Shows Like Netflix's The Silent Sea That Sci-Fans Need To Watch

Debuting on December 24, 2021, just in time for families looking for something to do together over the Christmas holiday, Netflix's Korean sci-fi thriller "The Silent Sea" has become a surprise smash, with critics praising its stellar visual effects and compelling performances. The story of a future Earth on the brink of ecological collapse, "Silent Sea" follows a team of scientists led by astrobiologist Song Ji-an (Bae Doona from "Kingdom" and "Sense8") to a long-abandoned laboratory on the moon in the hopes of recovering a mysterious sample that can save humanity. What they find, however, is that the laboratory is not as abandoned as they had believed, and the "sample" they were sent to retrieve is more dangerous than they could ever imagine. The series is a potent blend of space adventure, haunted house thriller, and family drama, anchored by Bae's performance as a woman trying to run from her grief, only to find that grief everywhere she turns — even the moon.

Netflix has not announced when, or if, a 2nd season will be on the way. While we wait, though, here are some more streaming series that scratch that sci-fi itch.

"Away" comes to its earnestness naturally. Created by playwright Andrew Hinderaker, the 10-episode Netflix series from 2020 was executive produced by Jason Katims, the tear-jerking mastermind behind "Friday Night Lights" and "Parenthood," and Edward Zwick, known for the classic 1980s dramedy "Thirtysomething" and the films "Courage Under Fire," "The Last Samurai," and many others. Hilary Swank stars as a former Navy pilot given the opportunity to lead the first manned mission to Mars. She accepts the assignment, even though it means being apart from her husband (Josh Charles) and teenage daughter for over three years.

The series is less concerned with the nuts and bolts of its space-adventure plot than with the emotional struggles of Swank's character and her international crew — namely, the titular condition of being separated from the ones you love, and indeed, all of humanity. The series was completed before the COVID-19 pandemic but took on unintended relevancy when released in September 2020, when lockdowns and stay-at-home orders made even the next town over feel as distant as another planet.

Rather than point to the future, the Apple TV+ series "For All Mankind" looks to the past: An alternate 1969 where the Soviet Union won the Space Race and put a man on the moon before the United States. Forced to play catch-up, the effort regalvanizes America's dedication to space exploration, as seen through the eyes of disgraced Apollo astronaut Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman). Soon the race is not to land the first man — or even the first woman — on the moon but to establish the first permanent lunar base. In Season 2, the action jumps ahead to 1983, where rising nuclear tensions on Earth threaten to spill into an all-out war on the moon.

Co-created by "Battlestar Galactica" helmer Ronald D. Moore, the show excels at world-building, spinning out a plausible alternate history of the mid-20th century with just a little bit of wish-fulfillment thrown in. After the Soviets send the first female cosmonaut to the moon, NASA follows suit, allowing women and minorities opportunities that wouldn't come for a decade or longer in real life. President Ted Kennedy passes the Equal Rights Amendment, and by the 1990s, mankind has made it to ... well, we'll see what happens when Season 3 premieres later in 2022.

Danger, Will Robinson! In 2018, 20 years after a poorly-received big-screen adaptation and more than 50 years after the original, beloved 1960s series, Netflix took a crack at remaking "Lost in Space." Still loosely inspired by the 19th-century novel "The Swiss Family Robinson," the new series follows the Robinson family, interstellar colonizers who are forced to evacuate when their mothership is attacked by aliens. Escaping to an unfamiliar planet, the family must work together to rejoin their fleet, lest they become ... lost in space.

The series has a few twists for fans of the original show. Young Will Robinson's beloved Robot is now an alien AI, torn between its duty to its race and its newfound affection for Will. And Parker Posey makes a meal out of every scene as the treacherous stowaway Dr. Smith, who has a much more fleshed-out backstory here. Though the effects budget is much higher than anyone in the 1960s ever dreamed, the remake still keeps the original's whiz-bang sensibility; this is a sci-fi adventure for the whole family.

"Next" is a show for anyone who makes sure to thank Alexa after she answers a question. John Slattery ("Mad Men") plays Paul LeBlanc, a former tech CEO and genius turned anti-technology firebrand. Paul is called in to consult with the FBI's cybercrime task force on an unusual case: It appears that a rogue AI program has gotten loose into the world and is wreaking havoc, even going as far as to commit murder. But is that what's really going on, or has Paul's paranoia, exacerbated by a degenerative brain disorder, finally got the best of him?

Slattery, as always, is a delight; he could play this kind of cocky master of the universe in his sleep by now. But the bigger draw is behind the camera: Show creator Manny Coto was one of the masterminds behind "24." He knows a thing or two about crafting crackerjack entertainment from so-so (or morally dicey) material. Despite this one-two punch of talent, however, the show did not attract much of an audience when it ran on Fox in Fall 2020, and the network canceled it after two episodes. Luckily, all 10 episodes are available to rent on Amazon Prime.

A man is forced to face the consequences of actions he hasn't yet taken in the twisty Korean time-travel action series "Sisyphus: The Myth," which premiered on Netflix in 2021. Haunted by his brother's death years earlier, erratic tech genius Han Tae-sul (Cho Seung-woo) invents a time machine known as the "Uploader," which can transport things into the past. Soon, though, people begin arriving from the future that Tae-sul's device has created — a future where Korea is ravaged by war and ruled by gangsters.

Also arriving is battle-hardened warrior Gang Seo-hae (Park Shin-hye from "Memories of the Alhambra"), here to prevent the disastrous future that she grew up in. As the world inches closer to war, she and Tae-sul fight for survival and uncover the identity of Sigma, a shadowy figure from the future who has been pulling the strings all along. With inventive fight choreography and strong chemistry between Park and Cho (who fall in love, naturally), "Sisyphus" is concerned with the ways that trauma and emotion can change the future as much as any piece of hardware. The 16-episode series remains compelling even as its plot becomes a little too convoluted for its own good.