as in the movie Sliding Doors or the Community episode where Abed throws the dice resulting in alternate realities. any other examples?
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=682275 - TV episodes where events repeat over and over
Back to the Future Part II was based pretty heavily on the idea of time travel creating alternate realities. It’s implied in the Terminator films as well: The heroes’ defeats of the time-traveling terminators succeeds in delaying Judgment Day, and possibly in changing the details of how it happens.
The Spock with a beard. actually a parallel universe if that counts. Futurama theFarnsworth Parabox. It’s not clear where the divisions are. In an alternate universe a different coin flip changes the fate of Fry and Leela.
time travel by default creates alternate realities. i was thinking of shows where they actually play out each of the realities, but that would probably result in a much shorter thread.
The movie Run Lola Run plays through three different timelines.
Actually, it was Jeff who threw the die (in all but one of the cases), while Abed was the one who noted the creation of alternate timelines.
Mad About You did an episode where Paul and Jamie didn’t meet at the news-stand and followed the alternate time-line for a bit.
Scrubs did an episode speculating on the different futures resulting from a butterfly landing on a fat old dirty man’s man boobs or on a provocatively dressed woman’s cleavage. Pointedly, several things turned out differently, but one key element remained constant between the two parallel plot lines.
Also, uh, Groundhog Day.
The Butterfly effect?
Recent example: Looper
Jet Li’s action/sf flick The One featured multiple timelines.
Star Trek : TNG - “Parallels”.
Actually, variations on the timeline thing happened in TNG pretty frequently.
The movies Déjà Vu, Source Code, Kate & Leopold and It’s a Wonderful Life.
Friends did something like that - it was an episode showing how things would be different for each character if one part of their life had changed. Monica had not lost weight, Ross’s wife hadn’t come out of the closet and they were still married, Joey was still acting on that soap opera, etc.
Doctor Who did a parallel timelines episode in “Inferno” He also showed a parallel earth in “Pyramids of Mars,” though only for a moment.
Red Dwarf’s “Parallel Universe” also handled the theme.
There’s split timelines and then there’s repeating versions of the same one. I’ve watched one-season TV shows that featured each - the repeating versions one was called Day Break and the split timeline TV series was called Awake. Both worth watching.
Here’s a double wound subject
A Christmas Carol and the 8000 different ways it’s been interpreted. - Scrooged, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past Etc.
It’s a Wonderful Life, and every TV episode with this as its theme.
Oh. What’s the movie with Belushi and Michael Caine? Looking it up now…
Mr. Destiny, from 1990.
Doctor Who episode Turn Left, exploring what would have happened if Donna had turned left at an intersection instead of right, never eventually meeting the Doctor and saving his life, etc.