Television series
Masters of Science Fiction
- Science fiction
- Dip in and out
An anthology series that adapts celebrated sci-fi short stories into hour-long films, each a complete story. Stephen Hawking narrates with gravitas. It's intelligent, visually ambitious, and unevenly paced—some episodes soar while others miss. For people who want sci-fi that trusts the audience to think.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you love science fiction built on a single sharp idea, where each self-contained hour lands a neat moral sting and you don't need characters to carry over from one story to the next.
Skip it if you want a continuing story or a fully fleshed-out world; these are self-contained, uneven in tone and sometimes more concept than character, so the emotional payoff can feel thin.
What it asks of you: Six standalone hours of about sixty minutes each, every one with its own actors and director, so you reset at each new story and let its ideas arrive without a long arc to lean on.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Black Mirror2011
Modern anthology that does exactly what Masters of Science Fiction attempts: adapting speculative ideas into complete stories. Smarter, darker, and produced with real money.
But Can feel cruel. The bleakness is relentless. After three episodes you might need to watch something else.
Love, Death & Robots2019
An anthology that varies wildly in style, tone, and runtime—some episodes are five minutes, others twenty. The ambition is visible in every frame. Gorgeous animation mixed with live-action.
But The variation that makes it special also makes it uneven. Some episodes don't justify their existence. The quality spreads from brilliant to filler.
Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams2017
Another Philip K. Dick adaptation anthology, faithful to the source material without being precious. Each episode is a small closed world. Guest directors bring different voices.
But Dick's paranoia doesn't always translate to an hour. Some stories feel padded. A few episodes drag toward a resolution you saw coming.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Masters of Science Fiction
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Andromeda Strain1971
Both take speculative ideas seriously and give them room to unfold. No shortcuts to drama. The tension comes from the thinking, not the editing.
Adaptation of Crichton's novel into a methodical procedural about scientists facing an alien microorganism. Every frame is calm, clinical, terrifying. The opposite of flashy—it trusts silence and detail.
But Deliberately paced like actual research. Long scenes of people in clean rooms running tests. If you need explosions or romance, this has neither.
More like this (5)
Room 1042017
Every episode takes place in the same hotel room over different decades. The constraint forces creativity. Dark, weird, funny in unexpected ways. Mark Duplass is brilliant.
But The gimmick—same room, always—becomes repetitive. Some episodes are too slight. The horror leans theatrical when it should lean quiet.
The Expanse2015
Hard sci-fi series that respects your intelligence and the physics of space. Complex politics, real consequences, beautiful world-building. Seasons 3-5 hit their stride.
But The first two seasons are slow world-building with production that feels cheap in places. Lots of exposition. The space combat is sometimes hard to follow.
Altered Carbon2018
A full-season story in a vivid, grimy future where consciousness can be transferred between bodies. Cyberpunk visual language done right. The first season is genuinely fun.
But Season two drops significantly in quality. The plot becomes repetitive. The show sometimes mistakes style for substance.
Stalker1979
Both believe science fiction is a language for asking serious questions about human nature and choice. Both trust the audience to sit with discomfort.
Tarkovsky's meditation on desire and meaning, wrapped in sci-fi language. A guide takes two men through a forbidden zone toward a room that grants wishes. Philosophical, hypnotic, genuinely strange.
But It's slow. Genuinely slow. Shots linger. There is no plot momentum. If cinema for you is about what happens, not what it means, this will test your patience.
Memories1995
Like Masters of Science Fiction, it's three unrelated stories using sci-fi as a framework. But it proves the format works better in 25 minutes than in 60, and animation can say things live-action can't.
Three anime short stories from Satoshi Kon. 'Magnetic Rose' is a ghost story in space, 'The Stink Bomb' is absurdist comedy, 'Cannon Fodder' is visual storytelling without dialogue. Each one is perfect.
But It's anime, which carries baggage some viewers can't get past. Three stories means none gets deep development. The tonal whiplash between segments is intentional but not for everyone.
People
Cast
Stephen HawkingNarrator
Production
- Lisa RichardsonCo-Executive Producer
- Mick GarrisCo-Executive Producer
- Sam EganCo-Executive Producer
- Adam GoldwormCo-Producer
- Ben BrowningCo-Producer
- Lee WilsonConsulting Producer
- Andrew DeaneExecutive Producer
- Brad MendelsohnExecutive Producer
- John HydeExecutive Producer
- Keith AddisExecutive Producer
- Morris BergerExecutive Producer
- Steve BrownExecutive Producer
- Grant RosenbergSupervising Producer