Grogu sits in his speeder pram in The Mandalorian Image via Disney+ By Lisa Nordin Published Sep 8, 2026, 12:18 AM EDT Lisa Nordin is an actress, writer, and fan of all things performing arts. Her favorite genres are Sci-Fi and Fantasy. She is a self-published author and enjoys exploring how fictional stories help define and qualify the human experience. Sign in to your Collider account Add Us Add on Google Preferred Source Google News Like Like follow Follow followed Followed Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap When it comes to great sci-fi TV shows, there is a plethora of subjects to focus on. An enduring, eerie, and captivating one is the exploration of life outside of the known universe. Aliens and science fiction go hand in hand, and over the years the entertainment industry has brought some truly fantastic creatures to the small screen.
Whether they are benevolent or malevolent, aliens have been some of the most commanding characters in sci-fi programming . Some entities are able to communicate with the humans they interact with, opening up cerebral dialogues that plumb the depths of intellectual discourse. Others merely snarl and drool. Either way, when it comes to having some excellent extraterrestrials on screen, these TV shows know what they're doing .
A Xenomorph snarling in Alien: Earth. Image via FX on Hulu There are so many creepy, slimy, and disturbing creatures featured in Alien: Earth that it is difficult to know where to begin. The series builds upon the franchise established by the feature films and includes one of the most recognizable aliens ever, the Xenomorph . Alien: Earth doubles down on the dread and introduces an entire host (pun intended) of new predatory and parasitic lifeforms just itching to overtake organic life on Earth.
However, in Alien: Earth , organic life is not what it used to be. In the series, humanity has been perfecting the manufacture of artificial bodies , including cyborgs, synthetics, and hybrids. Alien: Earth has several imaginative and out-of-the-ordinary alien designs, bringing some entirely new and unnerving concepts to the genre. While many sci-fi series rely on a humanoid shape to base their aliens on, Alien: Earth thinks outside the box and uses everything from flies to eyeballs . Alien: Earth does credit to the raison d'être of the first movies and gives audiences some truly dreadful creatures to haunt their nightmares.
Jean-Luc Picard with a Borg face bracket on in Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Best of Both Worlds Part I Image via Paramount Television It had been 18 years since viewers had seen live actors don Starfleet uniforms and boldly go onto TV screens when Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted. A Star Trek TV series for a new era, the series embodied the mission of the original show and explored some profound and meaningful topics. Star Trek: TNG was decades ahead of its time, and the philosophical debates visited in the series are still remarkably relevant today .
Nothing was off the table for Star Trek: The Next Generation , and episode themes included everything from racism to artificial intelligence to gender conformity and more. One of the principal ways the show achieved this was having the main characters interact with various alien cultures. By using predominantly humanoid aliens that could communicate easily with the crew, the serie…