It’s no longer news that Apple TV is the undisputed king of sci-fi television. However, while most viewers are familiar with the platform’s bigger genre hits, there are several hidden gems that are just as compelling—if not more so—and well worth a binge. Before, created by Sarah Thorp, who also serves as showrunner and executive producer, is quietly emerging as one of those titles, blending psychological tension with a slow-burn narrative that keeps viewers hooked from start to finish.
Made on a $68 million budget, the Apple TV sci-fi mystery premiered on October 25, 2024, as a miniseries that concluded that December. Before stars Emmy winner Billy Crystal as Dr. Eli Adler, a child psychiatrist at the center of the story. After recently losing his wife, Eli encounters a troubled young boy, Noah, portrayed by Hamnet’s Jacobi Jupe, who appears to have a haunting connection to the doctor’s past. While it has been nearly two years since the show premiered—and was largely overlooked at the time—it is still worth rediscovering on streaming, proving a pleasant surprise with its unsettling twists.
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz
Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive?
The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you’d actually make it out of alive.
💊The Matrix
🔥Mad Max
🌧️Blade Runner
🏜️Dune
🚀Star Wars
TEST YOUR SURVIVAL →
01
You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do?
The first instinct is often the truest one.
APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it.
BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don’t keep you alive.
CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who’s pulling the strings.
DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it.
EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can’t fix a broken galaxy alone.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely?
What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.
AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don’t need resources — you can generate them.
BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it.
CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity.
DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on.
EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
What kind of threat keeps you up at night?
Fear is useful data — if you’re honest about what you’re actually afraid of.
AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant.
BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left.
CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you’re a problem, you’re already out of time.
DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn’t even know I was playing.
EThe Empire tightening its grip until there’s nowhere left to run.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
How do you deal with authority you don’t trust?
Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.
ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it.
BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better.
CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy.
DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can’t beat a system you refuse to understand.
EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
Which environment could you actually endure long-term?
Survival isn’t just tactical — it’s physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.
AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters.
BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest.
CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions.
DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand.
EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire’s attention rarely reaches.
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06
Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart?
The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.
AA tight crew of believers who’ve seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose.
BOne or two people I’d trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks.
CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice.
DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last.
EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all?
Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they’re actually made of.
AI won’t harm the innocent — even the ones who’d report me without hesitation.
BI do what I have to to protect the people I’ve chosen. Everything else is negotiable.
CThe line shifts depending on who’s asking and what’s at stake.
DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people’s future, even if it’d help now.
ESome lines, once crossed, can’t be uncrossed. I know which ones they are.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
What would actually make survival worth it?
Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.
AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it.
BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving.
CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out.
DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations.
EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else’s boot.
REVEAL MY WORLD →
Your Fate Has Been Calculated
You’d Survive In…Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.
The Resistance, Zion
The MatrixYou took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.
You’re drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
You’d find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines’ worst nightmare.
You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
The Matrix built an airtight prison. You’d be the one probing the walls for the door.
The Wasteland
Mad MaxThe wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.
You don’t need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you’re good at all three.
You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.
Los Angeles, 2049
Blade RunnerYou’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.
You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
You’re not a hero. But you’re not lost, either.
In Blade Runner’s world, that distinction is everything.
Arrakis
DuneArrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.
Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they’re survival tools.
You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You’d learn its logic and earn its respect.
In time, you wouldn’t just survive Arrakis — you’d begin to reshape it.
A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Star WarsThe galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.
You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
You’d gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire’s grip can be broken.
You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn’t something you’re capable of.
In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
What Is ‘Before’ About?
Right from the start, Before is creepily mysterious, a quality that persists as the series progresses. Eli, about to retire while also mourning his wife, Lynn (Judith Light), has no idea that his life is about to get more complicated. The doctor is losing touch with reality gradually, thanks to the visions he has been having of his own death, so when he encounters Noah, his final client, they have something in common —a supernatural connection rooted in a past-life trauma.
Noah is frequently tormented by hallucinations of a worm, dark water, and ice. He also speaks in languages unknown to Eli and exhibits a terrifying streak of violence. Over the course of the series, Eli realizes that the symptoms don’t fit medical explanations. Soon, he starts to make connections between the young boy’s affliction and the untimely demise of his wife, and his behavior turns erratic, exposing Noah to environments from his past life. However, that leads to doctors thinking Eli is having a mental breakdown related to the death of his wife.
Towards the end of Before, Eli breaks out of a psychiatric facility and kidnaps Noah. The pair returns to the site of their previous life as he figures out that the way to save the boy’s life is to recreate those events while changing the ending. This ultimately works for Noah’s trauma, as he doesn’t display any more symptoms from before. However, Eli isn’t so lucky, as his conclusion shows that he’s still hallucinating the worm under his skin, a loose end that hints at unresolved trauma. And then, after completing five months of inpatient psychiatric treatment, he publicly draws the conjecture that his and Noah’s strange situation was a case of intense transference-countertransference dynamic, a shared delusion defined by unusually precise detail.
Before wasn’t very successful upon its release, either critically or in the ratings. Even now, it holds a 30% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus noting that the horror series “initially intrigues but doesn’t bring enough ideas or variety to sustain what comes after.” Even some of the critics’ commentary labels it “painfully predictable,” “long and repetitive,” “tonally confused,” and “the year’s most disappointing show.” However, that shouldn’t stop the show from getting more attention, as these very elements that were regarded as dull are likely what viewers find most evocative.
‘Before’ Is a Haunting Sci-Fi Mystery Worth Binging
Unlike traditional sci-fi shows that explore concepts like futuristic tech, space travel, or alternate realities, Before is more speculative. The series is primarily a psychological thriller/mystery that borrows elements common to science fiction and speculative fiction to create an unsettling, genre‑hybrid mystery. Parts of it flirt with the paranormal or otherworldly, featuring visions, inexplicable connections between characters, and emotionally charged experiences that hint at a reality beyond the conventional.
Looking at Before’s shining star, Noah, for example, he exhibits strange abilities, including knowledge and behaviors that can’t be explained through ordinary psychology, suggesting forces beyond normal human experience. The show also uses visions and symbolic sequences that push the narrative into speculative territory — even if the underlying cause isn’t explicitly scientific, the narrative structure echoes many mystery sci‑fi tropes that question reality. Furthermore, the core relationship between Eli and Noah is built around a suspiciously deep, almost telepathic bond and uncanny revelations which, while not grounded in hard science, mirror speculative fiction’s exploration of human consciousness and unexplained connections.
Apple TV’s Before might not be getting the loudest buzz, but the $68 million sci-fi mystery is one of the platform’s most unexpected hidden gems. From the strong performances of Crystal and Jupe to the dark, mysterious atmosphere and gorgeously bleak cinematography, the series is the perfect binge you’ve been missing out on.
Before streams on Apple TV.
