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Television

Science fiction and television have consistently been in a close relationship. Television or television-like technologies frequently appeared in science fiction long before television itself became widely available in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The first known science fiction television program was a thirty-five-minute adapted excerpt of the play RUR, written by the Czech playwright Karel Čapek, broadcast live from the BBC's Alexandra Palace studios on 11 February 1938. The first popular science fiction program on American television was the children's adventure serial Captain Video and His Video Rangers, which ran from June 1949 to April 1955.

The Twilight Zone (the original series), produced and narrated by Rod Serling, who also wrote or co-wrote most of the episodes, ran from 1959 to 1964. It featured fantasy, suspense, and horror as well as science fiction, with each episode being a complete story. Critics have ranked it as one of the best TV programs of any genre.

The animated series The Jetsons, while intended as comedy and only running for one season (1962–1963), predicted many inventions now in common use: flat-screen televisions, newspapers on a computer -like screen, computer viruses, video chat, tanning beds, home treadmills, and more. In 1963, the time travel-themed Doctor Who premiered on BBC Television. The original series ran until 1989 and was revived in 2005. It has been extremely popular worldwide and has greatly influenced later TV science fiction. Other programs in the 1960s included The Outer Limits (1963–1965), Lost in Space (1965–1968), and The Prisoner (1967).

Star Trek (the original series), created by Gene Roddenberry, premiered in 1966 on NBC Television and ran for three seasons. It combined elements of space opera and Space Western. Only mildly successful at first, the series gained popularity through syndication and extraordinary fan interest. It became a very popular and influential franchise with many films, television shows, novels, and other works and products. Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994) led to six additional live action Star Trek shows: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999), Voyager (1995–2001), Enterprise (2001–2005), Discovery (2017–present), Picard (2020–2023), and Strange New Worlds (2022–present), with more in some form of development.

The miniseries V premiered in 1983 on NBC. It depicted an attempted takeover of Earth by reptilian aliens. Red Dwarf, a comic science fiction series aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009. The X-Files, which featured UFOs and conspiracy theories, was created by Chris Carter and broadcast by Fox Broadcasting Company from 1993 to 2002, and again from 2016 to 2018. Stargate, a film about ancient astronauts and interstellar teleportation, was released in 1994. Stargate SG-1 premiered in 1997 and ran for 10 seasons (1997–2007). Spin-off series included Stargate Infinity (2002–2003), Stargate Atlantis (2004–2009), and Stargate Universe (2009–2011). Other 1990s series included Quantum Leap (1989–1993) and Babylon 5 (1994–1999).

SyFy, launched in 1992 as The Sci-Fi Channel, specializes in science fiction, supernatural horror, and fantasy.

The space-Western series Firefly premiered in 2002 on Fox. It is set in the year 2517, after the arrival of humans in a new star system, and follows the adventures of the renegade crew of Serenity, a " Firefly -class" spaceship. Orphan Black began its five-season run in 2013, about a woman who assumes the identity of one of her several genetically identical human clones. In late 2015 SyFy premiered The Expanse to great critical acclaim, an American TV series about humanity's colonization of the Solar System. Its later seasons would then be aired through Amazon Prime Video.