| 1990-1991 | Twin Peaks | investigating laura palma's murder gets creepy | OK, this was mostly prophetic dreams, but some "magic" later |
| 1995 | American Gothic | Insular southern town w/mysterious powers boy and menacing sheriff | Various townsfolk and outsiders become involved in sheriff Lucas's sinister plans, often involved with turning someone evil. Sam Raimi co-produced, Bruce Campbell guest spot |
| 2004-2010 | Lost | stuck on island w/increasingly weird stuff | J.J.Abrams. Established you can dribble out vaguely spooky plot, throw in romance, explore whacky backstory ... and people eat it up |
| 2005 | Surface | Strange creatures from the ocean give people powers | |
| 2005:9eps | Threshold | Gvmt team deals with evil alien DNA-attack | Some of the team are part-way converted into aliens and join them or have weird dreams? Brent Spiner, Peter Dinklage |
| 2004-2007 | The 4400 | Mysterious Group brought from the 1940's have powers to save mankind | Another where we gradually learn the mysteries of what's going on |
| 2010 | The Ev3nt | 50 years ago aliens crash-landed on earth, lots of plans&intrigue | Some aliens were captured and kept, which was covered-up; some infiltrated; some of those want to violently take over; romance |
| 2012-2013 | Touch | magic child sees future in numbers | Keifer Sutherland, Danny Glover |
| 2013-2015 | Under the Dome | Mysterious dome forms over a town. Stephen King | Lengthy attempts to escape; a secret area for kids; aliens? |
| 2014-2015 | Extant | Halley Berry, Stephen Speilburg. Returning astronaut mysteriously pregnant | |
| 2014 | Ressurection | A few people come back from the dead | Are they themselves? Who is doing it? Is there a secret purpose? What are the rules? |
| 2014:12eps | Believe | Experimental child on run from gvmt, helped by convict | Sinister gov breeding program's best creation; sypathetic scientists; tough-but-sensitive protector. Bad Robot productions |
| 2015 | The Messengers | A meteor and/or god gives 5 diverse ppl powers and a mission | We learn about the different powers. Oh, no. 4 more are evil Horsemen! But wait, I must also solve my personal problems |
| 2018 | The Crossing | Refugees from the future appear. Oh no, a mutant "Apex" woman might be evil | Had the most realistic reactions to "OK, the truth is..." |
| 2018-2021 | Manifest | Jet passengers mysteriously vanish for 5 years | So many characters to feature that the plot never developes? |
| 2019-2020 | Emergence | Little girl robot/AI may have super-powers | Of course she's part of a whole plot. The lead is a sherrif. She takes in the girl and investigates as part of her job! Also, it has an ending! |
| 2019 | The Passage | A magic little girl kidnapped to a facility holding psychic vampire plague victims | We get backstories of the victims, drama between the scientists, an escalating mystery, buckets of blood and an ending! |