This new fall season is brimming with science fiction. From Bionic Woman to Pushing Daisies, there is sci-fi all over the television these days. It’s finally gone mainstream…but sci-fi fans know that we’ve had great sci-fi programming almost as long as we’ve had televisions in our homes.

So, in honor of all these great years of sci-fi programming, we present to you…our Top 10 Greatest Sci-Fi Shows of All Time…

10. Babylon 5 - Centered around the Babylon 5 space station, a focal point for politics, diplomacy, and wars in the late 2250s and early 2260s, this series is often referred to as a “novel for television” because of it’s deep and engrossing storylines that played out over several seasons of the show.

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09. Firefly - A “western in space”, Firefly was a short-lived television series that managed to established an amazingly detailed and rich world in only 13 episodes. The show developed a dedicated fan following that still work to get the series back on the air in some form to this day. The drive of the fans helped result in the feature film “Serenity” that completed the storyline from the series.

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08. Battlestar Galactica - This reimagining of the classic (but cheesy) original Battlestar Galactica show took the world by storm with it’s post-9/11 commentary on terrorism and war. The shows borrows some of it’s visual style from Firefly and other shows, but features rich, and nail biting action, drama, and suspense.

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07. Stargate: SG-1 - based on the hit movie “Stargate”, this series quickly expanded on the mythology that the move established, and developed an extensive universe, and - ultimately - built itself into a franchise that rivals any other sci-fi television series. Running for over 10 years, Stargate: SG-1 is one of the longest running sci-fi series in television history, and the series continues in direct-to-dvd movies.

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06. Quantum Leap - In this highly successful series, Sam Beckett was a man lost in time, leaping from one life to the next, helping people, and hoping that the next leap…might be the leap home. He never did make it home, since the series ended without a series finale, but this engaging sci-fi series has been imitated time and time again over the years. The most recent mimic of the Quantum Leap premise is the new fall NBC series Journeyman…which is about a man who travels through time helping people…

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05. Doctor Who - The longest running Sci-Fi series of all time is one of the most popular television shows in BBC history, and has recently found a growing fan base in the US. The series has been re-invented time and again, with 9 different actors playing the lead role of The Doctor over the life of the series…but the adventures of the time traveling alien from the planet Gallifrey never seem to get old…and will probaby be on television forever…

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04. Star Trek - No television series has sparked the imagination of the world like Star Trek. The Original Series inspired not only generations of entertainers, but real scientists have brought many of the devices dreamed up by the Star Trek creative team to reality. That cell phone you have? Thank Star Trek. The doors at the grocery store? Thank Star Trek. The list goes on, and on, and on. 3 seasons of television changed the world…that’s the magic of Star Trek.

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03. Lost - The recent resurgence of Sci-fi on network television can be traced right back to this series. Lost is an engaging mystery that continues to get more complex and more interesting with every season. The series follows a group of plane crash survivors on a mysterious island that is much more than it seems…

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02. Heroes - Superheroes have never been done this well on TV — in fact, the only way to find superheroes written this well is to actually read the comic books. Heavily inspired by the newest generation of comic books, and largely staffed with comic book writers, Heroes has managed to take the sci-fi show into an entirely new direction. This show is still very young, and if the quality doesn’t continue, you’ll find it knocked off of this high perch in an instant, but for now…it is truly one of the best sci-fi shows of all time.

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01. Star Trek: The Next Generation - While Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock may be cultural icons that will last forever, it is the second generation of Star Trek that was the most watch of all the Trek series. Star Trek: TNG first aired 20 years ago, and the series not only changed the way we thought about Star Trek, it changed the way we thought about sci-fi television. Most of the shows on this list (virtually everyone that started after TNG aired) owes their existence to the massive success of the crew of the Enterprise-D.

Not everyone will agree with this ranking, to be sure, but it’s massive appeal, incredible seven year run, and continued success on television (there is a minimum of 2 hours of Star Trek TNG on the air every single day of the week in the US), there is no other show that is more deserving of the top spot on this list.

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So that’s it. Do you agree? Disagree? Sound off in the comments and let us know what you think!