There's never a bad time to watch (or rewatch) Fringe, a show that seems like an even rarer gift now than it did when it was airing. It's a relic from the days when network TV procedurals could be bolder. The cult favorite sci-fi drama, which aired on Fox from 2008 to 2013, stars Anna Torv as Olivia Dunham, an agent with the FBI's Fringe Division, who investigates strange cases with the help of scientist Walter Bishop (John Noble) and his son, Peter (Joshua Jackson). It's a simple enough premise to start with, but as Fringe embraced its dense mythology about parallel universes, it evolved into one of the most ambitious broadcast shows of its era. It's hard to imagine we'll see anything like it again.

If you've wrapped up your latest, or maybe your first, Fringe watch, you might be looking for similar shows to keep the thrill alive (or reanimate it, even). Whether you're hunting for similarly gutsy broadcast dramas, provocative sci-fi, stories about the destructive power of a parent's love, or just more series featuring the stars of Fringe, these are the shows you should check out next.

Watch Fringe

Those X-Files comparisons can wait — for my money, Fringe is like no other show as much as it's like Alias. Before J.J. Abrams teamed up with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to create Fringe, he created Alias (which Kurtzman and Orci also produced), a rollicking ABC spy drama with sci-fi underdones (call it spy-fi). Jennifer Garner's Sydney Bristow, a grad student leading a triple life as a double agent for the CIA who's working undercover for the bad guys, is a lot like Fringe's Olivia Dunham: a woman who's roped into using her special skills to save the world after she discovers she's been lied to. Both Fringe and Alias involve experimental training programs for kids, dead boyfriends, nice people replaced by identical evil doppelgängers, fathers trying to make up for a lifetime of disappointing their adult children, doomsday devices, prophecies conveyed through an ancient drawing of the protagonist's face, and the lead telling a therapist, "Of course I have problems. The problems I have, I can handle." It's a turn-of-the-millennium thrill ride that balances out its wild plot with emotionally grounded character work, and it's glorious. If you like Walter Bishop, you'll love Victor Garber as taciturn spy dad Jack Bristow.