Even as it was beginning to blow up at the box office, science fiction was still relatively rare on TV in the 1970s. That’s due in part to the budgets simply not being adequate enough to make the shows look convincing.
If you were really looking for it, though, there were some great 1970s sci-fi series that laid the groundwork for everything that would come in the decades that followed. These series helped establish a mold for what sci-fi storytelling could be like on TV, and many shows are still indebted to them today.
Blake’s 7 (1978)
A bleak, dystopian series about a group of misfits who are attempting to take on a totalitarian state, Blake’s 7 feels like the cynical, British antidote to Star Wars. The series features many of the same tropes as that movie, albeit at a much smaller scale, and it has a dry wit that makes it feel entirely distinct.
If you like your…
