By
Dhruv Sharma
Published 6 hours ago
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.
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Some sci-fi shows are just so incredibly mind-bending and life-changing that watching them once is not enough. You have to revisit them and watch them at least twice to truly understand their core message and deeper ideas.
More often than not, shows in the science fiction genre lack rewatch value. Once they pay off their twists and unravel their overarching concepts and mysteries, there is nothing more left to them, making a second viewing more predictable than rewarding. Every once in a while, though, a rare sci-fi show comes along that only gets better every time you rewatch it.
The more you watch the series, the more you grasp its showrunner's true vision. Such shows are rare, but once you watch them, you instantly realize that they deserve more time. And when you do watch them again, the many fascinating layers and nuances you missed the first time almost magically reveal themselves.
Severance
What is amazing about watching Severance for the first time is that the viewer remains as clueless as the characters about what is happening. The show forces one to become an armchair detective and decode every little detail to figure out Lumon's motives and what they are doing to their employees. However, after the show finally rewards attentive and patient viewers with ultimate payoffs, a desire to rewatch arises.
The mere awareness of how Severance critiques corporate greed, racism, sexism, and consumerism with its portrayal of the innies and outies allows viewers to gain new insights into its symbolism, hidden motifs, and thematic parallels with other works. The Apple TV sci-fi show has only scratched the surface of its narrative potential with two seasons, but its rewatch value is already high.
Lost
Owing to Lost's vast roster and incredibly long runtime, many little details in its story can often get "lost" during a first-time viewing experience. Unlike Severance and many other mystery-box sci-fi shows, Lost does not promise to pay off all its overarching story threads. Yet, it does a brilliant job of immersing viewers in its harrowing setting, making them feel like they are one of its central surviving characters.
As first-time viewers, most will only be able to focus on the immediate dangers faced by Lost's main characters and the bigger mysteries they encounter. Second time around, however, many answers surrounding the island's "choices," the truth about the Source, and the inner workings of the electromagnetic pockets begin to emerge.
Fringe
Fringe is often touted as one of the best sci-fi shows ever created because it seemed ahead of its time. When multiverses and parallel worlds were not even common concepts adopted by movies and shows, Fringe explored the ideas with brilliance and depth. The show also adopted a unique structure where it avoided dumping too much world-building at once.
Instead, it started small with a simple mystery-of-the-week format to grow into something far more ambitious and expansive than one could initially anticipate. The sheer excitement of knowing how Fringe gradually goes from A to Z would make its second viewing incredibly exciting. After you watch it once, even its early episodes change significantly because you realize how they foreshadow the multiverse and the Observers' experiments.
The OA
Brit Marling as Prairie Johnson / Nina Azarova, and Jason Isaacs as Hap Percy in The OA
The OA's season 1 always keeps viewers in the dark and makes them question whether the protagonist, Prairie, is a reliable narrator. During the first viewing, one cannot help but wonder whether her tales of the supernatural are real or just a coping mechanism. However, The OA season 1's ending and the story that unfolds in season 2 recontextualizes everything from season 1's early moments.
Everything from Hap's plan to Prairie's identity as the titular OA makes a lot more sense. Going back to the show's Part 1 with all this knowledge makes things click differently. Unlike most shows out there, The OA also connects with a viewer on a deeply emotional and spiritual level. This spiritual tie with the show's story and characters only amplifies the more one ends up watching it.
Dark
Jonas (Louis Hofmann) staring at something in Dark season 1, episode 1Credit: Julia Terjung / Netflix
Considering how Dark's time travel narrative is built like a complex temporal labyrinth, it arguably requires a lot more than two viewings to fit all its pieces together. The German Netflix show is deliberately disorienting in the beginning before it reveals its dense connective threads and gradually resolves every loose end.
During the first viewing experience of Dark, it is hard not to feel overwhelmed by the show's portrayal of:
- Three major timelines
- Two alternate realities
- Bootstrap paradoxes
- Multiple variants of the same characters
Owing to this, it is easy to skip some crucial character actions and finer plot details that dictate the overarching story. The second time, though, everything from the show's mirrored shots to its symbols of ouroboros make a lot more sense. The more you watch Netflix's Dark, the more you learn that almost nothing is accidental.
Twin Peaks
Image courtesy of MovieStillsDB
If Twin Peaks were another ordinary regular whodunit, it likely would not have had a lot of rewatch value. Fortunately, there is always more than meets the eye in the David Lynch series. It initially centers on Laura Palmer but gradually starts spiraling into hidden corners and directions one can barely see coming.
As it progresses, terror spills from every secret the central town keeps while the setting's innocence becomes a mere illusion. Even after watching it the first time, Twin Peaks is memorable and stays with the viewer long after its credits start rolling. But to truly read its Lynchian symbolism and understand its more surreal story beats surrounding the Red Room, the Giant, and the Log Lady, one has to watch it at least twice.
Westworld
Westworld prompts viewers to ask questions about consciousness, the impact of programming, and the skewed nature of free will in a world built by someone else. With each new viewing experience, these questions hit harder and become more emotionally resonant. The sci-fi series is also jampacked with clever foreshadowing that becomes visible only the second time around.
Westworld was canceled after season 4, but it recently found new streaming success on PVOD.
Westworld is also notoriously known for following a complex structure that unfolds many non-linear timelines at once. For a first-time viewer, it can be hard to keep up with the mechanisms of Bernard's memories, the show's setting, and the various versions of Dolores. Second time, though, the timelines become a lot more comprehensible, allowing one to truly embrace the show's vision and scope.
Russian Doll
Nastaha Lyonne looking in a mirror in Russian Doll
Movies and shows featuring time loops are either quirky comedies or thrilling murder mysteries. Rarely, they rise above these elements to bring something more refreshing to the familiar time travel trope. Russian Doll, too, initially comes off as another loopy comedy, primarily driven by Natasha Lyonne's snarky one-liners.
However, what starts as another familiar time loop drama turns into something harrowing and profound when it explores themes of grief, trauma, and healing. When a viewer watches the show's two seasons again with a newfound context on why Lyonne's character acts the way she does, her behavior and outlook start making a lot more sense.
Alan's role in the overarching timeline also becomes clearer while hidden motifs, like broken mirrors, rotting flowers, and season 2's 2D/3D split, find new layers of meaning.
Sense8
Sun fighting in the rain in the TV series Sense8
As a first-time viewer of Sense8, I was primarily swept by the sheer scale of the Netflix sci-fi show. Its diverse cast, globe-trotting story, and constant cross-cutting were enough to keep me glued to the screen. However, like most viewers, I struggled to feel emotionally drawn to all of its eight protagonists.
After only being pulled to a few favorites the first time, I could find something relatable in nearly every character the second time around. The symbolism behind each setting and the show's celebration of separate identities and culture also became far more apparent when I gave Sense8 another chance. Unfortunately, Netflix did not do the same and canceled it after two seasons.
The Leftovers
Justin Theroux as Kevin Garvey looking surprised in The Leftovers
Viewers who have watched The Leftovers can be divided into two categories. They either call it one of the best shows ever made or dismiss it as something that was not for them. The ones falling in the former category will always find themselves returning to the series and will at least watch it twice.
The reason being that The Leftovers often strays into incredibly weird narrative directions and does not bother explaining itself. It never spoon-feeds audiences and also leaves them at their own devices to understand its emotionally fractured characters. The first time, the sci-fi show's enduring mysteries are what keep one hooked. After that, though, every rewatch proves to be an emotionally heavy experience if one shows a little patience and keeps an open mind.
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Lost
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Severance
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The Twilight Zone
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