Rotten Tomatoes' highest-rated science fiction series remains the 2004 reboot of Battlestar Galactica, which still holds a 95% score on the review-aggregation site more than two decades after it first aired. Despite an ever-expanding field of streaming sci-fi shows, no series has managed to surpass it, and the article argues the show's exploration of themes such as war crimes, religious conflict and the treatment of prisoners has only grown more resonant with time, particularly its early handling of artificial intelligence.

The Syfy series reimagined the cybernetic Cylons as near-indistinguishable from humans, moving the story beyond a simple space war into one built around distrust, xenophobia and the ethics of conflict. It follows Admiral Adama, played by Edward James Olmos, as he leads survivors fleeing the destroyed human homeworld of Caprica after a devastating Cylon attack, with Katee Sackhoff's Kara "Starbuck" Thrace among the complex characters grappling with trauma and prejudice over the show's four-season run.