2 Upcoming Sci-Fi Shows Will Compete For The Title Of Best Space Opera Series

Published Sep 5, 2026, 10:30 PM EDT Dhruv is a Lead Writer in Screen Rant's New TV division. He has been consistently contributing to the website for over two years and has written thousands of articles covering streaming trends, movie/TV analysis, and pop culture breakdowns. Before Screen Rant, he was a Senior Writer for The Cinemaholic, covering everything from anime to television, from reality TV to movies. After high school, he was on his way to become a Civil Engineer. However, he soon realized that writing was his true calling. As a result, he took a leap and never looked back. Quite a few promising sci-fi shows are expected to release in the near future. Among them, however, two are so incredibly promising that it is hard not to see how they could be the perfect space opera rivals. The upcoming sci-fi shows in question, The Captive's War and Mass Effect, are both adaptations driven by ambitious sci-fi world-building. Getting space operas right has never been an easy feat. Even with the advancements in CGI and surge in TV budgets, only a few sci-fi shows from the subgenre are able to balance spectacle with compelling storytelling. When it comes to both The Captive's War and Mass Effect, however, both franchises have immense on-screen potential. Their source material offers an abundance of engaging stories that can work incredibly well on the small screen. Not to mention, their upcoming adaptations are also backed by Prime Video, which has experienced a lot of success with book and game adaptations in recent years. If all goes well, both space operas could dominate sci-fi and even overshadow some long-running TV franchises. Adaptations Of Captive's War & Mass Effect Will Compete For The Title Of 'Best Space Opera Series' With shows like Fallout and The Expanse, Prime Video has already proven that it has what it takes to bring new life to a well-established video game and literary franchise on the small screen. Owing to this, it is hard not to have a lot of faith in the streaming service's upcoming take on Mass Effect and The Captive's War. While both Mass Effect and The Captive's War will be space operas, their narrative appeal will come for very different reasons. Mass Effect, as gamers would know, features a sprawling universe with meticulous world-building and character beats. The Captive's War, in contrast, follows a more pressure-cooker narrative that walks through humanity's struggles against a near-invincible alien threat. Prime Video's Captive's War already seems promising because of the team behind its development. The original book series' authors, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (who also authored The Expanse), serve as active writers for the upcoming series as well. One of the showrunners from The Expanse, Naren Shankar, is also involved with The Captive's War as the executive producer, writer and showrunner. Mass Effect, on the other hand, is set to draw from its source material but serve more as an extension of the original games' universe. Backed by the production team of the widely successful Fallout series, Mass Effect will seemingly respect its source material's lore while attempting to etch its own identity in the overarching franchise. While this approach could even backfire for the series, Prime Video's success with Fallout spells promise for Mass Effect. The adaptation approach taken by Mass Effect and The Captive's War suggests they will be significantly different shows. However, as space operas, they could even end up becoming the perfect sci-fi rivals. Star Trek & Star Wars Will Take A Back Seat On Streaming Image via MovieStillsDB After churning out dozens of new installments in the last few decades, Star Wars and Star Trek are already starting to experience franchise fatigue. As a result, it seems like their audiences have become more and more fragmented. Even from a creative standpoint, it seems like the vast array of storytelling in their respective universes has led to an exhaustion of ideas surrounding their future growth. Star Trek and Star Wars cannot ever truly fade away as sci-fi franchises. However, they will have to take a backseat on streaming for a while and find new ways to reinstate their footing. While they find their feat again, it is space operas like Mass Effect and The Captive's War that can reign supreme. Hopefully, both upcoming sci-fi TV franchises will be as incredible as one expects them to be. Mass Effect Network Prime Video Showrunner Daniel Casey, Doug Yung Writers Daniel Casey Upcoming Amazon Studios TV treatment of the critically acclaimed Mass Effect video game series. Main Genre Sci-Fi Seasons 1