This Wild Sci-Fi Series Filled With Time Travel And Dinosaurs Is Streaming On Netflix

There are plenty of awesome Netflix sci-fi shows to binge watch already, including cult sci-fi series "Stargate SG-1" (which hit Netflix in early 2026). But if you don't fancy working your way through more than 200 episodes and 10 seasons, you might try "La Brea." The NBC show has everything from time travel to dinosaurs, and it's now available to stream in its entirety on Netflix.

In 1997, Tommy Lee Jones saved Los Angeles from a volcano that emerged from the La Brea Tar Pits in a disaster movie that was also one of Marvel boss Kevin Feige's first gigs. "Volcano" is always a solid '90s action thriller choice, but if you want a more modern take on the LA-in-peril sub-genre with some even more fantastical elements built in, "La Brea" likely has what you're looking for.

The show premiered on NBC in 2021 and ran for three seasons until 2024, when it was canceled. It starts with a giant sinkhole opening at the La Brea Tar Pits, swallowing large swathes of the nearby area. Rather than plummeting to a horrific death, however, those unlucky enough to be pulled into the crater suddenly find themselves in a strange primeval world where they're menaced by giant wolf-like creatures. Turns out these unfortunate souls are stranded in Los Angeles as it was in 10,000 BC. It's not exactly hard sci-fi and can be pretty cheesy at times, but "La Brea" has a cool premise, and there's plenty here for fans of time travel adventures. Once Season 3 hits, even dinosaurs enter the mix.

"La Brea" revolves around the Harris family, with Eve (Natalie Zea) and her son, Josh (Jack Martin), falling into the sinkhole while Eve's estranged husband, Gavin (Eoin Macken) and teenaged daughter, Izzy (Zyra Gorecki), remain in modern-day Los Angeles. Gavin is struck by visions of his wife and son, and he remains convinced they have survived their plunge into the depths of LA. Meanwhile, as you might expect, the appearance of a giant sinkhole that releases flying prehistoric beasts into the present day attracts the attention of the authorities — who, after a similar sinkhole emerges in the Mojave Desert, set about trying to figure out what on earth is going on.

The show's first season focuses on Eve, Josh, and the multiple other sinkhole victims as they search for the portal that landed them in prehistoric times before it closes. There are plenty of plot twists along the way, too, and in Season 2, we learn how the sinkholes came to be in the first place and that they have a surprising connection to Gavin. Season 3 then unleashes all manner of beast from across history, including dinosaurs. That leads to several memorable sequences that include a fighter-jet-vs.-T. rex face off in the finale, which is a lot of fun (though, if dinos are your thing, Steven Spielberg's Netflix documentary "The Dinosaurs" will fill the "Jurassic Park"-sized void in your heart).

As is the case with any time travel-based sci-fi, the timeline gets pretty messy as "La Brea" goes on. Luckily, fans did at least get to see the story wrap up properly, with the show managing to bring things to a conclusion at the end of its third and final season.

"La Brea" hit Netflix on May 1, 2026, and it immediately proved popular. The show hit number three on the most-watched TV charts the day after it arrived on the service (via FlixPatrol) and maintains that spot at the time of writing. That's a solid result for a network TV series that debuted with okay ratings before seeing them decline with each subsequent season. What's more, "La Brea" struggled with the critics from the very beginning.

Season 1 bears a lowly 29% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, with Lucy Mangan of The Guardian writing, "To say the plot is by-the-numbers is to slander numbers." Subsequent seasons haven't earned enough reviews to even rank on the Tomatometer, and the fact that much of the show's mystery is explained in the first episode also seemed to irk some critics. That said, NBC did renew "La Brea" twice (though the third season comprises just six episodes), so, clearly, there was viewer interest, and the series' recent popularity on Netflix proves there's something to it.

Basically, if you're a fan of watching some calamity befall the City of Angels, much like in the disaster movie to end all disaster movies that is "2012," you should enjoy "La Brea," especially the first episode (which might be full of dodgy CGI but does a solid job of staging the sinkhole sequence in a gripping way). The time travel element gets a tad convoluted, yet the show tries some interesting things, and it's fun if you can look past the heavy network TV cheese. All three seasons are available to stream on Netflix right now.