Parallel Universes & Alternate Reality: TV & Films

7 seasons / 71 episodes: Ongoing Series

This show is crazy... crazy good!

The adventures, the gadgets, the great scripts, the alien lifeforms, the multiverse, Rick, Morty... so much more. All like candy for the brain.
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Related: The Vindicators (2022)

3 seasons / 25 episodes: Season 4 Finale

Update, 08jan2024: Finished watching season 3.

I love this show. I'm already saddened that only one more season remains. It's smart and funny and aware of the disruptive nature of this technology.

The cast is phenomenal with great chemistry between the leads and the rest of the cast.

I also love seeing all the little NextGen Sci-fi tweaks and gadgets. The way that even the entire living environment can be modified in ways that are not possible in the real world.

Where do I sign up? I want to be uploaded...

4 seasons / 34 episodes: Season 5 Finale

Coming of age, adult drama, sci-fi, superpowers (Eleven) and monsters.

The first 2 seasons were great stuff. The kid scenes in season 3 segued into deus ex machina & pure goofiness. The adult scenes remained good TV.

Finished watching Season 4 (mid-July, 2022) and it has been a return to form.

season 1 / 9 episodes: Ongoing Series

Update, 12sep2024: I had not realized that this 1 season miniseries was given an additional season. Great News:-)
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Finished watching the entire series on 29jun2024.

It's a drama first that's accentuated by thought-provoking Sci-fi. This series surpassed my expectations. At no point, based on the various summaries I read beforehand, was I prepared for the kind of challenges our travelers would encounter.

These challenges really spiced up the entire series. Loved the powerful ending and the complete closure to this series.

1 season / 8 episodes: Series Complete

update, 23aug2023: Crushing news. This one hurts. I just read that the series was canceled.
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The first season was bingeable good!

A great TV series with stellar acting by a terrific cast, an immersive plot and lots of great Sci-fi elements on display.

Among the Sci-fi elements presented here are new earth dimensions - and the reason this series is on this list. How they come to being, I will not say - even with the spoiler tag. I do like the new twist.

5 seasons / 88 episodes: Series Complete

This show took the concept of the multiverse, taming it and making it a viable new sub-genre. They did so with a pleasant cast, acceptable storytelling and a connection to the characters that made it one of the best things on TV.

The strength of this series was always the original cast. Together they were greater than their individual characters. They managed to not only make each episode's plot better by their mere interactions but they made each other better.

That chemistry was shattered about 2/3rds into season 3 with the loss of Arturo. Whatever magic remained within the group was obliterated when Wade Wells did not return for season 4.

Despite this, I was able to rewatch the entire series recently (Oct/2022) and was very surprised that I enjoyed both seasons 4 and 5 (when I disliked them both in the late-90s). This only works if you are willing to embrace the character changes - something I was unable to do decades earlier.

What seasons 4 and 5 lacked was chemistry. The new groups simply did not have the same "magic" as the original complete cast.

Even with over 25 years of prep time, learning to embrace changes, knowing what was coming... I still found the loss of both Maximilian Arturo and Wade Wells to be palpable. I never stopped feeling their absence. I still grieve for them both when I think about this series.

This probably, at some level, may have effected my acceptance of the new groups.

With Remmy's (Rembrandt's) final jump in the series finale, it is entirely possible that the entire original crew was... (too sad to contemplate).

I saw this on 17nov2022. Rated it an easy (and nostalgic) 8. If not for the 'Sliders' connection (to be honest), I would have rated it a much lower 5.

The basic concept of Doorways/Sliding was in development some time before this was released. It spawned this TV Pilot and the TV series Sliders.

Recommended watch for any Sliders fan. This is where the enjoyment comes from. That is, watching this pilot while thinking about the backroom discussions that led to 'Doorways', that led to 'Sliders'.

Having watched both now... I found the 'Sliders' implementation to be very much better. Slider's was not only much better but it highlighted a changing of the guards in terms of how shows were delivered to a modern audience.

The story-telling for 'Doorways' was told in a style and plot that felt old fashioned. Kind of like how 1970s TV shows were made. Sliders, in contrast, felt fresh, young, modern (for its time). You'd have to watch them both to see what I mean.

It's interesting to think about "what might have been" if 'Doorways' was greenlit instead of 'Sliders'.

That is, how the entire genre might have been effected because I believe that 'Sliders' not only pushed parallel universe story-telling forward, it made the genre viable Sci-fi.

Still... it's fun to imagine this particular execution running alongside 'Sliders'. How they might have influenced each other.

Perhaps these things did happen... in a parallel universe.

This is one of the most engaging & fun action films (and parodies) ever done - as it expertly has fun with the genre in a fantastic alternate reality setup.

Mixes in serious interpersonal drama helping you connect with the characters and the story.

Along with Galaxy Quest (1999), one of the two best drama-parody films of all-time (as opposed to comedy-SpoofParodies such as Naked Gun, Airplane, etc).

5 seasons / 100 episodes: Series Complete

Once you accept & embrace the premise, this series becomes one of the outstanding Sci-fi series of all-time.

I'll admit, it took me several tries over the years to accept the premise. I'd watch a couple of episodes and quit each time. Finally, I accepted the mad/brilliant scientist scenario and it clicked. I binged on some of the best storytelling and Sci-fi drama for any series ever produced.

This series was consistently great during its entire 5-year run.

3 seasons / 26 episodes: Series Complete

German with English DUB available

Time paradoxes, closed time loops (over an extended time period), alternate reality via time line changes, large cast, the past and present interconnected... There is so much going on in this engrossing and cerebral Sci-fi drama.

1 season / 13 (23min) episodes or 130 (3min) episodes : Series Complete

Was an animated episodic web series and one of the best things I've ever seen. A riveting apocalyptic Sci-fi mystery and a masterpiece in story-telling.

If we ever get to this level of technical sophistication, there is no doubt this kind of altered reality would be embraced by many.

We already live within a kind of altered reality that is modern society. An improved living layer, laid on top of nature. Living is enhanced (made easier) in most areas because the natural world is a challenge -- from predators to weather issues to food and even... ourselves.

We've even created value out of intrinsically valueless stuff... like money (paper, digital) because of the altered reality we live in.

So 'The Matrix' would simply become another - viable - option for many. Certainly a sought after solution if it can dramatically enhance living and/or our experiences.

The Matrix has already established that real people are living within the altered environment and interacting with other (mostly) real people in a kind of (pseudo) real time.

All of this within a framework that can create new laws of physics (operating parameters).

Watched this film on 02feb2025 and loved it.

I wasn't remotely a fan of the previous two Deadpool films. I thought they were both... meh. This one was great!

It was funny, filled with Sci-fi, an apocalyptic world, parallel universes, great characters (none of whom were wasted), super-powers on display and superb writing.

It not only had it all, it did it all so well. I honestly did not think this franchise was capable of this kind of high-level production, this kind of immersive entertainment.

I'm going to be watching this again in a couple of days. It was that good.

1 season / 13 episodes: Series Complete

Great concept, well implemented. It is Schrodinger's Cat Paradox where two outcomes come to pass for the lead character. Both of them bittersweet.

It can also be treated as a miniseries, since there is complete closure (in a strongly Sc-fi way) at the end. I personally loved the ending.

Hmm... What is the alternate reality in this film?

1. Blue shirt guy's evolving digital world (as seen from the perspective of real life players)

2. The real world (as seen from the point of view of blue shirt guy)

It's interesting to note that while there is interaction between the two realities and even some immersion... true livable immersion (based on their current technology) is not possible.

Both realities know of the existence of the other but neither can fully live in each other's reality.

In any case... a fun, light and thought-provoking film.

2 seasons / 28 episodes: Series Complete

Alternate reality via timeline changes through time travel. Great series, good depictions of historical figures & events, daring enough to actually alter the timeline (often permanently) throughout the series.

I found myself pausing episodes to look up historical events & figures while often digging deeper into history itself. It added an additional informative element to this series.

Sometimes an episode would take me twice as long to get through as I read up on the past.

I was also happy to see the attention to historical detail, especially the look & feel of places and people.

Perhaps the best time travel TV series I've ever watched.

2 seasons / 16 episodes: Series Complete

note: season 2 aired all episodes on 29apr2022.
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The first two seasons have been remarkable storytelling.

I love that each season seems to end, that there's near closure. And yet... it's not quite finished. That you have an answer. And yet... you have strong doubts. That it's really a powerful drama and yet... genre-warping. That it's empowering and hopeful but potentially... heart-breaking.

I, for one, am certain of nothing but a wonderfully entertaining and immersive experience.

Undone makes this Parallel & Alternate Reality List because of the main character's time-traveling, dimensional spanning journey - whether it's real or imagined..

13feb2024: Finished watching this today. This was great! Lots of super-powered everyone, lots of earths, several different storylines and a compelling ending. Nicely done.

I had no idea that this film was even a thing until recently. Now I can't wait for Part Two.
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update: 07jun2024: Saw Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part Two (2024) today...

I'd rate it a 6 while part 1 was an 8. It wasn't as interesting or engrossing as part 1.

I'm hoping it finishes strongly with the final Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part Three (2024) - which is expected to air on July 16, 2024.

2 seasons / 20 episodes: Series Complete

J.K. Simmons & Olivia Williams lead many exceptional performances in this sci-fi drama. Loved the fact that this series had a proper ending - a good and complete closure to the series.

1 season / 8 episodes: Series Complete

Watched this July/2021. Had a really great time soaking this in. It was such a great series, it quickly became a favorite of mine.

Serious but in a light (family-friendly) way. It's the serious, dramatic presentation that makes this series modern viewer friendly.

1 season / 20 episodes: Series Complete

Watched entire series during Feb/2022 for the first time.

Excellent. Real-world delivery of story (so it moves at slower pace). Great use of flashbacks to fill in background and to remind viewers what happened X episodes back. Terrific character depth and development.

A TV series with complete series-ending closure and can be classified as a (lengthy) miniseries.

I felt the first 8 episodes moved a little too slowly. It was easy to give up on the series during this point but... the characters and story line were interesting enough that I kept coming back.

It picked up dramatically at episode 9 - so the last 12 episodes were engaging and made the entire series a great watch.

Alphaverse represents a dark, gloomy, class-structured, dystopian world run by megacorps - lots of advanced tech, lots of surveillance. Betaverse represents our world. Gammaverse is an idyllic world that's close to nature.

One spider-man is pretty good. Five of them? Outstanding. They made the concept work in this dimension-spanning adventure.

A horror-style alternate world wrapped within an excellent dramatic presentation. Great acting, great effects, great ending.

3 seasons / 15 episodes: Series Complete

This is an alternate dimension world that's fun, full of fantasy elements, magic and all kinds of engaging and interesting characters. Great comedy/drama, great cast, so easy to lose yourself in this escapist series in a relaxing way.

3 seasons / 43 episodes: Series Complete

Few series had more sci-fi elements in it:

Time travel, alternate dimensions, dinosaurs, intelligent alien species, dangerous aliens, brilliant tech, (affable) neanderthals, (de)evolution, new age tech via pylons/crystals, a self-contained closed-loop universe, another world (three moons in the sky), resourceful family at a nexus point in time and space.

So much more - including a close connection to nature: all intermingling at the same time. They also found a way to connect with viewers in a very human way.

Possibly the most remarkable Sci-fi driven world ever created for a TV Series (or film).