Oh, and “meets his own double at school.” That wasn’t just those two shows; split-screen seems to have been a thing in '60s/early '70s sitcoms. First, the whole premise of The Patty Duke Show, then on Gilligan’s Island, three of the castaways have doppelgängers who show up on the island. In none of those cases was it a coincidence, though. Mr. Howell’s and Gilligan’s look-alikes were impersonating them, and Ginger’s was made over to look like her. And not quite the same thing, but on All in the Family, the butcher, who has hearts for Edith and was rejected in an earlier episode, shows up with his new fiancee, who looks an awful lot like Edith would if she got her hair done at a salon and her clothes at Saks. And now I’m wondering: did I Dream of Jeannie or Bewitched ever do anything with split-screen?
Wait, I think I remember. Correct me if I’m wrong, but he took up the violin*? And the family was subjected to hours of atonal screeching. Then he wanted to give a party to showcase himself playing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and nobody wanted to go. And the Bradys recycled that too! Peter wanted to give a party to celebrate himself as The Hero (at the toy store; pulled a younger girl out of the way of a falling shelving unit), and nobody wanted to go to that.
And the Bradys recycled themselves. Each Brady kid had their own episode wherein they got what Mike called a “swelled head” and required intervention from one or both parents. From the top down, Greg when he started high school, Marcia when she was Juliet in the school play, Peter when he was The Hero, Jan when she was voted Most Popular Girl, Bobby when he was the safety monitor, and Cindy when she was chosen to be on a quiz show. Except that no one ever admitted that when someone is one of six kids, it’s hard not to grab with both hands a chance to distinguish oneself.
I recall years ago there was a ‘Columbo’ and a ’ Murder She Wrote ’ episode that were startlingly similar. I don’t remember the particulars, but they were both locked room mysteries with the same solution. I only noticed it because I had seen both episodes in syndication during the same week.
And, of course, there are the two movies of The Parent Trap in 1961 and 1998, in which identical twin sisters who together, on each learning of the existence of the other one, decide to trick their parents into getting back together. Twins in stories is a common trope. Look at this TV Tropes page:
A few years back, I was watching an episode of The Americans in which Matthew Rhys murders a guy by hanging him and then leaves a suicide note on his computer.
Two hours later, I was watching an episode of Columbo in which Matthew Rhys murders a guy by hanging him and then leaves a suicide note on his computer.
I vaguely recall an episode of Chico and the Man where Chico (Freddie Prinze) met a beautiful woman, but she didn’t want to date him because he reminded her strongly of her ex-boyfriend. Chico somehow or other met him, and the guy looked almost exactly like him … mainly because he was played by Tony Orlando, who looked a lot like Prinze.
Also from the 1970s, there was an episode of Sanford and Son in which Fred gets Lena Horne to visit their house by telling her that Lamont is a sickly child who wants to meet her.
Except for period pieces and limited series, every medical drama that’s been on over the past 6 years has had an episode where hackers have gotten into the hospital system and are holding the patient details for ransom.
I noticed that in the medical dramas I watch but it’s not a matter of duplicate episodes but instead just all of them doing the same storyline (and one that affected some real hospitals). Similarly, they all did COVID storylines.
St Elsewhere had a hacker break into its computer system back in the early '80s. The hacker was a kid playing a prank, and a patient died from being given the wrong medication.
This may have been the first time such a scenario was shown on TV.
There was a Hill Street Blues episode where the father of a rape victim snuck into the holding cell wing where the suspect was being held and shot him—only he shot the wrong guy. A couple weeks later, some other cop show—with more of a red meat focus than HSB—had the same plot, but the father shot the right guy. Can’t remember what the other show was (Hunter, maybe?), but it was a one- or two-season affair.
Not an entire episode, but too identicial to be a coincidence.
In the Friends episode The One Where Heckles Dies, Chandler, afraid that he’ll never find a woman who loves him, desperately calls Janice. When Janice shows up, she’s obviously pregnant, and Chandler says, “You couldn’t have told me that on the phone?” Janis replies, “And miss the expression on your face?”
Exactly the same thing happened in the Dick Van Dyke Show episode, That’s My Boy when Rob is convinced Richie was switched at the hospital. He calls Mr. Peters to come over. The Peters are Black (resulting in the longest laugh in the show’s history). Rob says, “Why didn’t you tell me on the phone?” and Mr. Peters replies, “And miss the expression on your face?”
Babylon 5 and Star Trek (in all it’s forms) were shows that often trod the same ground. This resulted in many similar episodes. The one that occurs to me off the top of my head was B5’s “Intersections in Real Time” and ST: TNG’s “Chain of Command”. (Both interrogation episodes of the main character.)