Underrated Sci-Fi TV Shows That Are Legitimately Funny

This British sci-fi comedy, which ran for a whopping 11 seasons, sees the last human in existence and his motley crew of buddies (including a snooty hologram, an evolved cat, and a fastidious android) go on a series of wacky space adventures aboard a mining ship.

The laugh-out-loud BBC2 classic was the recipient of both an Emmy and a British Comedy Award. Though beloved and wildly popular in the UK for its snappy dialogue and sci-fi homages, the show is fairly unknown in the United States. 

Though it ran for five seasons on the Syfy network, Eureka really doesn’t get its due. The series sees a US Marshall happen upon the top-secret town of Eureka. The small town is home to the country’s brightest scientists, each attempting to create inventions that will shape our future. In true sci-fi fashion, each episode introduces new - and often ill-fated - creations, many of which appear just outside the realm of possibility.

Well-written and acted, the show is truly funny and really leans into its sci-fi elements. It’s a genre-lover's delight, and now available on Amazon Prime.

This mid-1990s sci-fi western stars the king of camp, Bruce Campbell. As our protagonist, the Harvard-Law-graduate-turned-bounty-hunter uses all sorts of steampunk gadgets to fight bad guys and go on wild adventures.

The quirky, one-season show has a lot of fun playing with Old West tropes. Though the series is relatively unknown, the show’s fans are diehard. It's totally worth taking a look on Amazon Prime.

Characters travel between parallel universes in this late-1990s sci-fi series. The group “slides” into these different realities in hope of finding their original world. Each parallel universe resembles our own, but with a few important differences, like a reality in which America lost the Revolutionary War, one where antibiotics were never discovered, and another in which the patriarchy never existed and women run the show.

While the first few seasons are well-regarded, issues like network jumps, studio friction, and actor departures led enthusiasm for the show to wane in its later years.

Starring Elijah Wood and Samuel Barnett, the BBC America series stuck around for two seasons. The bubbly “holistic detective” solves his supernatural cases through his belief in the power of fate and the interconnectedness of the universe. As Dirk goes about his business, a “holistic assassin,” who also was part of a government program for people with unusual abilities, hunts him. She is just one of the complex characters who, though not a good person, is still somehow endearing.

If you’re a Doctor Who fan, you’ll likely be into this odd, funny series. Find it on Hulu and Amazon Prime.

This awkward-humor satire sees Ted - a research department manager at an evil corporation that creates futuristic and dangerous tech - just trying to get by. More an office comedy with sci-fi accents than a true genre piece, the series is about the moral conundrums its characters must navigate while also trying to keep their jobs.

Despite it being a critical darling, the show never found a solid audience and lasted only two seasons. Both are available on Hulu and Amazon Prime.