So you’ve come to the end of Andor, the magnificent live-action Star Wars series that sets the stage for 2016’s Rogue One. You’ve finished staring into the show’s abyss of galactic fascism, cheered for Cassian’s slow-burn radicalization, and you’re now left wondering what could possibly fill the gaping, planet-shaped hole in your soul.
If you’re craving more TV stories that simmer with tension and ask big questions about power, sacrifice, and resistance, you’re in luck. Below, we’ve rounded up seven smart, stylish, and emotionally loaded shows that’ll scratch that same Andor-sized itch — with shows that are built around the same morally murky world-building, broken heroes, simmering tension, and the bone-deep feeling that rebellion is not a moment, but a mindset.
First up: Think Andor meets a space-based version of Game of Thrones.
The Expanse is gritty, politically dense, and full of moral ambiguity — definitely not your average pew-pew sci-fi fantasy. Earth, Mars, and the Belters are locked in a cold war-turned-hot mess, and caught in the middle is a crew of misfits just trying to survive. Come for the noir-in-space vibes; stay for the surprisingly moving character arcs and savage power plays.
The Empire doesn’t need lightsabers when algorithms will do.
If Andor got you thinking about surveillance, control, and what happens when systems dehumanize us, Black Mirror is your obvious next watch. Each standalone episode is a dark little parable about tech gone wrong, and how ordinary people get caught up in its machinery. Not every episode is a masterpiece, but the best ones (like Eulogy, Episode 5 of Season 7) will burrow into your brain and haunt your soul.
“This has all happened before. And it will happen again.”
Before Andor redefined rebellion in the Star Wars universe, Battlestar Galactica was doing it for, well, pretty much all of sci-fi. In this genre-defining classic, a military vessel carries the last of humanity across the stars, fleeing genocidal robots and facing impossible decisions at every turn. It’s a meditation on power, identity, and faith, and it gets super uncomfortable in all the best ways.
There’s more than one kind of rebellion, as Andor constantly reminded us.
Slow Horses swaps out space for the rainy streets of London, where washed-up spies do dirty work for a government that would prefer to forget they exist. It’s smart, bleakly funny, and crackling with character. If you loved Andor for its slow, deliberate pace and for its focus on the people the system chews up and spits out, this one is for you. Of course, both shows at their core are also about the quiet, dangerous work of spies — fighting battles most people never see, for causes that never thank them.
“First contact,” but make it existential.
From Game of Thrones creators D. B. Weiss and David Benioff comes a visually stunning and brain-melting adaptation of Liu Cixin’s epic sci-fi novel. 3 Body Problem is about scientists, aliens, and what happens when humanity realizes it’s not alone. It’s grand, philosophical, and brimming with big ideas — perfect for anyone who loved the quiet dread and creeping tension of Andor.
6. Silo (Apple TV+)
Freedom always has a price, one that most people can’t bear to pay.
In Apple’s Silo, humanity lives in a massive underground silo because the outside world has become toxic (or so they’ve been told). Silo is part mystery box, part class critique, part survival thriller. Like Andor, it’s about the lies people are told, the rules they live by, and the moment someone (in this case, a quietly devastating woman played by Rebecca Ferguson) dares to ask why. Check out our interview with the show’s cinematographer here.
Finally, we come to history, prophecy, and the fall of empires.
If Andor is a rebellion at ground level, Foundation zooms way out to focus on the bigger picture. It’s based on Isaac Asimov’s novels, and the hit Apple series blends spectacle with thought-provoking themes. That means: Clashing civilizations, sweeping timelines, and power struggles that unfold like chess moves across centuries. It unfolds like a prophecy written in stars, where fate looms large, power shifts like tides, and even the smallest voice can echo across eras.
