Cancelled Sci-Fi Gem From the Showrunners of Lost and House of the Dragon Just Dropped on Tubi — All 3 Seasons Free

If you missed Colony the first time around, good news: the whole thing just dropped on Tubi for free. Yes, free. And yes, eight years after USA Network pulled the plug on a planned five-season story, the show that paired a Lost vet with the guy now steering House of the Dragon is finally easy to binge again.

What it is and why it works

Colony is a grounded alien- occupation drama set in a near-future Los Angeles that has been carved up by towering walls and run by a harsh, human-collaborator security force. It was created by Carlton Cuse (Lost) and Ryan J. Condal (House of the Dragon), and it stars Josh Holloway and Sarah Wayne Callies as Will and Katie Bowman, a couple trying to hold their family together after they get separated from one of their kids during the invasion. The twist: without knowing it, they end up on opposite sides of the resistance, each making ugly choices to protect the people they love.

This is not a pew-pew laser show. Colony is the tense 'day after' version of an invasion — occupied streets, informants, curfews, moral compromises — and it leans into that slow-burn pressure cooker. The world-building is sharp, the tension is consistent, and it keeps putting its characters in impossible spots that actually feel, painfully, like choices real people might make.

"Fresh, interesting and worth following" with the potential to be "the best series to hit the network since Suits."

How to watch it right now

All 36 episodes — the complete three-season run — are streaming free on Tubi as of May 1. That matters because the show has been a moving target since it left Netflix in 2022. It bounced between subscription services for a while, which meant paying to revisit it. Now it is all in one place, no wallet required.

The short, slightly messy history

Colony originally aired on USA Network with a mapped-out five-season arc. It did not get there. USA cancelled the show in July 2018 after three seasons, citing steep drops in viewership and rising production costs. That combo is the classic TV death spiral: ambitious scope, expensive to make, fewer people tuning in. A shame, because critics were on board — the show averaged a 92% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes across its run, and Season 2 even hit 100%.

Why it holds up (and actually gets better)

The series never coasts. Each season expands the world and raises the stakes without losing the human focus. The occupation drama stays front and center, with Will and Katie constantly forced to choose between safety, ethics, and family. If you like your sci-fi with a pulse and a conscience — and you do not need a dogfight every ten minutes — this is extremely bingeable.

Cast and creative calling cards

Holloway brings a battered everyman energy to Will, a former FBI agent who knows how systems work and how they break. Callies gives Katie a spine of steel and a secret life that keeps the family dynamics knotted and tense. Behind the camera, you can feel Cuse and Condal pushing for scale and consequence — which also explains those production costs that came back to bite the series.

If you are jumping in fresh

Do not worry about missing lore dumps. The show explains itself through the occupation: checkpoints, propaganda, collaborators, black-market networks. The alien presence stays mostly at the edges early on, which is a feature, not a bug — it keeps the focus where the show is best, on people trapped under someone else’s boot.

Also new on Tubi for sci-fi fans

• Terra Nova (the full, single-season Fox series)
• Predators
• Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
• Battlefield Earth
• Multiple Star Trek titles

Bottom line: Colony was cancelled too early, but what we did get is tight, tense, and seriously well-made. With all three seasons up on Tubi, there is no reason not to give it the shot it earned the first time.