With Fall officially here, and Spooky Season drawing nigh, it's easy to overlook sci-fi in the race to consume mass qualities of horror. But September is actually great for science fiction TV this year, with some huge projects launching, ready to take us into dark dystopias, sinkholes leading to sinister subterranean realms, and epic galactic empires on the verge of collapse.
Let's take a quick look at four new shows, and one returning favorite, for an informal showcase of September's love of sci-fi. We've got the righteous return of Doom Patrol, Star Wars as seen through awesome lens of anime, a new series based on an Isaac Asimov classic, and more!
Foundation
Where: Apple TV+
When: Weekly episodes
Based on the first book(-ish) in Isaac Asimov's landmark Foundation series, which began in 1951, and adapted for the screen by David S. Goyer (Blade, The Dark Knight) and Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Snowpiercer), this new eye-popping Apple series stars Lee Pace, Jared Harris, Lou Llobell, and Alfred Enoch in the story of a massive galactic regime, which rules over hundreds of planets, having to come to terms with possible societal destruction.
When a scientist (Harris) develops a foolproof analytic system that can predict the behaviors and trends of civilizations, he's faced with brutal opposition from those who wish him silenced. With a story that spans over a thousand years, Foundation just might be the most ambitious book-to-TV adaptation since Game of Thrones. Foundation premiered with the first two episodes on September 24 (read our review here).
Y: The Last Man
Where: FX on Hulu
When: Weekly episodes
Based on the acclaimed comic series by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra, Y: The Last Man, after over a decade in development, has finally reached TV.
When one man, a slacker "escape artist" named Yorick, mysteriously survives a plague that wipes out every creature on Earth with a Y chromosome, he becomes precious cargo — and a delicate secret for his congresswomen mother, who is now the acting President of the United States.
Ben Schnetzer, Diane Lane, Ashley Romans, Olivia Thirlby and Amber Tamblyn star in a unique apocalypse fable that's (mostly) free of men, where women are now both humanity's only hope and civilization's greatest threat. Read our review of the first three Y: The Last Man episodes here.
Star Wars Visions
Where: Disney+
When: All nine episodes available now
Star Wars: Visions is an animated anthology series featuring original short films from various Japanese anime studios that present a different cultural perspective to Star Wars.
Featuring the voices (in the American dub) of Shang-Chi's Simu Liu, George Takei, David Harbour, Kyle Chandler, Alison Brie, Lucy Liu, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Neil Patrick Harris, and more, Star Wars Visions features sweeping landscapes and dazzling lightsaber duels.
You can read our review for all nine Star Wars: Visions episodes here.
Doom Patrol
Where: HBO Max
When: Weekly episodes
Rising from its humble beginnings as a DC Universe series, Doom Patrol is now fully an HBO Max joint. Season 3 premiered on September 23 with three episodes, and one episode per week is dropping after that.
An argument can be made that Marvel's WandaVision or Loki are the top envelope-pushers in the superhero game, but those who watch Doom Patrol know that this show is truly the most bonkers superhero TV show out there. One that, like WandaVision, is also a complex and poignant character-driven exploration of grief and trauma.
With Season 2's original finale, "Possibilities Patrol," now acting as the Season 3 opener (production was severely delayed due to Covid-19), Doom Patrol picks up exactly where the story left off, as the team must contend with the apocalyptic entity known as The Candlemaker. You can read our review of the first three Season 3 episodes of Doom Patrol here.
La Brea
Where: NBC (streaming next day on Peacock)
When: September 28 (weekly episodes)
File this one under "fingers crossed." NBC's new adventure series, La Brea — starring Justified's Natalie Zea, Merlin's Eoin Macken, and Chicago P.D.'s Jon Seda — starts with a massive sinkhole opening in the middle of Los Angeles, pulling hundreds of people and buildings into its depths. Those who fall in find themselves in a mysterious and dangerous primeval land, where they have no choice but to band together to survive.
What sci-fi TV are you watching these days? Let's discuss this Golden Age of genre television in the comments!