TV Shows Like Star Trek
If you like Star Trek, here are 10 similar TV shows — each with its current AI renewal verdict, so you can see which are still going and which have been cancelled.
NBC · Sci-Fi & Fantasy · Star Trek is ended
Star Trek works because it refuses to be just an action show. The U.S.S. Enterprise travels to strange new worlds, yes, but the point is rarely the firefight. It's the question underneath: what does it mean to be human, to be civilized, to meet something utterly unlike yourself and choose curiosity over fear? Kirk, Spock, and McCoy form one of television's great trios precisely because they argue, and their arguments map onto real philosophical tensions between logic, emotion, and pragmatism. The show aired on NBC in the late 1960s and was cancelled too soon, yet it became one of the most influential pieces of science fiction ever produced.
The best shows like Star Trek
1. Star Trek: The Next Generation
The Next Generation is the most natural next step for any original series fan. Captain Picard runs the Enterprise with a cool authority that complements rather than copies Kirk, and the ensemble around him, including the android Data, who carries much of the philosophical weight Spock once held, is one of the strongest in the franchise. If anything, TNG is even more willing than the original to let an episode breathe and sit with a big idea.
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2. Star Trek: Voyager
Voyager takes the core Trek premise and adds a real survival pressure: the crew is 75 years from home and has to make it work with Starfleet officers and Maquis rebels sharing the same decks. That tension shapes the character dynamics in ways the other series don't quite replicate, and the far-flung Delta Quadrant lets the writers invent alien cultures without leaning on established lore. Fans of the original who liked the sense of being truly far from home will feel that here more than anywhere else.
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3. Star Trek: Enterprise
Enterprise is set a century before Kirk's five-year mission, so it gets to show a Starfleet that hasn't yet figured everything out, no transporters trusted for biological use yet, no prime directive in place, real political friction with the Vulcans. That rough, early-days atmosphere gives the show a different energy, and the lead-up to the Earth-Romulan War connects it directly to alien antagonists original series fans already know. It rewards viewers who want to understand how the world of Star Trek was built.
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4. Doctor Who
Doctor Who is built on the same architecture as Trek: a singular, curious traveler, a ship that goes anywhere, and stories that use strange settings to examine very human problems. The Doctor's habit of picking up companions maps neatly onto Kirk's crew dynamic, and the show's range, moving from historical Earth to distant planets to parallel universes, matches Trek's sense that the universe is too large and interesting to stay in one corner of it. It is warmer and more overtly whimsical than Star Trek, but the underlying generosity toward people and civilizations is identical.
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5. Andromeda
Andromeda centers on Captain Dylan Hunt, who wakes after being frozen in time to find the interstellar commonwealth he served has collapsed, and sets about rebuilding it with a small, mismatched crew. The show's preoccupation with what makes a civilization worth preserving, and whether one ship and one idealistic captain can actually make a difference, sits squarely in Trek territory. It's a looser, more action-forward series, but viewers who responded to Kirk's conviction that the right thing is worth fighting for will find a lot to like here.
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More on shows like Star Trek
Fans of the original series tend to want the same basic bargain in their next show: a crew they'd actually want to spend time with, a ship that feels like a home, and stories that use sci-fi premises to say something honest about people. Pure spectacle isn't enough. The best Star Trek episodes leave you turning an idea over in your head long after the credits roll, and viewers who love that quality don't easily settle for less. They also tend to appreciate optimism, not naivety, but a real belief that exploration and cooperation are worth doing.
The recommendations here split neatly into two camps. The Star Trek shows, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise, deliver exactly the same universe with different crews, different eras, and different dramatic emphases. TNG is the most elegant of them, built around Picard's measured, intellectual command style. Voyager trades the familiar corridors of Federation space for a desperate journey home, which forces its crew into tighter, more personal dynamics. Enterprise goes back to the beginning, before the Federation existed, and the rough edges of early Starfleet give it a grittier texture than its siblings. Outside the franchise, Doctor Who shares Trek's essential DNA: an optimistic wanderer, a trusty ship, alien encounters used to hold a mirror up to humanity. Andromeda is further afield, a post-collapse space opera about restoring order across a fractured galaxy, but its captain-and-crew structure and its interest in what civilization is worth defending will feel immediately familiar to any Trek viewer.
None of these shows are perfect. Enterprise took time to find its footing, and Voyager's premise sometimes outpaced its follow-through. But all five share the quality that made the original series last: they trust that space, and the people traveling through it, are genuinely interesting subjects. That's rarer than it sounds.
More shows like Star Trek
Frequently asked
- What is the most popular show like Star Trek?
- Star Trek: The Next Generation is the most popular show similar to Star Trek in the IsItRenewed catalogue.
- Are shows like Star Trek still on the air?
- Of the 10 shows similar to Star Trek listed here, 1 currently carry a renewed verdict — the rest are cancelled, ended, or awaiting a decision.
- How does IsItRenewed pick shows like Star Trek?
- The recommendations come from TMDB's similar-titles data, and each is shown with its current AI renewal verdict so you know which are still going.