
Shows that feel likeStar Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994)
If you loved Star Trek: The Next Generation, the closest series we have are Battlestar Galactica (2004), Stargate SG-1 (1997) and Firefly (2002). All three share Star Trek: The Next Generation's cerebral and dreamlike feel, which is what we rank on before quality.
Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Quantum Leap (1989).
If Star Trek: The Next Generation hit the spot, these will too

Command decisions with everyone's survival resting on the call
The difference: Grim, serialized and morally bruised — the inverse of TNG's optimism

A professional team meeting a new civilisation every week
The difference: Military rather than diplomatic, and much jokier

A ship, a crew, and the pleasure of watching capable people work together
The difference: Scrappy outlaws scraping by — no mission, no ideals, one season only

A forward posting far from home, solving problems by committee
The difference: Breezier and more action-led, with a lower budget

A crew stuck together on a ship with no way home
The difference: Serialised and gloomy, with none of the optimism

Strangers aboard a ship becoming a crew
The difference: Pulpier and much smaller, with an amnesia hook

First contact and the politics that follow it
The difference: Alien-invasion allegory, tense and much darker

Cerebral and dreamlike in the same breath
The difference: Goes its own way on the stillness

The same two preoccupations: space, and alien
The difference: 28 years apart, and the 1950s show

A self-contained moral problem each week, solved by decency not firepower
The difference: Small and personal, one life at a time; no crew, no starship, no frontier

Two things both keep coming back to: spacecraft and space travel
The difference: Made in the 2010s, in a different era of the craft

Standalone trips into strange places powered by curiosity over firepower
The difference: Whimsical and emotional, led by one eccentric rather than a chain of command
In the mood for more cerebral?
all cerebral shows →The best-reviewed series that share Star Trek: The Next Generation’s defining feeling.









