The theocratic-nightmare drama The Handmaids Tale has returned to Hulu for its third seasonbut maybe instead of bumming you all the way out, its got you craving ever-bleaker programming you can watch on demand. Check out these titles instead [or in addition!], and take notes about how best you might survive any flavor of apocalypse.
Battlestar Galactica
[Free to stream for Amazon Prime members]
We rejoin the human race after its lost the war against the Cylons, androids whove evolved well past their original design and gone to war against their former masters. Now the remaining human residents of 12 former galactic colonies are living on spaceships, trying to avoid further Cylon attacks [not knowing that the latest-model Cylons are indistinguishable from humans and live among them] while they search for the planet they think they might live on next: Earth.
Black Mirror
[Free to stream for Netflix subscribers]
In creator Charlie Brookers sci-fi anthology series, people must grapple with the unanticipated horrors that accompany technological advancementa terrorist who can impel a politician to perform a sexual act on camera, knowing exactly how to tell if its been faked; a plant that generates power from an exercising underclass more terrifying than any SoulCycle sessionin episodes featuring performances by Captain Americas Hayley Atwell, Get Outs Daniel Kaluuya, Jurassic Worlds Bryce Dallas Howard, and Doctor Whos Jodie Whittaker, among many others.
Fringe
[Available to stream for purchase on iTunes]
Foxs late-00s answer to The X-Files was Fringe, in which skeptical FBI agent Olivia Dunham [Anna Torv], slacker genius Peter Bishop [Joshua Jackson], and Peters troubled scientist father, Walter [John Noble], are assembled as a team by the Department of Homeland Security, and use fringe science to investigate seemingly inexplicable phenomena. At the same time Peter and Walter try to heal their troubled and complex relationship.
© 20th Century Fox/Everett Collection.Futurama
[Free to stream for Hulu subscribers]
In this animated series created by Matt The Simpsons Groening, pizza-delivery boy Fry [voiced by Billy West] is accidentally frozen in a cryogenic lab seconds into January 1, 2000, and wakes up on New Years Eve 2999. His cryogenic counselor, Leela [Katey Sagal], helps Fry track down his last living descendant: a mad scientist named Professor Farnsworth [West again]. Fry, Leela, and a crude robot named Bender [John DiMaggio] all end up working for the professors intergalactic courier service.
Humans
[Free to stream for Amazon Prime members]
In the Britain of the very near future, most repetitive tasks are performed by synths, hyperrealistic humanoid androids recognizable by their uncannily glowing pupils. However, synths original developer secretly created several very advanced models that are capable not only of intelligent thought, but complex emotions as well. While the rest try to stay off the grid, one of themMia, played by a preCrazy Rich Asians Gemma Chanends up at a factory, where shes sold to the Hawkins family, whose lives she proceeds to change.
The Man in the High Castle
[Free to stream for Amazon Prime members]
We all know the Allies won World War II. But what this showadapted from Philip K. Dicks novel of the same nameposits is: What if they didnt? In this reimagining post-war America has been split down the middle, with the Germans occupying the east and the Japanese in the west, while resistance forces and spies plot to overthrow them.
The Society
[Free to stream for Netflix subscribers]
The teens of New Ham, Connecticut, are sent off on buses to a multi-day camping trip at a national park. But then something goes wrong, the buses have to turn back around, and the teens are returned to townonly to discover that everyone else has disappearedand even worse, their phones only call each other and the internet isnt working! The teens then must figure out how to govern themselves without adult supervision.
The Twilight Zone
[Free to stream for CBS All Access subscribers]
Get Out and Us writer-director Jordan Peele co-developed this revival of Rod Serlings classic anthology series and appears as its narrator; episodes in its just-concluded first season have, through a sci-fi lens, portrayed topics such as racial profiling by police, toxic masculinity, and family separations among migrants, with guest stars including Kumail Nanjiani, Adam Scott, Zazie Beetz, Ginnifer Goodwin, Chris ODowd, and Sanaa Lathan.
Courtesy of HBO.Westworld
[Free to stream for HBO and HBO Now subscribers]
Based on the 1973 feature film from writer-director Michael Crichton, Westworld is set at and around a highly immersive theme park at which hyper-rich guests may do whatever they want with [and to] the extremely realistic android hostsbecause all damage to the hosts bodies can be repaired, and because their memories are regularly erased. Trouble arises when the hosts start perceiving traces of their past lives and turning on their guests and handlers.
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