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Doctor Who poster

Shows that feel likeDoctor Who (2005–2021)

The Doctor is a Time Lord: a 900 year old alien with 2 hearts, part of a gifted civilization who mastered time travel. The Doctor saves planets for a living—more of a hobby actually, and the Doctor's very, very good at it.

If you loved Doctor Who, the closest series we have are Timeless (2016), Continuum (2012) and Falling Skies (2011). All three share Doctor Who's kinetic and epic feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Quantum Leap (1989).

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If Doctor Who hit the spot, these will too

Timeless poster
Timeless
2016–2018 · 2 seasons · NBC
★ 7.6drama · action & adventure · sci-fi & fantasyPrime Video

Drop into a new period each week, meddle, then run for the machine

The difference: An American history lesson with a fixed team — two short seasons only

A mysterious criminal steals a secret state-of-the-art time machine, intent on destroying America as we know it by changing the past. Our only hope is an unexpected team: a scientist, a soldier and a history professor, who must use the machine's prototype to travel back in time to critical events. While they must make every effort not to affect the past themselves, they must also stay one step ahead of this dangerous fugitive. But can this handpicked team uncover the mystery behind it all and end his destruction before it's too late?

Continuum poster
Continuum
2012–2015 · 4 seasons · Showcase
★ 7.6sci-fi & fantasy · action & adventure · dramaPrime VideoPeacock

Time travel used to strand someone far from home and out of place

The difference: Grim, plotty and adult — no whimsy, no wonder in the machine

The series centers on the conflict between a group of rebels from the year 2077 who time-travel to Vancouver, BC, in 2012, and a police officer who accidentally accompanies them. In spite of being many years early, the rebel group decides to continue its violent campaign to stop corporations of the future from replacing governments, while the police officer endeavours to stop them without revealing to anyone that she and the rebels are from the future.

Falling Skies poster
Falling Skies
2011–2015 · 5 seasons · TNT
★ 7.1action & adventure · sci-fi & fantasy · dramaNetflix

Earth under alien threat, defended by whoever is left standing

The difference: Military drama, grim and without wonder

Falling Skies opens in the chaotic aftermath of an alien attack that has left most of the world completely incapacitated. In the six months since the initial invasion, the few survivors have banded together outside major cities to begin the difficult task of fighting back. Each day is a test of survival as citizen soldiers work to protect the people in their care while also engaging in an insurgency campaign against the occupying alien force.

Quantum Leap poster
Quantum Leap
1989–1993 · 5 seasons · NBC
★ 8.2sci-fi & fantasy · action & adventure · drama

A wanderer landing somewhere new each week to put one life right

The difference: Small-scale and human — no aliens, no cosmos, no looming menace

Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished... He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles poster
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
2008–2009 · 2 seasons · FOX
★ 7.6sci-fi & fantasy · drama · action & adventure

Past and future colliding, with someone hunted across both

The difference: Tense, humourless survival — a chase rather than an adventure

The series picks up four years after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day with John and Sarah Connor trying to stay under-the-radar from the government, as they plot to destroy the computer network, Skynet, in hopes of preventing Armageddon.

Dragon Ball Super poster
Dragon Ball Super
2015–2018 · 1 season · Fuji TV
★ 8.3animation · action & adventure · sci-fi & fantasy

A near-invincible hero whose stakes keep escalating past sense

The difference: Anime combat, with no companions and no melancholy

With Majin Buu defeated, Goku has taken a completely new role as...a radish farmer?! With Earth at peace, our heroes have settled into normal lives. But they can’t get too comfortable. Far away, the powerful God of Destruction, Beerus, awakens to a prophecy revealing his demise at the hands of an even more formidable being. When his search for the Saiyan God brings him to Earth, can Goku and his friends take on their strongest foe yet?

La Brea poster
La Brea
2021–2024 · 3 seasons · NBC
★ 5.8sci-fi & fantasy · drama · action & adventureNetflixPeacock

Ordinary people flung somewhere impossible and forced to cope

The difference: Network survival melodrama — no guide, no wonder, one closed mystery

An epic adventure begins when a massive sinkhole opens in the middle of Los Angeles, pulling hundreds of people and buildings into its depths. Those who fell in find themselves in a mysterious and dangerous primeval land, where they have no choice but to band together to survive. Meanwhile, the rest of the world desperately seeks to understand what happened. In the search for answers, one family torn apart by this disaster will have to unlock the secrets of this inexplicable event to find a way back to each other.

DC's Legends of Tomorrow poster
DC's Legends of Tomorrow
2016–2022 · 7 seasons · The CW
★ 6.7action & adventure · sci-fi & fantasy · dramaNetflix

A ragtag crew bouncing through history, silly one week and grave the next

The difference: Superhero-universe furniture and comic-book rules throughout

When heroes alone are not enough ... the world needs legends. Having seen the future, one he will desperately try to prevent from happening, time-traveling rogue Rip Hunter is tasked with assembling a disparate group of both heroes and villains to confront an unstoppable threat — one in which not only is the planet at stake, but all of time itself. Can this ragtag team defeat an immortal threat unlike anything they have ever known?

Terra Nova poster
Terra Nova
2011 · 1 season · FOX
★ 6.7sci-fi & fantasy · mystery · action & adventure

Both keep coming back to the same thing: time travel

The difference: Easier on the stillness than Doctor Who

In the year 2149, the world is dying. The planet is overdeveloped and overcrowded, with the majority of plant and animal life extinct. The future of mankind is in jeopardy, and its only hope for survival is in the distant past. An ordinary family goes on an extraordinary journey back in time to prehistoric Earth as a part of a massive expedition to save the human race.

Stargate Atlantis poster
Stargate Atlantis
2004–2009 · 5 seasons · Syfy
★ 8.2sci-fi & fantasy · action & adventure · dramaPrime Video

One thread runs through both: alien

With the Ancients' city of Atlantis discovered in the Pegasus Galaxy by Stargate Command, Dr. Elizabeth Weir and Major Sheppard lead a scientific expedition to the ancient abandoned city. Once there, the team not only find themselves unable to contact Earth, but their explorations unexpectedly reawaken the Ancients' deadly enemies, The Wraith, who hunger for this new prey. Now with the help of newfound local allies like Teyla Emmagan, the Atlantis Team sets about to uncover their new home's secrets even as their war of survival against the Wraith begins.

Battlestar Galactica poster
Battlestar Galactica
2003 · 1 season · Syfy
🍅 83%★ 8.5action & adventure · drama · sci-fi & fantasyParamount+

Kinetic and epic in the same breath

A re-imagining of the original series in which a "rag-tag fugitive fleet" of the last remnants of mankind flees pursuing robots while simultaneously searching for their true home, Earth.

Stargate SG-1 poster
Stargate SG-1
1997–2007 · 10 seasons · Showtime
★ 8.4sci-fi & fantasy · action & adventureNetflixPrime Video

Common ground: alien

The difference: Trades the stillness of Doctor Who for an angle of its own

The story of Stargate SG-1 begins about a year after the events of the feature film, when the United States government learns that an ancient alien device called the Stargate can access a network of such devices on a multitude of planets. SG-1 is an elite Air Force special operations team, one of more than two dozen teams from Earth who explore the galaxy and defend against alien threats such as the Goa'uld, Replicators, and the Ori.

In the mood for more kinetic?

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The best-reviewed series that share Doctor Who’s defining feeling.