Apple TV Starts A New Sci-Fi Era With Near-Perfect Streaming Update

MovieStillsDB Published Aug 4, 2026, 5:20 PM EDT Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more. Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics." Sign in to your ScreenRant account Apple TV is the streaming service many viewers turn to to get their sci-fi fill, and that has never made more sense, as a new streaming update has shown just how much Apple TV is dominated by the genre, and that happens before major upcoming sci-fi releases. Many of Apple TV's best shows come from the sci-fi genre, exploring multiple subgenres. This includes original shows, franchise entries, new shared universes, and more. Apple TV also stands as a great home for sci-fi shows due to how the streaming service escapes a growing trend. Other streamers, like Netflix, have become known for often canceling shows, many times doing so after a single season. Sure, Apple TV has canceled some shows after one season. However, it is quite hard to see a series with an interesting concept or a decent following get canceled on the streaming service, or at the very least not get a full final season to end on its own terms. Adding to that, Apple TV offers its sci-fi shows huge budgets to make sure that immersive worlds with top-notch CGI and great production value are brought to life. Now Playing · Sound On How Well Do You Know Apple TV+? “Believe.” 🍪TedLassoBiscuits with the boss 🧠SeverancePraise Kier 🐎SlowHorsesSlough House ☕MorningShowLive from NYC 🚀For AllMankindWhat if...? PRESS PLAY → 01 Apple TV+’s breakout comedy about a relentlessly optimistic American football coach hired to manage an English Premier League team won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series back-to-back in 2021 and 2022. Who plays Ted? AJason Sudeikis BJon Hamm CWill Ferrell DBrendan Hunt ✓ Correct! Jason Sudeikis — the former SNL cast member who originally played Ted in 2013 NBC Sports Premier League promos. He co-created the series with Brendan Hunt (who plays Coach Beard), Bill Lawrence, and Joe Kelly. Sudeikis won back-to-back Emmys for Best Actor in a Comedy. A Season 4 is officially in production for 2026. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is Jason Sudeikis. Jon Hamm is Mad Men (and later showed up as himself in Ted Lasso Season 2). Will Ferrell hasn’t done an Apple TV+ show. Brendan Hunt plays Coach Beard — Ted’s silent assistant — and was a co-creator, but Sudeikis is the title character and won two Best Actor Emmys for the role. NEXT → 02 Ben Stiller-directed sci-fi thriller Severance became a cultural phenomenon with its eerie Macrodata Refinement floors and “praise Kier” cultishness. What is the name of the sinister biotech corporation at its centre? AApex Corporation BLumon Industries CWeyland-Yutani DUmbrella Corp ✓ Correct! Lumon Industries — the unsettling corporation founded by the cult-like Eagan family, whose “severance procedure” surgically splits an employee’s work memories from their outside life. Weyland-Yutani is from Alien; Umbrella Corp is Resident Evil; Apex is fictional but not this show. Lumon’s retro-futuristic aesthetic (beige Macbook-era CRTs and long hallways) has become instantly iconic. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is Lumon Industries. Weyland-Yutani is the Alien franchise’s evil megacorp. Umbrella Corp runs Resident Evil. Apex isn’t a recognisable fictional company. Lumon is the creepy biotech behind Severance — with its Kier Eagan cult of personality, waffle parties, and surgically separated “innies” and “outies.” NEXT → 03 In March 2022, Apple TV+ made streaming history when one of its films became the first from any streaming service to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Which film was it? AThe Morning Show BGreyhound CCODA DKillers of the Flower Moon ✓ Correct! CODA (Children of Deaf Adults) — Sian Heder’s drama about a hearing daughter of a deaf family in Massachusetts — won Best Picture at the 94th Academy Awards, beating The Power of the Dog (the heavy favourite). Troy Kotsur’s supporting-actor win was the first for a deaf male actor. The Morning Show is a TV series, Greyhound is Apple’s Tom Hanks WWII film, Killers is an Apple film but was released later. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is CODA. The Morning Show is a series. Greyhound is Apple’s 2020 Tom Hanks WWII film (a solid hit but not an Oscar winner). Killers of the Flower Moon — Scorsese’s 2023 Apple release — was nominated for 10 Oscars but won none. CODA’s 2022 Best Picture win made Apple the first streamer to break through in the category. NEXT → 04 The scruffy, flatulent, ruthlessly cynical MI5 exile Jackson Lamb — running the Slough House dumping ground for disgraced spies — is one of modern TV’s most acclaimed performances. Which veteran actor plays him? AAnthony Hopkins BColin Firth CGary Oldman DJim Broadbent ✓ Correct! Gary Oldman — Oscar winner for Darkest Hour — plays Jackson Lamb opposite Kristin Scott Thomas’ glacial Diana Taverner. The series adapts Mick Herron’s Slough House novels and has become Apple’s most quietly successful long-running drama, renewed through at least Season 6. Oldman has repeatedly called Lamb his favourite role of his career. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is Gary Oldman. Anthony Hopkins hasn’t done an Apple TV+ series of this prominence. Colin Firth was reportedly in contention for different spy roles (including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s George Smiley, which Oldman also played). Jim Broadbent appears elsewhere. Oldman’s Lamb is one of TV’s most delightfully unpleasant protagonists. NEXT → 05 Apple TV+’s flagship prestige drama on launch day — a #MeToo-era newsroom saga about the on-air partners of a fictional morning TV show — was anchored by two huge Hollywood names as its co-leads and producers. Who are they? ANicole Kidman & Meryl Streep BReese Witherspoon & Laura Dern CJennifer Aniston & Nicole Kidman DJennifer Aniston & Reese Witherspoon ✓ Correct! Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon — both also executive producers — anchor the show as Alex Levy and Bradley Jackson. Reportedly each earned a then-record $1.1 million per episode. Steve Carell co-stars as the disgraced anchor whose firing kicks off the entire series. Aniston earned her first Emmy nomination for dramatic work for the role in 2020. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is Jennifer Aniston & Reese Witherspoon. Witherspoon & Dern did Big Little Lies (on HBO). Kidman was also in Big Little Lies. Meryl Streep joined The Morning Show in later seasons (a supporting role). Aniston and Witherspoon lead and produce — both reportedly making $1.1M per episode in one of streaming’s richest-ever deals. NEXT → 06 Ronald D. Moore’s alt-history space epic For All Mankind — one of Apple TV+’s original launch titles — jumps forward in time each season. What is the show’s central point of divergence from real history? AThe Soviets land on the Moon first BAliens contact Earth in 1969 CMars is colonised in 1970 DNASA is privatised in the 1960s ✓ Correct! The Soviets beat Apollo 11 to the Moon in June 1969 — keeping the Space Race alive and turning NASA into a permanently ascendant institution. That single change cascades across decades: women astronauts are pushed early, lunar bases are built in the 1970s, Mars is reached in the 1990s, and so on. Each season time-jumps ahead a decade, showing how this different history snowballs. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is the Soviets landing on the Moon first — June 1969, beating Apollo 11. That single change drives everything: continued funding, expanded NASA, women astronauts, a permanent lunar base by the 1980s, Mars missions in the 1990s. Aliens aren’t in the show. Mars gets colonised, but much later. NASA remains public throughout the series. NEXT → 07 Apple TV+ launched with a small lineup of nine originals — including The Morning Show, See, Dickinson, and For All Mankind — at the aggressively low price of $4.99 a month. When did the service officially go live? AJanuary 2017 BNovember 2019 CMarch 2020 DSeptember 2021 ✓ Correct! Apple TV+ launched on November 1, 2019 — just before Disney+ beat it to market by 11 days. Apple went in with a tiny roster of about nine originals (versus Disney+’s massive back catalogue) but compensated with $1 billion in original content spend and a one-year free trial for Apple hardware buyers. Its quality-over-quantity bet has since paid off in awards and prestige. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is November 2019 — specifically November 1st, just 11 days before Disney+ launched (a deliberate piece of scheduling brinkmanship). Apple launched with only nine originals and priced at $4.99/month to try to get ahead of Netflix and Disney. The service went live just before the pandemic turbocharged streaming growth everywhere. NEXT → 08 Apple TV+’s post-apocalyptic thriller Silo — starring Rebecca Ferguson in a 10,000-person underground society — adapts a bestselling series of novels originally self-published as a 2011 short story. Who wrote them? AAndy Weir BBlake Crouch CTed Chiang DHugh Howey ✓ Correct! Hugh Howey self-published Wool as a short story on Amazon in 2011; word-of-mouth turned it into a trilogy (Wool, Shift, Dust) and eventually a publishing phenomenon. Apple’s adaptation, retitled Silo, premiered in 2023. Andy Weir wrote The Martian and Project Hail Mary. Blake Crouch wrote Dark Matter and Recursion. Ted Chiang wrote the novella that became Arrival. ✗ Cut it off! The answer is Hugh Howey. Andy Weir is The Martian/Project Hail Mary. Blake Crouch is Dark Matter/Recursion (also recently adapted to Apple TV+, hence the mix-up). Ted Chiang is Arrival’s source. Howey’s Wool trilogy — Silo’s source — started as a self-published Amazon short story in 2011 before exploding into a bestseller. REVEAL MY SCORE → End Credits · Autoplay Paused Your Apple TV+ Rank 🍏 / 8 Cupertino completionist — or still on the free trial? ⤴ PLAY AGAIN There are many multi-season sci-fi series on Apple TV. Now, after looking at the streaming service's global charts, one can realize just how big of a role the genre plays on the streamer. What is even more exciting is that this is just the start of an era for sci-fi on Apple TV, as some of the biggest 2026 TV shows and more lie in the future. Sci-Fi Shows Dominate Apple TV's Charts ©Apple TV/Courtesy Everett Collection According to FlixPatrol, five series on Apple TV's global Top 10 TV Shows chart come from the sci-fi genre, showcasing its strength on the streaming service. That is half of the most-watched shows on Apple TV coming from the sci-fi genre, which is a lot. Right now, Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, Disney+, and more streaming services fail to match Apple TV's sci-fi feat. The list of genre series trending on the streamer includes shows like the alternate history For All Mankind at 10th, the kaiju drama Monarch: Legacy of Monsters at 9th, the psychological sci-fi Severance at 7th, and the noir Sugar at 5th. Leading all of Apple TV's shows worldwide is Rebecca Ferguson's Silo, with the dystopian sci-fi series currently airing new episodes of season 3. Given how Silo has a near-perfect 93% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes and season 3 airs weekly, it is easy to understand why it is Apple TV's most-watched. The same also rings true for Colin Farrell's Sugar. That said, the other three sci-fi shows helping the genre dominate Apple TV's global charts against hit series like Ted Lasso and Widow's Bay are not airing new episodes, and have not done so for over two months. Sci-fi just rules Apple TV. Why Apple TV Should Continue To Be Dominated By Sci-Fi Shows With Silo being Apple TV's most-watched TV show worldwide, currently trending in 102 countries, and Sugar at #5, trending in 86 countries, and both of those sci-fi series still airing new episodes every week, the genre is set to continue its domination of the streaming service deeper into 2026. That will be boosted once Dark Matter season 2 debuts on Apple TV on August 28. With 10 episodes set to be released weekly, the multiverse-focused sci-fi series with a star-studded cast, featuring names like Jennifer Connelly, Joel Edgerton, Jimmi Simpson, Alice Braga, and more, should be a major hit. That level of success will be stretched all the way until early 2027, as Neuromancer will be released on Apple TV on January 22, 2027. The upcoming cyberpunk series adapts the William Gibson book of the same name, which stands as one of the most important genre works ever. As such, be prepared for Apple TV's new sci-fi era to jump into overdrive by 2027. Apple TV