Many of us aren’t going to spend the holidays with our families. We may have already missed out on one or two traditions and now the big December holidays like Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve are staring us right in the eyes. It’s enough to get you downright depressed. But there are some families you can spend time with: sci-fi families.
No, these fictional families won’t take the place of your Uncle Frank or Grandma Marie, but here are a few shows and movies that feature strongly bonded sci-fi units, both traditional and not, that can act as poor, but fun, substitutes.
The Jetsons from The Jetsons – No real explanation needed here.
The Parrs from The Incredibles and Incredibles 2 – A nice, loving family unit who are also amazing superheroes? We want to join up.
The Szalinskis from Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Honey I Blew Up the Kid – Any family with a dad who can invent stuff like Wayne does, and kids who can bond in bad situations, is a winner in our book.
The McFlys from the Back to the Future films – Well, mostly everything after the first movie. This way you get Marty, who has time-travelled, successful siblings, and a sci-fi author for a dad.
Vampires from What We Do In the Shadows – This goes for the vampires in either the movie or the TV show. Both feature friends who are so close, they live together for centuries.
The Emersons from The Lost Boys – One brother is a vampire, another is a vampire killer who reads comics, grandpa is a taxidermist, and mum works at a video store? That’s a cool family.
The Lost Boys from Hook – Dozens of boys who spend every second together and never grow old are sure to bond almost more than family.
The Fellowship from The Lord of the Rings saga – Yes, the hobbits are a pretty tight unit within a unit, but the diversity and scope when you bring in elves, dwarves, humans, and a wizard makes for a much more interesting gang.
The Visions from WandaVision – We’re just going to make an assumption here. But you can’t watch it until January, so…
The Avengers from Avengers: Endgame – Specifically Endgame because by that time, it’s a bigger unit and the sacrifices everyone makes for each other are tremendous. That’s family values if we’ve ever seen it.
The Robinsons from
Lost in Space – Any version, really, including the Disney animation. But the family that travels space together, stays together.
The women of Fast Colour – The film doesn’t give them a surname but these women have superpowers in their blood and aren’t afraid to use them.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Look, you’d have to be a really close unit to deal with the fact that your father figure is a rat and you’re a life-size turtle who knows martial arts.
The crew of the Serenity – Mal Reynolds put together a ragtag group of people who’d do anything for each other.
The Roci crew from The Expanse – Because there are no better friends to have at your side when your life is threatened by rogue extremists or crooked politicians or freaky alien technology (or some combination thereof, as is usually the case).
The Original Mass Effect Squad – Nothing brings people together like the threat of mass destruction at the hands of evil robots, and while Mass Effect’s crew expands in the sequels, you can’t beat the bonds forged by the original Normandy crew.
The crew of any Star Trek show – A bit of a cheat here but if the bridge crew on a starship aren’t as close as family, well, that ship is not gonna survive.