Best Sci-Fi Shows to Watch Before Apple TV’s ‘Neuromancer,’ Ranked
Michael Hein has been covering entertainment, fandom news, and trending topics since 2016 on outlets including Rogues Portal, PopCulture.com, and ComicBook.com. He has provided live coverage of red carpet premieres, conventions, and up-fronts, and has interviewed major stars including Charles Dance, Patrick Stewart, and Chloe Sevigny. An avid fiction reader and writer, Michael has been diving deep into all the biggest book-to-screen adaptations of the last decade, from Game of Thrones to Foundation.
There's still nearly three months to go before Neuromancer premieres on Apple TV, but science fiction fans have plenty of other shows to hold them over in the meantime. Sci-fi has been flourishing on the small screen in the last decade or two, and chances are even the most die-hard fan has missed something great recently. The streaming era has been great for shows that need more special effects and bigger budgets, not to mention the welcome trend of adapting great books into series rather than movies. For those impatient to see Case (Callum Turner) and Molly (Briana Middleton) set out on their heist, read on for five sci-fi series you can watch now that are great fits for Neuromancer fans.
Neuromancer by William Gibson is a 1984 novel credited with popularizing the cyberpunk subgenre. In it, Gibson established many of the genre's most enduring tropes and concepts, even coining terms like "cyberspace" in his writing. The book is the first domino that led to later works like The Matrix and Altered Carbon, to name a few. However, this list looks beyond cyberpunk to shows with the same kinds of themes as Neuromancer. These are sci-fi series that don't shy away from the ugly truths, but don't dwell on them either.
5 'Foundation'
While Foundation is in a completely different subgenre of sci-fi than Neuromancer, there are a lot of points of comparison between the two. Foundation is adapted from Isaac Asimov's novel series by the same name, which is just as important to space opera sci-fi as Neuromancer is to cyberpunk. It's one of Apple's biggest and most ambitious productions, and it may give us some important hints about where the streamer is taking Neuromancer. Showrunners David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman have not been shy about making additions or changes to the source material, and it has worked out well for them. We may see similar strategies here.
Foundation takes place in a distant future where humanity has colonized much of the galaxy and forged it into a massive empire. The empire is so vast that it's not even clear to everyone when it begins fracturing, but one prescient scientist develops a means of seeing ahead. He and his students seek to hold off the worst of the entropy and minimize the dark age between the fall of this empire and the rise of something new. The result is a story that spans planets, centuries, and even millennia.
4 '3 Body Problem'
The genre-bending 3 Body Problem is a great series to pick up in these final weeks of waiting for Neuromancer. The show is adapted from a trilogy of sci-fi novels by Liu Cixin called Remembrance of Earth's Past, with the first volume titled The Three-Body Problem. The books were originally published in Mandarin, with English translations by Ken Liu published from 2014 to 2016. The series is about earth's first contact with an alien civilization, and it's a brutal examination of how and why intergalactic connections might form.
The adaptation kicked off in 2024 on Netflix, and Season 2 was expected to premiere sometime in 2026. With no announcement so far the series may be delayed, but Season 2 has already been filmed and it has even been rumored that Season 3 was filmed alongside it, so more episodes are on the way. This is a perfect leapfrog situation for new viewers — you can dive into 3 Body Problem while waiting for Neuromancer, then by the time Neuromancer is over you may have new episodes of 3 Body Problem to enjoy.
3 'Silo'
Apple TV's Silo might have more in common with Neuromancer — at least in terms of genre and setting. The show takes place in a dystopian future where humanity seems to be confined to one underground shelter known as the silo. However, there are conspicuous mysteries about how they ended up there and what the world outside really looks like. The show masterfully teases out these mysteries, and I won't spoil anything good here. Suffice it say, this is a must-watch for fans of conspiracies, survival stories, and near-future sci-fi.
Silo doesn't have the same cyberpunk flavor as Neuromancer and other stories in the genre, but it doesn't confine itself from those things either. The TV adaptation in particular does some fun things with technology and set design that will appeal to fans of cyberpunk. It also fleshes out its characters into the kinds of underdog heroes we all love to root for in these stories.
2 'Cowboy Bebop'
Cyberpunk is best known for its bold style, and no series brought as much cool-factor to the genre as Cowboy Bebop. The live action adaptation is available now on Netflix, while the original anime is currently streaming on Crunchyroll. Both are the perfect binge-watch before Neuromancer comes out. The series is a space western following bounty hunters on adventures throughout the solar system. The show has something for everyone — especially those who are already looking forward to Neuromancer. The anime is only 26 episodes long, so even if you've seen it before, a rewatch might be in order as we wait for something new.
1 'Westworld'
Finally, of all the great sci-fi shows in the last two decades, nothing has evoked Neuromancer quite like HBO's Westworld. The show reimagined the dystopian theme park setting from the original 1973 film, filling the screen with action while tackling existential questions about the nature of consciousness and humanity. Westworld is a must-watch show today as it criticizes big tech in a way that seems more relevant with each passing year. Sadly, the series was removed from HBO Max a few years ago, and is only available today on Blu-ray. Still, it's worth seeking out.
There are plenty of other great sci-fi stories to check out as we wait for Apple TV's Neuromancer to bring the original novel to life. The show premieres on January 22 on Apple TV. In the meantime, Gibson's novels are currently available in print, digital, and audiobook formats.
- Release Date
- January 22, 2027
- Network
- Apple TV+
- Showrunner
- Graham Roland
-
Henry Case
-
Briana Middleton
Molly
-
Mark Strong
Armitage
-
John Ashpool
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.