The 10 Best Tech-Based TV Shows of the Millennium, RANKED

Black Mirror, Mr. Robot, Westworld, and more. Where do your favorite tech-based TV shows rank on our list?

Complex Original

Illustrations via Duane Planes. Animation via Complex Original

10 best tech shows lead

The best art is that which offers a reflection and commentary on humanity. So in the 21st century, it makes sense that technology-themed stories are having an especially big moment. The future is now, and while we don't have everything that pop culture of yesteryear predicted we would by now (see: Back to the Future and flying cars), technological advancement is reshaping our daily lives in ways both minor and drastic.

Television has responded in kind with shows mining all angles: the inherent paranoia and destruction the internet can breed, as seen in Mr. Robot; our dehumanization as a human race that new methods of connecting and advancing influence, per Black Mirror; and, on a lighter note, tech’s affinity for minting a fortune in Silicon Valley.

As it has always been, technology is the future. On the small screen, it’s the here and now. To honor the wonder of tech, and how it’s made our TV-viewing experience that much more enjoyable, we’ve compiled a list of the best tech-based television shows since 2000.

10. Silicon Valley (2014 - Present)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

On its surface, Silicon Valley is simple: a clique of bros bumming around the nation’s tech capital with dreams of creating an app that will bring them money and fame. But to underestimate a show masterminded by Mike Judge would be foolish. Even after four seasons and a dramatic T.J. Miller exit, Silicon Valley has refused to miss a beat as it seamlessly skewers any and all tech-world quirks with a dark edge of skepticism. The show skillfully sets up a demented trail of dominos, each wacky plot twist and character turn leading up to the moment when they inevitably come crashing down. Don’t get it twisted: Silicon Valley isn’t a tribute to the area’s forward vision. It’s a soothing ode to its persistent absurdity. And in the age of iPhone scandals and Sophia the Robot, there might not be a comedy we need more.

9. Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams (2017 - Present)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

While it suffers from its share of anthology woes, Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams is most easily understood as a sister series to Black Mirror. But to label it as another twist on the doomsday series would be selling it short. Adapting 10 of the Blade Runner author’s short stories into distinct short films, Electric Dreams masterfully highlights Dick’s knack for crafting alien environments and tech, offering an artier and much lighter alternative to Charlie Brooker’s dystopias. At its best, Electric Dreams envisions worlds where our technological ability has ballooned to insane heights. K.A.O. is set in a future in which personal information is constantly available to the government (and marketers), and “Real Life” follows a woman whose ability to distinguish the real world from a virtual one begins to deteriorate. The show is at its most engaging when toying with the question of what makes us human.

8. The IT Crowd (2006 - 2013)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

It may be true that multi-cam sitcoms had their heyday before Y2K rolled around, but The IT Crowd is one of the few contemporary series that makes a serious argument for a return of the throwback format. Running for four woefully short seasons on the UK’s Channel Four, The IT Crowd kick-started the careers of both Chris O’Dowd and Richard Ayoade, and in the process, cultivated a rabid cult following. Centered on a trio of tech specialists banished to the basement of a soul-sucking corporate entity, the series is reliably zany (and surprisingly edgy), mining jokes out of everything from sensitive goths to ill-fitting shoes. Weaving together handfuls of bizarre storylines with Larry David-style ease, The IT Crowd is the benevolent precursor to The Big Bang Theory that you’ll actually want to watch.

7. Futurama (1999 - 2003; 2007 - 2009; 2010 - 2013)

Perhaps unfairly dismissed as a genre revamp of Matt Groening’s infinitely more successful animated series, Futurama just keeps on giving. The sitcom is so incredibly dense with jokes and visual gags that its dedicated fan base essentially forced the creators to revive it after multiple cancellations. Following the foibles of a thickheaded pizza delivery guy who accidentally cryogenically freezes himself for a thousand years, it's Futurama’s cast of morally iffy (but infinitely lovable) characters and uber-specific math and science references that pushes the show to cult classic heights. It may never have a fraction of the clout of The Simpsons, but it’s hard not to love the underdog.

6. Westworld (2016 - Present)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Identity. Autonomy. Agency. Aesthetically, Westworld is Joss Whedon's indie vision of Firefly realized on a blockbuster scale. But at its core, it's an entirely cerebral affair teasing out the notions of those three very weighty themes. Helmed and overseen by Jonathan Nolan, Westworld bears that familiar stamp of knotty plotting made famous in scripts by Jon and his brother Christopher, sometimes to its detriment. Episodically, Westworld is at times too cerebral for its own good. But as a whole, season 1 triumphantly explores the depths of humanity in the most unlikely place: our man-made creations. Out of all its twists, the show’s most successful is that the human characters themselves are the ones who behave the most soullessly. Here's hoping season 2 refines all of these worthwhile themes into something that's more palatable on an episodic level. The pieces for greatness are there; the key is in the assembly.

5. Orphan Black (2013 - 2017)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Picture this: You’re waiting for the train and spot a single other figure on the platform. As the train pulls up, she looks at you, and you recognize her. She’s a spitting image of you. Then, she leaps onto the tracks. That’s the opening scene (above) in the first ever episode of Orphan Black, a labyrinthine, sci-fi odyssey that follows a crew of clones—identical human results of a shadowy genetic experiment with even shadier roots. Orphan Black touts tight writing, competent direction, and twistily satisfying narratives, but the show’s real claim to fame is Tatiana Maslany, a powerhouse of an actress who plays up to six different clones in any given episode, transforming her appearance and performance seamlessly. It’s a feat of acting and technology, but if it sounds like a gimmick, don’t be fooled. Orphan Black is definitely the real deal.

4. Rick and Morty (2013 - Present)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Loosely based on Back to the Future, this Dan Harmon-produced animated series centers around 14-year-old Morty and his mad scientist grandfather Rick. The two traverse time and dimensions, running into all kinds of trouble and strange creatures, along the way. Rick’s thirst for power, the bottle, and law-breaking frequently get the duo into trouble, but watching them desperately attempt to fight their way out of it is the fun part. Like many of the other shows on this list, Rick and Morty has a diehard fan base with an appreciation for the wildest shenanigans. 

3. Halt and Catch Fire (2014 - 2017)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

It’d be an understatement to call Halt and Catch Fire the most low-key entry on this list. Turning tech development into a binge-worthy thriller is no easy feat, but after four tight and reliably involving seasons, the show has more than earned its high-ranking spot. A slow grower of a series, Halt went from an under-the-radar AMC oddity in its first season to a series on the level of our most hallowed prestige shows by the end, thanks to some pretty insane talent in front of and behind the camera. Led by Lee Pace and Mackenzie Davis (of Black Mirror “San Junipero” fame), Halt sneakily became the Mad Men analogue to the early days of the PC boom, complete with era-perfect music supervision (New Order, Bikini Kill, and The Talking Heads) and boatloads of vintage tech. ICYMI quietly crafting itself into one of the best shows of the last five years, consider this your official order to check out Halt and Catch Fire.

2. Black Mirror (2011 - Present)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

You can’t get more technological than a show that’s essentially The Twilight Zone for the social media age. Named after the blank screen that stares at us when our phones or laptops go dark, Charlie Brooker’s British series found a second life after it was picked up by Netflix for its third and fourth seasons. While not set in the current day, a number of these premises aren’t far off. We’re witnessing everything from next-level Tinder and apps where your social presence can determine whether or not you get a loan or discount on a car, to different ways technology can help (or hinder) soldiers at war. Black Mirror forces viewers to ask themselves the hard questions, which primarily boils down to: What happens when tech goes too far too fast? 

1. Mr. Robot (2015 - Present)

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

For three seasons, Sam Esmail has turned a series about a hacker hell-bent on causing a revolution into one of the most impactful series on television today. Hacking might feel like an old hat; the film Hackers has been a cult favorite since it hit in the mid-90s. But Esmail’s series finds a way to turn that well-known process of “owning” people via their digital imprint to highlight just how easily someone could create the catalyst for the beginning of the end. With a few keystrokes, everything can change, from the world economy, to relationships with people you thought were down with you. With an unreliable narrator, tons of deception, and theories buried deep within this maze of a series, it’s shocking that Mr. Robot got picked up by USA of all stations. But it’s just that good.

Latest in Pop Culture