TV Shows Like The Expanse
If you like The Expanse, 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.
Syfy · Drama · The Expanse is ended
The Expanse earns its reputation by treating the physics of space travel seriously and letting political friction do as much work as any action set piece. Two hundred years from now, humanity has colonized the solar system, but the old problems, class resentment, resource hoarding, colonial exploitation, have followed everyone into the void. The mystery at the show's center pulls a detective and a ship captain into a conspiracy that spans Earth, Mars, and the asteroid belt, and the show never lets you forget that each of those factions has real grievances. That combination of hard science, slow-burn plotting, and morally complicated characters is what keeps fans watching through five seasons.
The best shows like The Expanse
1. Battlestar Galactica
If what you love about The Expanse is the sense that civilization is one bad decision away from collapse, Battlestar Galactica delivers that feeling with relentless intensity. The show pits a ragged fleet of survivors against an enemy that has already won once, and the tension between military necessity and democratic values gives the political drama real teeth. It is probably the single most direct successor to The Expanse's blend of space opera scale and serious human stakes.
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Ended0%
2. Star Trek: Discovery
Star Trek: Discovery shares The Expanse's interest in what it costs people to do the right thing inside a vast, bureaucratic interstellar power structure. The world-building is dense and the show is willing to put its characters through difficult moral situations rather than neat resolutions. Fans who responded to The Expanse's exploration of identity and loyalty across factional lines will find similar territory here, wrapped in a more action-forward package.
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Cancelled0%
3. Halo
Halo operates at a much larger scale than The Expanse, with humanity locked in an existential war against a technologically superior alien coalition, but it shares the same interest in showing what that kind of conflict does to the people fighting it. The personal stories running underneath the spectacle give the show some of the same texture that makes The Expanse more than a shoot-em-up. Fans who enjoyed the military and political dimensions of The Expanse's later seasons should find plenty to hold their attention.
Stream on Netflix, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, Paramount Plus Apple TV Channel
Cancelled0%
4. Alien: Earth
The early seasons of The Expanse have a horror edge to them, especially when characters first encounter what the protomolecule can do to a human body, and Alien: Earth leans fully into that mode. A crashed research vessel, a ragtag group trying to survive, and an alien threat that the audience already knows is extremely bad news all add up to the kind of dread-soaked sci-fi that rewards patience. If you liked The Expanse when it felt most like a thriller, this is the recommendation to follow first.
Stream on Disney Plus, Hulu, YouTube TV
Renewed100%
5. Invasion
Invasion takes the slowest, most grounded approach of any show on this list, following ordinary people trying to make sense of an alien threat rather than soldiers or detectives at the center of the action. That ground-level perspective is something The Expanse handles well in its Belt storylines, and Invasion applies the same logic to a global catastrophe. It is a quieter show, and some viewers will find the pace frustrating, but fans who valued The Expanse's human scale alongside its epic backdrop may appreciate the approach.
Stream on Apple TV, Apple TV Amazon Channel
On the Bubble52%
More on shows like The Expanse
What Expanse fans tend to want next is not just spaceships. They want shows that take their fictional worlds seriously, where the politics feel lived-in, where war or disaster has real consequences, and where the characters making bad decisions under pressure feel like actual people rather than archetypes. Spectacle alone rarely satisfies this audience. They usually want the spectacle earned by the story.
The five recommendations here span a fair range. Battlestar Galactica is the closest in spirit: a fleet under siege, civilian and military tension, and a slow unraveling of who the real enemy is. Star Trek: Discovery is a looser fit tonally but offers ambitious world-building and genuine investment in its characters' inner lives. Halo scales up the conflict to a full-blown interstellar war and leans harder into action, though the personal stories it threads through that conflict give it some of the same weight. Alien: Earth pulls the threat down to ground level, trading political intrigue for creature-feature dread in a way that fans of the Expanse's horror-inflected early seasons may find familiar. Invasion is the quietest of the bunch, more interested in how ordinary people process catastrophe than in the mechanics of the threat itself. None of them are The Expanse, but each one scratches a different part of what makes The Expanse work.
More shows like The Expanse
Frequently asked
- What is the most popular show like The Expanse?
- Battlestar Galactica is the most popular show similar to The Expanse in the IsItRenewed catalogue.
- Are shows like The Expanse still on the air?
- Of the 10 shows similar to The Expanse listed here, 1 currently carry a renewed verdict — the rest are cancelled, ended, or awaiting a decision.
- How does IsItRenewed pick shows like The Expanse?
- 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.