12 Best Shows Like La Brea That Are Worth Watching

"La Brea" is one of those sci-fi TV shows that seems to be completely untethered from logic in all the best ways. A high-concept series with a large ensemble cast and a bizarre plot involving time travel (and a surprising amount of seventh-grade geography), "La Brea" won't let a little thing like an abysmal Rotten Tomatoes score get in the way of a good time. The story begins with a massive sinkhole opening on a road in Los Angeles around the La Brea tar pits. But instead of ending up in a mass of twisted metal and mud, everyone who falls into the sinkhole finds themselves stuck in about 10,000 B.C. with giant ground sloths and saber-tooth tigers as their new neighbors.

Before long, they begin to encounter communities of time travelers from other eras, other sinkholes, a modern tower, and even a cow. It's the kind of show where nothing makes sense, and somehow, that's exactly what makes it such a blast to watch. If the mystery of the time-traveling sinkholes leaves you wanting more, here are a bunch of other shows like "La Brea" you should add to your must-binge list.

Anyone who loves a good brain-bending time travel story should add "12 Monkeys" to their watch list. Co-created by Travis Fickett and Terry Matalas, who have worked together on The CW's "Nikita" among other shows, the series is a four-season reimagining of the 1995 film of the same name starring Bruce Willis. Like its source material, the series revolves around a plot to send a prisoner named James Cole (Aaron Stanford) back in time from an apocalyptic future where humanity has been all but wiped out by a deadly pandemic. But, the harder he tries to stop the virus from getting released, the more he begins to realize that he seems to be trapped in a causality loop that he paradoxically started.

With a time-traveling cult, a powerful love story, and occasional Scooby-Doo meets "The Walking Dead" shenanigans, the series ticks all the "La Brea" boxes. Despite some of the sillier elements, the show earned widespread praise from critics — its satisfying third and fourth seasons each earned a perfect 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Although it only aired for one season, leaving fans with a frustrating cliffhanger, "Terra Nova" was a promising family-friendly adventure during its short run. Like "La Brea," the time-travel series revolves around a large group of people who find themselves stranded in the distant past — in this case, the Late Cretaceous era, about 85 million years ago. But rather than a mysterious accident, the travelers' journey is intentional as they seek refuge from a bleak future where pollution and overpopulation has made the planet virtually uninhabitable.

Chosen to travel to the past from 2149, the so-called pilgrims are selected for their ability to contribute to society. Far wackier than just a survival story among the dinos, the series includes sub-plots about genetic memory manipulation viruses, corporate mercenaries, and warring factions. The Steven Spielberg-produced series stars Jason O'Mara as a future cop imprisoned for having too many kids, an ensemble cast of recognizable TV stars, and a neighborhood full of dinosaurs.

At first, "The 100" seems like a pretty straightforward post-apocalyptic story. The series begins in space, where a bunch of survivors are stranded following a nuclear apocalypse on Earth. Almost a century later, their descendants — now living in a combined space station called the Ark — are running out of oxygen as the warranty on their life support systems has apparently run out. Out of desperation, they send 100 juvenile delinquents imprisoned for crimes ranging from minor to murder down to Earth as test subjects to see if the planet is survivable again. Predictably, the kids immediately run wild with their first taste of freedom, but it soon becomes clear that this show isn't just "Survivor" in a sci-fi setting.

Besides toxic yellow fog, luminescent butterflies, and river monsters, the Ark's "Sky People" soon encounter radiation-immune locals called Grounders, who live in warring tribal factions and have developed a completely new language in the 100-year time span. They also come across drug-fueled cannibals called Reapers and an equally sketchy community of Mount Weather shut-ins. Over the course of the series, the story gets progressively wilder with plots that include a sentient AI, simulated reality, a second nuclear apocalypse, subterranean gladiators, intergalactic travel, hallucinogenic air, and ancient aliens. The show's outstanding cast includes genre favorites like Henry Ian Cusick ("Lost"), Alycia Debnam-Carey ("Fear the Walking Dead"), Alessandro Juliani ("Battlestar Galactica"), and Ricky Whittle ("American Gods").

Based on a popular comic book series, "Y: The Last Man" is a fantastic post-apocalyptic sci-fi show that was canceled after only one season despite a strong reception from critics and an avid group of fans hoping for its renewal. According to Deadline, the show's demise was due in part to unfortunate timing and pandemic-related production delays. The good news is that if you love the show and you want to know what happens next, you can always continue the story by picking up the comic book series.

In the show, the world is left largely without men due to a mysterious event that wiped out every animal and human with XY chromosomes, including the many women who were born with XXY chromosomes. Only two XY carriers seem to have survived; an awkward professional illusionist and escape artist named Yorick Brown (Ben Schnetzer) and his best friend, a Capuchin monkey named Ampersand. For various reasons, several groups want to get hold of Yorick, whose DNA could mean humanity's only hope for survival beyond a generation. The series features a large ensemble cast, warring survivor factions, and plenty of post-apocalyptic danger to keep things interesting.

One of the most ambitious sci-fi dramas ever told, "Lost" follows a large group of plane crash survivors who crash-land on a mysterious island where unexplainable phenomena seem to be the standard operating procedure. When Flight 815 from Sydney to LAX hits some freaky electromagnetic turbulence and gets torn apart mid-air, the survivors find themselves forced to work together on the beach they wash up on. That would be taxing enough under the circumstances, but they find far more than just palm trees and sand on this island.

There's a deadly smoke monster, wild polar bears, malevolent inhabitants who kidnap and kill their people, giant birds, resurrected corpses, hidden hatches where scientific experiments are carried out, and a computer that requires a set of numbers to be input every 108 minutes or else something really bad will happen. And then there's the book club. Told through flashbacks that give insight into the main characters' lives and frequently ending episodes on a cliffhanger, "Lost" is one of the most addictive and complex sci-fi series ever produced. The ending was highly divisive (and pretty confusing), but it's still worth going along for the ride.

A wonderfully intriguing sci-fi tale with a disappointingly short run, "The Crossing" dealt with a group of refugees claiming to have traveled backward in time from 180 years in the future. The story is set in the Pacific Northwest, where a large group of refugees suddenly begins washing ashore. Apparently, things didn't go according to plan, as many of them drowned in the crossing from their time to the present day, and the 47 remaining survivors have quite the story to tell.

Just shy of two centuries in the future, humanity is getting wiped out by a group of superhumans called Apex, who seem to have evolved from the human race. And as it turns out, this isn't the first group of refugees to have come through the passage. Although it's not the most innovative sci-fi series on the block, "The Crossing" has its share of intriguing mysteries to ponder and will likely go down well with fans of "La Brea."