash lightning, and Dr. Elvin Lincoln, played by The Predator himself, Kevin Peter Hall, who was able to shrink in size.

Led by Dr. Billy Haynes, the Misfits of Science resembled DC’s Doom Patrol in that they were all struggling to live with their powers, and everyone had their own fears and idiosyncrasies that would help drive the plot of the “case of the week” series. Sadly, only lasting one season, this was an early original superhero show that tried to do something a little different by focusing on the teenage team dynamic and struggle with normal life.

20. Tales from the Darkside

Tales from the Darkside was a syndicated horror anthology created by George A. Romero, designed to fill the void left by The Twilight Zone. 

Each episode told a standalone story, usually ending with a dark twist as it freely blended science fiction, fantasy, and supernatural thrillers. Aliens, cursed objects, demonic bargains, and moral comeuppance were all fair game. Tales from the Darkside ran four seasons and over 80 episodes, quietly building a cult following. 

19. My Secret Identity

1988’s My Secret Identity was a simple superhero series built around a basic teenage fantasy: what if you accidentally got powers and had to figure them out on your own? A very young Jerry O’Connell, who would go on to lead the 1990s standout sci-fi series Sliders, plays a high school kid who develops telekinesis, super strength, limited flight, and accelerated learning.

Andrew mostly uses his abilities to navigate school problems, bullies, friendships, and awkward crushes. His mentor is an awkward scientist, played endearingly by Derek McGrath, who helps him understand the science behind his powers while keeping them secret from everyone else.

The tone was light and earnest, aimed squarely at teens. A small-scale wish fulfillment wrapped in 30-minute episodes. My Secret Identity ran three seasons and became a quiet cult favorite of late-80s genre TV.

18. Starman

In 1984, John Carpenter released one of his most interesting films, starring Jeff Bridges as an alien stranded on Earth. It was called Starman and earned Bridges an Academy Award nomination.

Though Starman wasn’t exactly the biggest box-office hit, the premise was somehow translated into a sequel television show without the involvement of Carpenter or Bridges. It picks up after the movie’s ending: the alien visitor fathers a child with a human woman. That child, Scott Hayden, grows up with strange abilities and a government target on his back.

Alien father and son go on the run, using their powers channeled through silver spheres to stay ahead of the authorities and help people along the way. Robert Hays takes over the Jeff Bridges role and charms as an outworlder trying to understand Earth. The premise was a perfect fit for the format, and the show took it seriously for one solid season before being cancelled.

17. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

Released in 1979 first as a movie and then as a series which ran til 1981, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century was based on characters created in 1928 by science fiction writer Philip Francis Nowlan.

For two seasons, it followed its title character half a millennium after he was accidentally frozen. Revived 504 years later, Buck Rogers tries comically to adjust to the social changes of the future, all while helping the Earth Defense Directorate fend off warring factions from the planet Draconian.

Along the way, he befriends a robot and the hottest babe in the future, one Wilma Deering, played by the iconic Erin Grey.

16. The Twilight Zone

The 1985 revival of The Twilight Zone brought Rod Serling’s legendary anthology into the Reagan-era television landscape, updating its eerie morality tales for a new generation. The series retained the original’s core formula of stand-alone stories blending science fiction, horror, and supernatural twists. At the same time, the show was expanded to an hour format that often featured multiple segments per episode. 

Writers such as Harlan Ellison and George R.R. Martin contributed scripts, and the reboot leaned into contemporary anxieties like nuclear dread, technological dependence, and suburban paranoia. 

15. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

In 1981, the radio series and subsequent novels of genius humorist Douglas Adams were adapted into The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on the BBC.  It follows Arthur Dent, an ordinary Englishman who survives Earth’s destruction thanks to his alien friend Ford Prefect. Together, they hitchhike across the galaxy using the titular electronic guidebook, a device that offers dry, often useless, yet hilarious advice about the universe.

The show embraced absurdism: depressed robots, bureaucratic aliens, infinite improbability, and the number 42 as the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Sadly, it only ran six episodes, and the effects were so low-budget, even for the time, that they make it tough to watch now, despite Douglas Adams’ brilliant writing. 

14. The Incredible Hulk

The Incredible Hulk was one of the first times superheroes were taken seriously, portraying the Marvel character as a grounded, tragic drama. Scientist David Banner, played by Bill Bixby, experiments on himself while researching the potential of human strength. 

The radiation backfires. When angered, he transforms into the green Hulk, played by Lou Ferrigno.

Instead of a superhero spectacle, the show used a fugitive structure, which would eventually become the template for many other ’80s shows. Transformations relied on contact lenses, makeup, and Ferrigno’s physical presence rather than effects. It ran five seasons and multiple TV movies.

13. Doctor Who

Doctor Who has been airing on the BBC since 1963, and it didn’t survive the 80s.

The decade began with the tail end of Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor, still the most iconic incarnation. He was followed by Peter Davison from 1982–84, younger and more vulnerable; Colin Baker from 1984–86, louder and more abrasive; and Sylvester McCoy from 1987–89, who steered the character darker and more manipulative by the end.

Creatively, the era experimented with more serialized storytelling, morally complex Doctors, and heavier themes. And McCoy’s final seasons laid the groundwork for the modern revival.

But it was still the show, you know, now that you’ve watched that modern version. The Doctor, a Time Lord from Gallifrey, travels through time and space in the TARDIS, a ship disguised as a blue police box, intervening in crises across history and distant worlds. 

12. The Greatest American Hero

1981’s The Greatest American Hero was a superhero comedy built on a simple premise: what if the guy given superpowers lost the instruction manual? 

Ralph Hinkley, a mild-mannered high school teacher, is chosen by mysterious aliens to wear a red suit that grants flight, super strength, and more. Immediately after receiving it, he loses the guidebook explaining how it works. The result is weekly chaos. Ralph crashes into billboards, struggles to land, and barely understands his own abilities. He’s paired with FBI agent Bill Maxwell, who wants to use the powers for law enforcement, while Ralph wrestles with whether he even wants the responsibility.

The Greatest American Hero blended action, satire, and character comedy, and was one of the first live-action shows to turn the superhero genre into something human and self-aware. It ran three seasons and became a cult favorite, helped by its hit theme song, “Believe It or Not.”

11. Knight Rider

Knight Rider’s iconic opening credits sequence promises a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man… who does not exist. The show never quite lives up to the killer vibe of those words, but it’s often a lot of fun anyway. 

It pairs David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight with an artificially intelligent, talking car named KITT. The two work for the Knight Foundation, one of those vague made-up organizations that seemed to be in every 80s show, and they’re sent around solving crimes and going on missions. 

The chemistry between the two is what makes the show an enduring delight, and nearly all of that is due to the work of William Daniels as the fussy, sometimes cranky voice of KITT.

10. Amazing Stories

Amazing Stories was a fantasy and science fiction anthology series that aired from 1985 to 1987, created and produced by Steven Spielberg. Conceived as a modern homage to classic pulp magazines, each episode delivered a standalone tale blending wonder, humor, and the supernatural. Stories ranged from heartwarming miracles and ghostly encounters to time travel, alien visits, and whimsical adventures, often emphasizing emotional payoff over shock value.

The show attracted an impressive roster of talent both in front of and behind the camera. Directors included Robert Zemeckis, Clint Eastwood, and Martin Scorsese, while guest stars featured Kevin Costner, Kiefer Sutherland, and Mark Hamill. Notable episodes like “The Mission” showcased blockbuster-level effects rarely seen on television at the time.

Though expensive to produce and short-lived, Amazing Stories remains a beloved cult favorite, remembered for its sense of wonder, cinematic ambition, and heartfelt storytelling.

9. Alf

On paper, ALF should have been too weird to work: a wisecracking alien puppet crashes into a suburban family’s garage and never leaves. But in the mid-80s, it wasn’t marketed as science fiction; it was just another sitcom about a quirky outsider messing with the nuclear family dynamic. 

ALF ate cats instead of lasagna, but otherwise, he was Garfield in a Hawaiian shirt. Viewers weren’t tuning in for intergalactic backstory or the fall of Melmac; they were there for domestic comedy, pratfalls, and one-liners. 

At its peak, nearly 39 million people watched, putting it in the same league as Cheers and The Cosby Show. The alien setup gave the writers room for absurd jokes, but the show lived and died by its sitcom rhythms. 

8. Airwolf

In the 90s, Airwolf was like Knight Rider’s edgier, more grown-up cousin. Sleek, black, and loaded with weapons, Airwolf looked like the fantasy toy every kid wanted and the military machine every adult secretly admired. 

The vehicle didn’t talk, because that was for kids. Our hero wasn’t very friendly; he was kind of an asshole. The tech wasn’t just fun, it was deadly.

Airwolf, the helicopter, was science fiction through and through. It could fly faster than jets, carry impossible firepower, and pull off maneuvers no real aircraft could touch. People tuned in for desert helicopter battles and brooding, cello-playing atmosphere, and the show never really got its due back when it was still on the air. 

7. Alien Nation

Alien Nation was based on a movie starring James Caan, which flopped at the box office a year before it arrived on television.  Giving it another shot on TV after failing in theaters is an odd choice, but the story the movie tried to tell is a good fit for weekly serialization.

In both movie and TV show form, Alien Nation is a science-fiction police drama set in near-future Los Angeles after a spaceship carrying enslaved extraterrestrials, known as “Newcomers,” crash-lands on Earth. Granted citizenship, the Newcomers struggle to integrate into human society while facing prejudice, exploitation, and cultural clashes. The show follows human detective Matthew Sikes and his Newcomer partner George Francisco as they solve crimes and navigate tensions between their communities. 

6. Mork & Mindy

Nanu Nanu. Those two words are enough to send an entire generation into a nostalgic fit over Mork and Mindy, the series that turned Robin Williams into a star.

The legendary comedian played Mork, an alien from the planet Ork assigned to observe humans, who lived with Mindy, a relatively normal woman in Boulder, Colorado.

Williams improvised most of his lines, and thanks to his off-brand sense of humor, the sci-fi sitcom doesn’t fall victim to a lot of dated awkwardness that makes some of its contemporaries hard to watch today. Robin Williams makes almost everything worth watching, and the same holds true for the four-season series that could barely contain this comedic force of nature.

5. V: The Series

V: The Series centers around an alien invasion of Earth by a flesh-eating reptilian species, the Visitors. Debuting on NBC on October 26, 1984, and airing until March 22, 1985, the series continued the story from its two preceding mini-series, V and V: The Final Battle.

The two miniseries efforts were huge hits and brilliant television for the time. The show maintained a slightly lower level of quality, with great acting and, at times, and a few haunting visuals that still hold up. 

At the heart of V: The Series is a struggle between the human Resistance and the Visitors’ full-scale invasion of Earth. These characters are brought to life by popular actors like Marc Singer and Faye Grant, who portray Resistance leaders Mike Donovan and Juliet Parrish.

On the alien side, Jane Badler stands out as the evil leader of the visitors, Diana. V: The Series also features Robert Englund, famously known for his role as Freddy Krueger, as Willie, a sympathetic Visitor

4. Quantum Leap

When Quantum Leap debuted in 1989, it wasn’t pitched as a sci-fi spectacle; it was a heartfelt drama with a high-concept hook. Each week, Dr. Sam Beckett “leaped” into someone else’s life, from a baseball player to a civil rights activist, forced to fix a problem before moving on. 

That premise lets the show disguise itself as anthology storytelling, closer to Highway to Heaven than Star Trek. But the core was deeply sci-fi: time travel, alternate timelines, and a supercomputer guiding the mission. 

At its peak in Season 3, Quantum Leap averaged around 11.4 million viewers a week, a solid hit by early-90s standards, and its pilot “Genesis” drew nearly 15 million. By grounding wild sci-fi ideas in everyday human stories, the show lured in audiences who thought they’d never watch anything about time travel.

3. Mystery Science Theater 3000

Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a show about watching other science fiction shows, but the show itself is also taking place in a sci-fi setting. It’s sci-fi within sci-fi, and I think if you do the math, that makes it the most sci-fi thing ever on television.

In the not-too-distant future, a man and his two robot pals are trapped aboard a space station and forced to watch terrible movies. To make the experience less painful, they make fun of them. The result is you get to watch some crazy old movies, but also, they make watching them really, really funny. Get an education in some of the weirdest sci-fi classics of all time, while also watching the team crack-wise and occasionally take movie breaks to do something weird. 

It’s just a show; you should really just relax.

2. Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation changed everything about the way science fiction was done on television. It brought levels of production design and writing to the screen that most people had never seen on any television show before. 

It also holds up, really, really well. Nearly every episode is just as interesting now as it once was. That continued relevance is a testament to the amount of effort and care that the show’s cast and crew put into each episode. 

TNG is not just one of the best television shows of the 1980s; it’s one of the best television shows of all time. Which probably has you wondering why it’s not number one. It’s not number one, because it’s topped by a show that took all the great things the 1980s sci-fi genre had built and accomplished, and then made fun of them. 

1. Red Dwarf

Making science fiction funny and thoughtful at the same time is nearly impossible, but you’d never know it from watching Red Dwarf. This iconic British series, created by Doug Naylor and Rob Grant, debuted in 1988 and ran for more than a decade, with new streaming installments still being occasionally released into the 2010s.  

Red Dwarf is the story of Dave Lister, a low-level nobody aboard a massive mining ship called Red Dwarf. He gets shoved into stasis, and while he’s sleeping, the entire crew gets killed. Three million years later, Lister awakens to find himself alone in the universe. Alone, except, of course, for a stylishly dressed man evolved from the ship’s cat, a smeghead hologram of one of his dead crewmates, and an android with an ironing obsession.

Red Dwarf isn’t just gut-bustingly funny; it also pulls off some genuinely smart sci-fi concepts. The show is always willing to go out on a limb, no idea is too insane, and this results in complex sci-fi idea stories you’ll never see anywhere else, at any time.

Red Dwarf is totally unique while also being extremely stupid and utterly idiotic in all the best ways possible. It’s the best sci-fi series of the 1980s. If you haven’t seen it before, get moving and binge Red Dwarf right now. 

1980s TV Shows Left Off This Best Of List

Wondering why that random 80s show you just thought of didn’t make the cut? To qualify for the list, shows had to have aired at least one season of programming at some point in the 1980s. Plus, I had to stop listing somewhere; this list is long enough. 

If I were adding one more show to the list, it’d probably be Max Headroom. For nostalgia reasons, I wish I could have added the Ewok’s Caravan of Courage and Battle for Endor, but those early Star Wars small-screen efforts were made for TV movies, not weekly series, so they weren’t a fit.