All the New and Returning Sci-Fi and Fantasy Streaming Shows We Can’t Wait for in 2022

A new year is upon us, and what better way to look ahead than by thinking about all the times we’re going to be glued to our desks or sofas watching TV? There’s once again so much content coming along the way in 2022 that we’re splitting our TV preview into streaming and broadcast lists—here’s what’s coming to Apple TV+, HBO Max, Disney+, Peacock, Paramount+, Prime Video, and more this year.

Of course, going in, this isn’t a definitive list of everything that’s coming out this year—we’ll update it as and when we can with newly revealed shows—and of course, any and all premiere dates here are subject to change. But without further ado…

El Deafo (Jan. 7) – Cece Bell’s graphic novel memoir about a young deaf girl who transforms into a high-flying superhero gets turned into a three-part animated miniseries

Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock (Jan. 21) – The Fraggles (and their friends and foes) are back in this nostalgic-looking reboot of the Jim Henson classic.

Severance (Feb. 18) – Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, John Turturro, and Christopher Walken are among the cast for this office thriller about a company where employees’ memories are surgically divided between their work and personal lives.

Peacemaker (Jan. 13) – The DC Extended Universe branches out into TV with Peacemaker. John Cena spins off his character from The Suicide Squad in this James Gunn-created show set after the events of the 2021 film.

Raised By Wolves (Feb. 3) – Executive producer Ridley Scott’s sci-fi series about two androids raising human children amid religious turmoil on a far-flung planet after the destruction of Earth returns for a second season.

DMV (TBD) – Brian Wood and Riccardo Buchiellie’s dystopian Vertigo comic series gets the streaming treatment; Ava DuVernay is among its executive producers and directed the first episode (it’ll run four episodes total). Rosario Dawson stars as a medic searching for her son during America’s second Civil War, while Benjamin Bratt plays a gang leader angling to control the titular zone.

Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai (TBD) – An animated prequel to the classic horror-comedy duology, as a young boy living in China encounters a young Gizmo.

Harley Quinn (TBD) – The long awaited third season of the DC animated series is finally due to arrive, giving us a taste of what life’s going to be like for Harley and Poison Ivy now they’ve confessed their feelings for each other.

House of the Dragon (TBD) – Set centuries before the events of Game of Thrones, this prequel series—the first spin-off to make it out of development hell—aims to recapture the magic of HBO’s smash hit George R.R. Martin adaptation (season eight excepted) by introducing a new cast of scheming characters in Westeros.

Our Flag Means Death (TBD) – Can Taika Waititi do for pirates what he did for vampires? (Obviously, yes.) The Oscar winner directs the first episode and plays Blackbeard in this comedy which he’s also executive-producing; the story will mostly focus on “gentleman pirate” Stede Bonnet, played by Flight of the Conchords’ Rhys Darby.

Pennyworth (TBD) – Not only is this origin story about Batman’s intri gue-prone butler Alfred (played by Jack Bannon) still going, it’s moving from Epix to HBO Max for its third season.

The Time Traveler’s Wife (TBD) – The novel that already spawned a movie will soon be a Steven Moffat-adapted series starring Game of Thrones’ Rose Leslie and Divergent’s Theo James. It’s about, well… see title, with apparently more emphasis on the romance elements than the sci-fi.

Westworld (TBD) – While we were none too pleased with the season three finale, or really season three as a whole, we’re nostalgic enough for Westworld’s excellent first season and its mostly good second season to see where this AI-gone-wild tale will head next. Aaron Paul and Ed Harris are among the returning cast of maybe-robots.

Assembled: The Making of Hawkeye (Jan. 19) – As is now tradition, Disney+ continues its behind-the-scenes Assembled series with a look at the most recent Marvel show to hit the streamer.

The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder (Feb TBD) – The classic cartoon returns, updated for the 2020s as Penny and her (very much louder) family grapple with contemporary life.

Ms. Marvel (Summer, TBD) – Speaking of Marvel Cinematic Universe debuts, Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan will also be getting her due in this series that’ll serve as a lead-in to 2023 feature film The Marvels.

Andor (TBD) – Diego Luna returns to the Rebel Alliance in this Rogue One: A Star Wars Story prequel, following the titular spy as he digs into the seedy world underneath the Empire’s grip.

Iwájú (TBD) – An afrofutuist animated saga set in a futuristic Lagos sees Disney team up with a team of Pan-African creators who set out to initially, kick Disney’s ass, in their own words.

The Mandalorian (TBD) – The Book of Boba Fett is currently hogging the Star Wars TV spotlight, but Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin and the real star of the show, Baby Yoda, are slated to return in 2022 as well.

Moon Knight (TBD) – Star Wars and Dune star Oscar Isaac enters the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the titular caped avenger. (We’ve all agreed to forget about his participation in X-Men: Apocalypse, right?)

Obi-Wan Kenobi (TBD) – Sick of Tatooine already, thanks to The Book of Boba Fett? Too bad, because there’s more sand on the way thanks to Ewan McGregor’s long-awaited Obi-Wan Kenobi—which should really be called “Ben Kenobi,” since it’s about the Jedi’s time on you-know-which planet watching over a certain young Skywalker.

She-Hulk (TBD) – Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) makes her Marvel debut, which also happens to be the MCU debut of Jennifer Walters, normal lawyer person who happens to hulk out on occasion. The co-stars on this one include Jameela Jamil (The Good Place) as the villainous Titania, as well as Tim Roth and Mark Ruffalo as some familiar Hulk-y faces.

Star Wars: The Bad Batch (TBD) – Clone Force 99 returns for round two, as the Empire tightens its grip on the galaxy and has plans to evolve its armies beyond the cloned legions of the old Republic.

Willow (TBD) – Warwick Davis reprises his role from the delightful fantasy film in this much-anticipated series adaptation, which will also star Solo and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier standout Erin Kellyman.

Zootopia+ (TBD) – The twee-ly named continuation of the Disney animated movie takes us back to the titular city, with a series exploring the daily lives of its animal citizens.

Star Trek: Discovery (February 10) – The fourth season continues, as Michael Burnham and her crew find themselves chasing after one of their own to avoid hostile conflict with a mysterious, incredibly powerful alien civilization.

Star Trek: Picard (Feb TBD) – We had mixed feelings about Picard season one, especially after that season finale, but we’ll still be tuning in to see what Patrick Stewart’s Star Trek captain and the rest of the crew of La Sirena get up to next.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (TBD) – The new Discovery spinoff heads back to the 23rd century to follow the adventures of Captain Pike, Mr. Spock, Number One, and a whole host of familiar and new faces aboard the iconic U.S.S. Enterprise.

Wolf Like Me (Jan. 13) – Is Isla Fisher playing a werewolf in this maybe-supernatural romantic comedy co-starring Josh Gad? We’re not sure… yet.

The Supernatural Academy (Jan. 20) – Jaymin Eve’s YA series jumps to animation, as two estranged sisters–one who grew up in normal human society, and the other in the realm of the supernatural–reunite at a magical school, much to the pair’s chagrin.

The Legend of Vox Machina (Jan. 28) – Critical Role’s smash hit band of tabletop ne’er-do-wells turned adventuring heroes leaps from actual play RPGs into the world of animation with this long-awaited animated adaptation.

The Boys (June 3) – The hit vigilantes vs. crooked corporate superheroes series based on the Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson comic series returns for a third season. New characters will include Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy and Laurie Holden’s Crimson Countess.

Lord of the Rings (Sept. 2) – Journey back to the Second Age of Middle-earth’s history—thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, and so on—in this big, big, big-budget Tolkien adaptation.

Paper Girls (TBD) – The future of Y: The Last Man may be in limbo, but another Brian K. Vaughn adaptation is on the way, in the form of this series based on Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s acclaimed 1980s-set comic about a group of newspaper delivery girls who get caught up in a war between time-trav elers.

Upload (TBD) – Created by Greg Daniels (The Office, Space Force), Amazon’s comedy starring Robbie Amell as a man who dies and goes to a digital afterlife will return for a second season.

Archive 81 (Jan. 14) – Based on the hit podcast, this horror series (which counts James Wan among its executive producers) follows a man who stumbles across a sinister mystery contained in a series of old VHS tapes.

The Orbital Children (Jan. 28) – Mitsuo Iso’s sci-fi film duology comes to Netflix as a six-part miniseries, following a group of children left to fend for themselves on an orbital space station in the year 2045, after a sudden accident leaves them as some of the only people still left aboard.

Space Force (Feb. 18) – The satirical series starring Steve Carell, John Malkovich, and Ben Schwartz—about the somehow still very real United States Space Force—returns for a second season.

Stranger Things (Summer TBD) – Season three feels like forever ago, but we’re more than ready to dive back into the world of demogorgons, teen angst, sinister government conspiracies, psychic powers, and retro 1980s fashion when Stranger Things makes its return.

Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas (TBD) – Zack Snyder’s 2021 Netflix hit gets an animated spin-off series, said to be a prequel story that’ll dig into how, exactly, all those Sin City zombies came to be.

Locke & Key (TBD) – The adaptation of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s IDW series was renewed for a third season before season two even streamed in 2021, meaning we’ll likely see more adventures with the Locke family, their collection of magical keys, and the foes who’re desperate to get ahold of those keys sometime this year.

Magic: The Gathering (TBD) – This Russo Brothers-produced animated series delves into the multiverse of the iconic card game, following the powerful magical planeswalkers that traverse it to do battle.

The Midnight Club (TBD) – Mike Flanagan’s latest Netflix horror series is adapted from Christopher Pike’s YA novel, which follows a group of terminally ill kids who swap scary stories every night… a friendship that continues beyond the grave. While the mostly young cast is light on Flanagan regulars, the show does feature Nightmare on Elm Street icon Heather Langenkamp as a mysterious doctor.​​

Resident Evil (TBD) – Netflix dips back into the Resident Evil well for this eight-episode live-action series showrun by Supernatural’s Andrew Dabb, featuring two timelines tied to the popular video game and (presumably) many, many zombies.

The Sandman (TBD) – Neil Gaiman’s much-loved comic comes to Netflix with a fantastic cast that includes Tom Sturridge as Morpheus/Dream, Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer, Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death, Charles Dance as Roderick Burgess, and many more.

The Umbrella Academy (TBD) – Like many returning shows on this list, the pandemic delayed the return of this adaptation of Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s beloved comic—but the Hargreeves siblings and their new foes, including a telekinetic cube, should be bringing season three to Netflix at some point this year.

The Witcher: Blood Origin (TBD) – You love The Witcher. You love Michelle Yeoh. This prequel series set 1,200 years before the main series has both, with the added enhancement that Yeoh’s character happens to be an ass-kicking elf. SOLD!

The Orville: New Horizons (March 10) – Seth MacFarlane’s sci-fi series finally returns after nearly three years away, with a new home on Hulu and more deep-space adventures for Captain Ed Mercer and his nerdy yet heroic crew.

Let the Right One In (TBD) – Will this be the year the long-in-the-works adaptation of the acclaimed Swedish horror novel and subsequent film finally arrives? Showtime gave it a 10-episode order in September, with Demián Bichir and Madison Taylor Baez starring as the father-daughter duo hiding a vampirish secret.

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