Science fiction has long been a mainstay on television since first appearing on our screens in the 1930s. Back then shows were heavily influenced by the writings of literary greats such as H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, with the likes of Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and Philip K. Dick influencing the later generations. Many of the early sci-fi shows featured space travel and humans venturing out into the great unknown, with the genre hitting its stride in the 50s and 60s with shows like Star Trek and Flash Gordon propelling sci-fi into the mainstream. By the time the 80s hit, science fiction had become a well-respected genre with shows tackling a variety of social and political issues. Then the 90s hit.

The 90s was a great time for television. Free to air stations found competition from cable and satellite networks, meaning there was a wider range of shows being developed to satisfy growing audiences. Reality TV got it's first big break with MTV's The Real World while the American sitcom was transformed by groundbreaking shows such as Seinfeld and South Park. The 90s also gave birth to some of the best science fiction shows ever developed. The X-Files gave us Mulder and Scully investigating paranormal incidents for the FBI, Sliders featured a colorful cast of characters led by Jerry O'Connell traveling between parallel universes, and the complex political and social plotting of 2257 helped Babylon 5 become a fan favorite. These shows revolutionized the genre while also being highly praised by critics and gaining huge fan bases.

Of course, not every show was a winner. For every great show, there were a dozen misfires, including Timecop (based on the Jean-Claude Van Damme film of the same name), William Shatner's TekWar about mind-altering substances, and the abomination Meego. To help with your viewing I've written about the best 15 sci-fi shows of all time while also giving you the 15 worst so you don't waste your time on them.

30 Worst: Good Movie, Terrible Television Show

I don't care what people say about my main man Jean-Claude Van Damme but the Muscles From Brussels has starred in some of the best action films of the 80s and 90s, with Timecop certainly one of his better offerings. Amazingly time travel had been made possible in 1994 as Van Damme's US Federal agent Max Walker weighs on whether to join The Time Enforcement Commission (TEC) after the passing of his wife. Fast forward 10 years later and Walker's taken up the offer and working for the TEC who use time travel to go back and stop crimes from happening. He uncovers a conspiracy as the film jumps between 1994 and 2004, leading to Walker finding out who ended his wife's life and getting his revenge.

The film was a smash hit and remains Van Damme's highest grossing film, so a spin-off was inevitable. Timecop the series hit screens in 1997 but failed to capture the spark of the original film. None of the cast returned, with Van Damme replaced by little known Ted King. The show followed Walker as he went back in time stopping crimes but was let down by repetitive storylines and a lack of grittiness or violence. The acting was also questionable, with Timecop failing to finish its first season run with only nine of 13 episodes aired. If only they could have convinced Van Damme to stay on this show might have turned out alright.

29 Best: Setting The Tone

I have to admit my interest in Babylon 5 is passing but at the request of my editor, I couldn't leave it out of the top 15 science fiction shows of the 90s. After testing the waters with the direct to television film Babylon 5: The Gathering, Warner Brothers commissioned a full season of Babylon 5 and never looked back. Running for five seasons from 1993 to 1998, Babylon 5 was a masterclass in how to write an in-depth and engaging sci-fi series featuring tremendous dialogue, political and social intrigue, and the right mix of drama and humor.

Few sci-fi shows have been as involving as Babylon 5 over the years.

Focusing on the people living on spaceship Babylon 5, the series depicted the interactions between humans and many different alien life forms as they tried to establish trade and diplomacy links amongst their home countries. Coming at the time when Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) was becoming part of normal programming, Babylon 5 featured some fantastic special effects and a colourful cast of characters helped by the likes of Claudia Christian (Commander Susan Ivanova), Jerry Doyle (Michael Garibaldi), and Andreas Katsulas (G'Kar), who all went on to become Hollywood regulars. The show was so successful it spawned a spin-off series, Crusade, along with a number of movie length features and is considered by many to be on the level of Star Trek.

28 Worst: "Prey" For A Better Show

Before breaking out with the hilarious Will & Grace, Debra Messing starred in the horrible first and only season of Prey. Playing Dr. Sloane Parker, an anthropologist studying genetic variations in humans, Messing and her mentor, Dr. Ann Coulter, discover a gene in people that makes them predisposed to violent and evil behavior. Trying to use the evidence they have found to put a serial criminal behind bars, the convicted felon escapes and puts an end to Coulter. Parker finds data on Coulter's body explaining humans with this gene are different to normal people and an entirely new species of human who could be on the verge of wiping out mankind. The escaped life-taker then cuts a path of demise and destruction through California as Parker teams with FBI agent Tom Daniels to track him down and discover more about these new genetic traits.

If it all sounds a little too hard to believe, it is, with the show failing to capture my attention despite multiple attempts at watching. The evil gene plot is nothing new and while interesting, isn't handled great across the 13 episodes due to poor writing and low production values. For her part, Messing does a capable job, although there is no hint at how big she was going to be, while character actor favourites Frankie Faison and Larry Drake provide some relief. Despite a promising premise, Prey is best left as a distant 90s memory.

27 Best: Sliding Through The Comptetition

As a kid growing up in the 90s, Sliders was one of my favorite shows. It was a fun and enjoyable sci-fi romp that offered something new every episode. Centring around four friends who have developed a way to "slide" between parallel universes, the show delved into the adventures they got up to on each parallel earth as they tried to find their way back to Prime Earth, where they originated from. A countdown clock monitored how long they had on each new dimension before the vortex closed, meaning if they didn't make the jump they would be trapped there for 29.7 years.

The best thing about Sliders was finding out what new Earth the quartet would encounter each episode. The first season was dominated by alternative histories of earth, such as the British having won the Revolutionary War, while the second introduced the evil humanoid species called the Kromaggs. Things got a little murky during the third season when two of the main cast members quit and were replaced by new characters. This led to the show being axed by Fox but picked up by the Sci Fi Channel for a remaining season that tied many of the loose ends together. For some reason a fifth season went into production but without mainstay Jerry O'Connell, resulting in the worst entry into the series. Although the final season was all over the place, the first four are still fantastic and warrant the show being on this list. The acting was great, if a little hammy, the special effects top notch for the time period, and the plots often enjoyable if a little over the top.

26 Worst: Swing And A Miss

When a television show only runs for six episodes before getting the boot you know you're in for something horrible, and that's exactly what Meego was. The show starred Bronson Pinchot (best known as Balki Bartokomous from Perfect Strangers and Serge from Beverly Hills Cop) as an alien called Meego who has found himself on earth after his spaceship crashes. Disguising himself as a human, he somehow finds himself a job as a nanny to a single father's three children. Telling people he's from Canada to hide his strange ways, Meego plans to fix his ship and travel back to his home planet but becomes attached to the children and stays on earth, or that's what we are led to believe as the show never lasted that long.

The show bombed from the day it aired and failed to find an audience.

Although aimed at kids, it went head to head with Boy Meets World, one of the most popular shows on television at that time, and was smashed in the ratings. There's nothing interesting or different about the storylines that we haven't seen in a million similar shows focused around young children, and despite being a fan of Pinchot, his approach to the alien Meego just doesn't do it for me. The only shining light of the show was Michelle Trachtenberg, who went on to have great success in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but more on that later.

25 Best: An Animated Beauty

The less said about the 2005 Charlize Theron adaptation the better, but the original 90s animated series of Aeon Flux was one for the ages. Taking place in the year 7698 after an environmental disaster that's destroyed the majority of the population, two large cities still exist in what's left of Europe. Flux is a life-taker hailing from the city of Monica, an anarchist society, who's sent to infiltrate Bregna, a police state. The show involves some high concepts and thought-provoking themes and was remembered for its inventive storylines and eye-catching animation. It's known as one of the few grown-up cartoons that's more like a drama than a comedy thanks to the shows well-written characters and plot lines, with the early episodes featuring hardly any dialogue and employing a variety of sound effects to push the story forward.

First premiering on MTV's Liquid Television experimental animation show, Aeon Flux ran as a six-part series in 1991 and was followed by 5 episodes in 1992 and 10 in 1995, with a comic book and video game following suit. While often overlooked on lists like this, Aeon Flux had a huge impact on what could be achieved with grown-up cartoons and was a big influence on modern-day cyberpunk culture.

24 Worst: Getting Of Trax

It's the year 2193 and one hundred criminals have escaped captivity and used a time machined called Trax to travel back in time. Police Officer Darien Lambert is sent back to 1993 to capture as many of the criminals as possible and send them back to the future. Sound familiar? It's true Time Trax is eerily reminiscent of Timecop but I have to point out that Time Trax aired a year before the Van Damme flick hit the big screen. Unfortunately, that didn't help Time Trax, with the show another great idea that failed to live up to expectations.

Filmed in Queensland, Australia, but set in Washington DC, Time Trax managed to last for two seasons before finally getting the axe. I must admit, like Timecop, the premise is fantastic but the execution left a little to be desired. Dale Midkiff is a decent actor but not leading man material, while his sidekick SELMA (Specified Encapsulated Limitless Memory Archive), an extremely small yet powerful computer that can take the form of a credit card or a holographic woman, is portrayed by Aussie Elizabeth Alexander who just doesn't have the presence need for the role. Much like Timecop, your best bet is to forget this show and watch the Van Damme classic.

23 Best: An Sci-Fi Television Masterpiece

While not necessarily a sci-fi show by definition, The X-Files contained enough alien related propaganda to make this list. It's also one of the greatest television shows of all time and deserves to be on any list about the best tv shows. Revolving around FBI special agents Fox Mulder (a subdued David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (a wonderful Gillian Anderson) who investigate unsolved cases involving the paranormal, the show was an intriguing look into the unknown, with many episodes inspired by real life events.

Initially running for nine seasons the show was made of predominately one-off episodes focusing on some kind of bizarre phenomenon while a wider series-spanning story arc about nefarious Government agencies and the covering up of alien life forms was ever present. The key to the show's success was not only the weird and wonderful plots but the relationship between the believer Mulder and skeptic Scully, with the two becoming close friends and eventually romantic partners. Although Duchovny stepped away from the show after the first seven seasons and only appeared intermittently, Robert Patrick provided great support as Scully's new partner John Doggett along with Annabeth Gish as Monica Reyes. The show's success has been evident with two feature-length films reuniting Mulder and Scully and the show returning last year for a tenth season and an eleventh that is currently screening. The truth is out there.

22 Worst: Great Concept, Terrible Execution

The success of the aforementioned X-Files meant a host of similar shows went into production, with Dark Skies easily being the worst of a bad bunch.  The show was released with the tagline, "History as we know it is a lie," with the show explaining aliens had been living amongst us since the 1940s, trying to infiltrate society by manipulating historical events and famous figures. The show followed  John Loengard and Kim Sayers as they navigated the 60s and tried to unearth the alien conspiracy while staying one step ahead of Government agency Majestic 12, who had their own mysterious agenda.

I have to admit the concept sounded great and the inclusion of historical figures and events in the plot made Dark Skies interesting enough, but it was all a bit of a mess on the screen. It didn't translate well when watching, with the show coming off as a poor mans X-Files. The production quality wasn't great either and the storylines often moved too quickly, with the first and only season covering a time period of seven years over 20 episodes. It's a pity the show couldn't live up to the ideas incorporated as the cast was magnificent, with Eric Close, J. T. Walsh, and Jeri Ryan all featured. Pass on this and stick with The X-Files.

21 Best: It Slew Other Shows

Another show that's not technically a sci-fi show but did include science fiction elements, Buffy The Vampire Slayer was a supernatural drama following the life of teenage slayer Buff Summers as she must stop the end of the world from happening multiple times during her teen years. Created by Josh Whedon, the show was well received not only for it's well written scripts, fantastic fight scenes, and depictions of youths facing everyday problems, but for the depiction of Buffy as a smart and strong female lead. This helped a large number of shows with female leads get commissioned, with the likes of Veronica Mars, Dead Like Me, and iZombie getting the chance to shine thanks to Buffy.

Running for seven seasons, the show elevated Sarah Michelle Gellar to the upper echelon of Hollywood while it also made stars out of David Boreanaz, Alyson Hannigan, Charisma Carpenter, and Eliza Dushku, to name a few. The show was praised as much for it's supernatural plots as it's emotional content, with episodes based around Buffy and her crew's emotional issues and how they worked through them while battling evil. Buffy is considered one of the greatest shows of the past 20 years and spawned a successful spin-off, Angel, along with comic books, novels, and a variety of merchandise.

20 Worst: Enemy Of Day Man

NightMan isn't a superhero name that inspires any type of fear, unlike the feeling of dread you get while watching this short-lived television series. Loosely based on the comic book The Night Man, the show featured Matt McColm as the title character, a saxophonist whose real name was Johnny Domino. A freak accident saw him struck by lighting, giving him the ability to telepathically recognise evil but also causing him to become an insomniac. If it sounds bizarre, you're right, as NightMan has no other powers and relies on a special body suit made of bullet proof armour that contained some nifty gadgets, including giving NightMan the ability to see in the dark and fly, to fight crime.

It's a bland and stereotypical superhero show that mixes science fiction elements with the fantasy genre.

NightMan is cheesy, cheaply made, and has some dreadful acting, with McColm better suited as a role-player than a leading man. Special mention must be made of the great Kim Coates, who hams it up to the max as NightMan's nemesis Kieran Keyes. Coates has built a steady career playing screen grabbing bad guys and does a grand job as Keyes, despite only appearing in six episodes of the final season.

19 Best: Through The Star Gate

I'm a massive Kurt Russell fan, so when it was announced they were making a spin-off of the popular Russell vehicle Stargate, and he wasn't going to be involved, I wasn't quite sure how the show would work out. Ten seasons later and it's safe to say my fears were put to rest with Stargate being one of the best sci-fi series of the past few decades.

The series is set a year after the events of the original film and starred MacGyver lead Richard Dean Anderson as Jack O'Neill, the character played by Kurt Russell. Lured back into action, O'Neill leads a team on multiple adventures through the Stargate as they explore new universes and fight off alien invasions. A hallmark of the show was the influence of Egyptian, Greek, Norse, and Arthurian mythology, with the show weaving humor into its serious themes about war and politics to add levity to the series. The special effects were world class for the time and the acting of a high standard for a television show created in the 90s. If that's not enough to sell you on the show then just remember it also spawned two additional feature-length films, two more television series, an online series, an animated series, and multiple video games and novels.

18 Worst: There Are Better Cop Dramas

The Sentinel was a 1996 original series about US Army Ranger Jim Ellison, the last remaining man of his unit eliminated in an attack in the Peruvian jungle. Spending 18 months lost in the jungle, Ellison was taken in by a local tribe and developed hyper-acute sense that he repressed when he was eventually found and returned to the real world. Beginning his new life as a police detective, Ellison's senses reappear during a stakeout. After a hospital visit, he meets an anthropologist named Blair Sandburg who informs him he's a Sentinel, a being whose five senses are all hyperactive. Sentinels were said to be from ancient tribes and used their gift to protect their village. Sandburg teams up with Ellison to help him understand his powers and use them better as the two fight crime together.

This show is rooted a little more in the paranormal and fantasy realm but there's enough strange stuff going on to whack it under the banner of sci-fi. There's also the fact it screened on the Syfy network. The show was a fairly routine cop drama with Ellison the main point of difference due to his heightened senses. Character actor Richard Burgi is great as Ellison but not even he can help this one from being a stinker, mainly due to some weak scripting, poor special effects, and nonsensical plots.

17 Best: See You, Space Cowboy

Animated sci-fi series don't get any better than the 1998 Japanese anime series Cowboy Bebop. Set in the year 2071, the show followed a bounty hunter crew as they traveled the galaxy in their spaceship BeBop. The series was a huge hit in both Japan and America and was widely regarded as helping introduce anime to a new wave of Western audiences. Not only was the animation well drawn but the characters well-rounded and the grown-up themes contained throughout a welcome change of pace. As the crew spends the series chasing down bounties, the main story arc revolves around the rivalry between lead Spike Spiegel and his former best friend and head of the Red Dragon Syndicate Vicious, the man responsible for Spike's lover's demise.

A hybrid of traditional science fiction, film noir, action adventure, comedy, and drama, Cowboy Bebop dealt with heavy themes such as existentialism, anxiety, and loneliness, making it both an enjoyable but thought-provoking watch. In my humble opinion, Cowboy Bebop is up there with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Hellsing as the greatest anime series of all time and rightly deserving of a place on this list.

16 Worst: They Should Have Recalled This

Loosely based on the Philip K. Dick short story, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, Total Recall starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as construction worker Douglas Quaid, who continues to have dreams of Mars and a mysterious woman. He attends Rekall, a memory implant vacation service and chooses a trip to Mars as a secret agent. Something goes wrong during the procedure and Quaid's suppressed memories of being an actual secret agent on Mars surface. That's when things kick off as Quaid journeys to the red planet to find out who he really is and his role in the Mars rebellion. It's a bonkers film but an absolute classic and easily in the top five Arnie films of all time.

Nine years later, the follow-up series Total Recall 2070 aired to much criticism. The biggest problem was the show hardly had anything in common with the film or Dick's original story, instead being more in line with the dystopian nior future of Blade Runner, also based on a Dick novel. The show involved a veteran detective who's teamed with a young partner (who it turns out is actually an android) as the two solve various crimes while uncovering a number of conspiracies and strange occurrences. It's easy to tell the show was shot on a low budget with the cast all relatively unknown, with Total Recall 2070 a poor imitation of Dick's work.

15 Best: Based On The Famous Town

Novels provide great inspiration for a number of shows on this list, including the cult hit Roswell. Based on the young adult book series Roswell High, the three seasons take place in the alien-famous town and concern a group of high school students, three of which are from outer space. The first season was centered on the relationships between the human and alien characters and the fear of being discovered by the authorities. It was very relationship driven, which the producers believed was the reason for poor ratings. The next two seasons introduced more science fiction elements to the show, although not always beneficial.

Despite this, Roswell was a great look at relationships and character development with a terrific cast of young talent. It turned Jason Behr and Brendan Fehr into teen heartthrobs while unfortunately giving Katherine Heigl her big break. Veteran actor William Sadler and Colin Hanks provided able support. The third season was a little all over the place and involved the FBI hunting the alien teens but was still a well-written and directed season with a fulfilling conclusion. The show's popularity hasn't waned in the intervening years either, with Roswell set to return to screens with a whole new cast next year.

14 Worst: A British Bomb

The Brits are usually spot on when it comes to television but they made a big mistake with Jupiter Moon. Combining a soap opera with the science fiction genre was a perplexing move and the results were as expected. Set aboard the spaceship IIena (also a functioning university) in orbit above the space city on Jupiter's moon Callisto in 2050, the show followed the lives of a number of characters who were students and crew of the spaceship.

Jupiter Moon was a woeful attempt at combining drama and science fiction with badly written plots, horrible special effects, bad music, and some questionable acting. Maybe if they added some more science fiction elements, such as alien students or some kind of invasion or meeting with a black hole the show could have been saved from being so boring. The majority of the cast were unknowns who never went on to have great careers, but somehow the show lasted for six years and 150 episodes. I can only assume the British have a much lower tolerance for bad drama than the rest of the world. It's hard to find any redeeming things about this show, with it's place on this list very deserving.

13 Best: Puppets Make Everything Better

If the British weren't great at science fiction than thankfully the Aussie's knew what they were doing with Farscape. A production between the Nine Network, The Jim Henson Company, and Hallmark Entertainment, the show featured virtually an all Australian and New Zealand cast, aside from American Ben Browder who played the main character, John Crichton. The astronaut Crichton is sucked into a wormhole and ends up joining with an amilitaristic organisation called the Peacekeepers. Here he makes just as many friends as enemies and does his best to find a way back to earth while helping those he's met.

The show was a cult favourite amongst sci-fi fans thanks to it's great characters and interesting and emotional plots.

The special effects were also top notch thanks to The Jim Henson Company, but the show was unfortunately cancelled during the fourth season, ending on a cliffhanger. Fan outrage led to the creation of the three hour miniseries, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars, where all the outstanding plots were tied up and the show given a neat ending. Although the the show finished 15 years ago it's still highly regarded and has continued in comic and novel form, with the talk of a web series still being bandied about. Whether or not this happens, Farscape remains a touchstone in 90s science fiction television.

12 Worst: Grey's Anatomy In Space

This list has already featured a science fiction soap opera so why not add a science fiction medical drama to the list. Mercy Point is exactly that, a medical themed series set on a 23rd-century hospital spacestation located in the outer regions of space. Think ER meets Star Trek. The first few episodes were standard medical procedure shows while the later episodes focused more on the characters relationships. The show suffered from a lack of big name actors and looked like a typical 90s medical based program, with all the characters wearing 90s fashion.

Mercy Point was cancelled after just seven episodes so it was never given the chance to expand on the universe the producers and writers were trying to create, although this might be a silver lining as those seven episodes were pretty bad television. The biggest problem with the show, alongside it's less than stellar writing and acting, was the fact it felt dated and not at all like a futuristic science fiction show. Mercy Point was an intriguing premise let down by poor execution. If you really want to watch a medical drama there are tons of better options to satisfy your needs.

11 Best: A Beloved Icon

America had a fascination with alien based sitcoms in the 90s but none were as funny or emotionally impacting as ALF. Although the show only ran for four seasons it was a smash hit with families across the globe. The title character was an alien who crashed landed on earth and taken in by the Tanner family. ALF quickly became part of the family and did his best to fit in while mourning the destruction of his home planet and combating the loneliness and guilt he feels as the last survivor. The Tanner's grow to love ALF but have to continually go out of their way to keep him from the clutches of the Alien Task Force.

Each episode dealt with ALF encountering a new problem or learning about Earth, with the show littered with dirty jokes, grown-up speech, and a long-running gag about ALF trying to eat the Tanner's pet cat. As well as being funny the show was quite emotional with the ALF finding it hard to adjust to life on earth at times. His short and hairy appearance was comical but added a cute factor to the character. The show ended with a heartbreaking cliffhanger, showing ALF being captured by the Alien Task Force with the words "to be continued" appearing on the screen. A fifth season never eventuated as ALF was cancelled but a made-for-television film entitled, Project ALF, cleared up the finale and gave ALF the happy ending he deserved.