For a long time, post-apocalyptic television had The Walking Dead as the gold standard of the genre. Based on Robert Kirkman’s comic book series of the same name, the great TV show was set in a world overrun by zombies and saw the survivors fight against the undead and other members of the living, often with no rules or laws, leading to harrowing conflicts. The Walking Dead was a cultural phenomenon that seemingly everyone in the world was watching and talking about. Every major twist and shocking moment was digested and discussed everywhere. No post-apocalyptic show in the years since has been able to capture the world’s attention in the same manner, yet many agree that the quality of The Walking Dead waned in later seasons. That has allowed several other shows in the genre to surpass it and join the conversation for the best post-apocalyptic TV series in history.
A few of these shows are still going, so there’s a chance they could face a quality dip similar to that of The Walking Dead. However, for now they remain top-tier shows and deserve high praise. There are also shows here that have concluded and held a high standard from start to finish.
Based on the novel of the same name by Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven is a miniseries from HBO that premiered in late 2021. Set 20 years after a flu pandemic led to the collapse of civilization, the story centers on a group of traveling musical theater performers who run into a violent cult. The miniseries also makes sure to take the time to go back in time to show how people responded to the start of the pandemic.
While Station Eleven lacks the action that made The Walking Dead such a hit, it hones in on the heavy emotional drama of the situation. It focuses on what true connection between people means in a world like this, getting down to the basics of human nature. The cast is another reason to watch, delivering great performances led by Mackenzie Davis and Himesh Patel. Station Eleven ended up nominated for seven Emmys, including one for Patel.
Based on a series of novels, Silo is an ongoing series from Apple TV+. Things are set in a dystopian future and focuses on a community who live in an underground silo consisting of 144 levels, as the outside world is deemed uninhabitable. The narrative is filled with twists, and each level of the silo makes up another uncertain aspect of this labyrinth of secrets. The people running the silo can’t be trusted, so the character we follow is an engineer named Juliette Nichols.
Juliette starts questioning the world around her, and she’s our eyes and ears as we learn more about the truths being hidden in the silo. Rebecca Ferguson is excellent as Juliette, while the supporting cast, including Tim Robbins and Common, are just as good. Once the secrets start to unravel, Silo becomes a different and more layered show. Season 3 recently premiered and has started to dive into the past and what made the silo necessary, while Silo Season 4 is meant to end the story.
The closest that we’ve come to another post-apocalyptic show receiving the same level of hype as The Walking Dead has been The Last of Us. Adapted from the acclaimed video game series of the same name, the HBO show depicts a world overrun by a mass fungal infection that turns its hosts into zombie-like creatures. It follows Joel and Ellie as they try to survive in this world, with each scene boosted by the chemistry between Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.
Season 1 is a near-perfect adaptation of what we saw in the game, although the third episode, “Long, Long Time”, took implied elements of the game and told a new story with them. The end result was one of the best installments of TV ever, regardless of genre. The infected are legitimately even scarier than the walkers from The Walking Dead, while the performances from the cast put this post-apocalyptic show over the top. Season 2 wasn’t quite as good as The Last of Us Season 1, yet it was still strong, especially when it comes to Kaitlyn Dever’s performance.
Similar to The Last of Us, Fallout is a post-apocalyptic television show that’s based on the video game series of the same name. Fans waited a long time for this adaptation, and it lived up to the hype, expertly incorporating elements from the games while also showing off the cinematic aspects that made the games so appealing to adapt in the first place. The Prime Video original series has been met with widespread acclaim through two seasons with more on the way.
Fallout has a unique retro-futuristic setting thanks to an alternate history created after a nuclear bomb was dropped. Ella Purnell is perfect as the plucky protagonist Lucy, while Walton Goggins is unsettling as the Ghoul. They make for an odd pairing that’s engrossing to watch. Throw in terrifying mutated creatures, wild subplots, a maniacal Kyle MacLachlan, and intense action, and Fallout is as good as it gets when it comes to post-apocalyptic TV.
The Leftovers is unlike the rest of these post-apocalyptic shows in the best way possible. The HBO series is set in a world where 2% of the population mysteriously disappears in an unexplained global event. That might not seem like a large number on paper, but it does irreparable damage to many who remain, while others refuse to accept that things changed for the worse. Based on a novel of the same name, The Leftovers went on to become one of HBO’s most acclaimed shows.
What’s interesting about The Leftovers is that it doesn’t bog itself down with trying to answer too many questions about the why of it all. Instead, it deals with the people and how they handle a situation where 140 million people suddenly vanished. Every character is captivating and complex, while the narrative leads to some of the most intense scenes in television history. The Leftovers is the peak of post-apocalyptic fiction and one of the best HBO shows ever made.
