When a TV series attempts to tell a story with multiple timelines, moving in and out of various realities, it can get confusing, but fortunately some shows get it right. TV shows usually follow a linear story, unfolding events as they go. However, some shows opt to add another layer to the story via the use of flashbacks, flash forwards, and in certain shows, particularly within the sci-fi genre, they add entirely new timelines into the mix.
By adding in alternate timelines or realities, stories can draw parallels between the different stories being played out, or they can give audiences a taste of what could be if things were just a little different. In order to effectively include these multiple narratives, TV shows must create clear ways to distinguish one timeline from another, and switch purposefully and intentionally between them. If this isn’t done correctly, a show will get confusing, overly complicated, and hard to follow. But when its executed correctly, it can create an incredible interwoven story.
10
This is Us
2016 – 2022
This Is Us
This Is Us chronicles the Pearson family across the decades: from Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) as young parents in the 1980s to their 37-year-old kids, Kevin (Justin Hartley), Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Randall (Sterling K. Brown) searching for love and fulfillment in the present day. This grounded, life-affirming dramedy reveals how the tiniest events in our lives impact who people become and how the connections people share with each other can transcend time, distance, and even death.
- Network
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NBC
- Streaming Service(s)
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Hulu
- Writers
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Dan Fogelman
- Showrunner
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Dan Fogelman
Kicking off with an entry that is not sci-fi in any sense, but a beautiful exploration of family, This Is Us takes the multiple timelines storytelling method and uses it to examine life, from beginning, middle and end, of the Pearson family. While it technically looks at multiple points along the same timeline, the way the story is told sees many of these moments playing out simultaneously. With four of the five core members of the original family all sharing a birthday, these coincidences are intentionally used to compare the lives of each to one another at different times.
9
Dark
2017- 2020
Dark
Netflix’s Dark is a sci-fi thriller that follows the populace of a German town on the search for a missing child that quickly spins into a time-traveling journey into the heart of a conspiracy. The show’s core follows four different families and follows them through different generations after they discover a wormhole near the local nuclear power plant.
- Network
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Netflix
- Streaming Service(s)
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Netflix
- Writers
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Jantje Friese
- Directors
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Jantje Friese
- Showrunner
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Jantje Friese
Continuing the theme of family and moving into the realm of dark science fiction, Dark moves seamlessly through multiple decades, tying together four families in a small German town. Season 1 begins in 2019, before moving into 1986 and 1953, as the secrets of the town and the families are slowly revealed. The story has every opportunity to become a confusing and muddled mess, but thanks to the use of different actors and precise storytelling, it manages to create a linear story without moving in a linear direction.
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10 Shows To Watch If You Liked Netflix’s Dark
Dark is one of Netflix’s most intriguing original shows, and here are 10 more shows that any Dark fan is bound to love.
8
Westworld
2016 – 2022
Westworld
HBO’s Westworld is a dystopian science fiction western that is based on the Michael Crichton-directed film, Westworld. The series centers on high-paying guests who visit a western theme park full of human-like androids to live out wild fantasies. Westworld would later introduce a futuristic mid-21st century where the world is run by an artificial intelligence called Rehoboam. The series was incredibly popular during its four-season run but was canceled by HBO in November 2022.
- Network
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HBO Max
- Streaming Service(s)
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Max
- Writers
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Jonathan Nolan
, Lisa Joy - Showrunner
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Jonathan Nolan
, Lisa Joy
Westworld follows a futuristic theme park where guests with enough money can pay to live out whatever fantasies they wish without limitations. From indulging their darkest sexual desires, to murder, or becoming a hero, they are free to interact with the community however they wish, because the hosts in the park are not real people. They are advanced androids who have their memory wiped with each new reset. However, this leads to an interesting timeline as the park appears largely the same with only minor changes and most of the same hosts, but the story that plays out spans decades.
7
The Flash
2014 – 2023
The Flash
After witnessing his mother’s murder, and his father wrongly convicted, Detective West and his family take in Barry Allen (Grant Gustin). Becoming a forensic scientist, Allen tries to uncover the truth about his mother’s murder, which leads him to Harrison Wells’ particle accelerator. When the accelerator causes an explosion, Allen is struck by lightning and enters a coma. When he wakes up, he learns he has the ability to move at superhuman speeds, though he is not the only meta-human created in the wake of the explosion. Based on one of the most popular characters from DC Comics, the TV adaptation of The Flash was developed by Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, and Geoff Johns. The series ran for nine seasons on The CW and is one of the most popular shows in the network’s “Arrowverse.”
- Network
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The CW
- Writers
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Andrew Kreisberg
, Greg Berlanti
, Geoff Johns - Directors
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David McWhirter
, Stefan Pleszczynski - Showrunner
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Eric Wallace
The Flash ran for a total of nine seasons before closing out the Arrowverse with a bang. During that time, Barry Allen developed the ability to run fast enough that he could break through the time barrier and, incidentally, created timelines in The Flash, but his actions had massive consequences. The time travel narrative appeared multiple times, as well as dimension hopping, but for the most part, the way the show picked up and resolved new storylines including these elements was satisfying and succinct, so as not to overshadow the rest of the show, while still remaining significant.
6
Doctor Who
1963 – Present
Doctor Who
Originally premiered in 1963, Doctor Who is a sci-fi series that follows a powerful being known as a Time Lord, referred to as the Doctor. Using an interdimensional time-traveling ship known as the TARDIS, the Doctor travels time and space with various companions as they solve multiple problems and help avert catastrophe as much as they almost cause it. Though the Doctor is always the same character, they experience regenerations, allowing them to be recast every few seasons as a unique immortal being with new personality traits.
- Network
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BBC
- Writers
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Mark Gatiss
, Toby Whithouse
, Neil Cross
, Steven Moffat
, Chris Chibnall
In a show specifically dealing with time and space travel, the Doctor and his companions have had many instances where they cross timelines and change the course of the past, present and future in Doctor Who. Fortunately, a show with time travel at its core is able to navigate and explore these themes and complex ideas with great skill. From crossing the void into another dimension where deceased loved ones are alive, to creating paradoxes and altering reality, Doctor Who has seen it all, and managed to keep things in order to avoid overly confusing the audience.
5
True Detective
2014 – Present
True Detective
In this anthology series, each season follows a different detective or set of detectives as they forced to confront some horrific truths about their town and themselves. No matter the setting and characters, each detective must unravel lies and clues to solve the chilling mysteries around them.
- Network
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HBO Max
- Streaming Service(s)
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Hulu
, HBO Max - Writers
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Nic Pizzolatto
- Directors
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Cary Fukunaga
- Showrunner
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Nic Pizzolatto
True Detective is an anthology crime drama series, meaning not every season has leaned into the multiple timelines narrative, but season 1 nailed it. Exploring a crime and its investigation across a 17-year window of time, the series masterfully linked moments from the present into the past and created incredible symmetry and intrigue. This also helped to enhance tension and excitement as a crime that had happened long ago was played out in visceral reality alongside the story being retold. This exploration of crime through time was thrilling and hopefully more of that same format will return in future seasons.
Related
10 Best Anthology TV Shows Of The 2020s, Ranked
Anthology shows have recently spiked in popularity with brilliant and unique series’ exploring several different narratives tied together by themes.
4
12 Monkeys
2015 – 2018
12 Monkeys
Follows the journey of a time traveler from the post-apocalyptic future who appears in present day on a mission to locate and eradicate the source of a deadly plague that will nearly destroy the human race.
12 Monkeys revolves around a world-ending apocalyptic virus that wiped out almost the entire human population in 2017. Cole, a survivor in 2043, is selected to return to 2015 and put a stop to the events leading up to the virus outbreak. The series explores multiple realities, as Cole successfully travels back in time, but as the show goes on to reveal, time marches on. Despite changes, and multiple trips to the past, the future continues to play out exactly as it always did, despite some minor changes to whom, and where, but when always comes true.
3
Community
2009 – 2015
Community
Created by Dan Harmon, Community is a comedy series that follows a study group at an unorthodox community college where zany antics occur daily. When disgraced lawyer Jeff Winger is forced to enroll in a local college to get a degree and reinstate himself, he gets roped in with fellow students from different backgrounds, races, religions, and ages and reluctantly forms a study group. Together, these lovable misfits will navigate their school lives in some nigh unbelievable situations as they all try to figure out where their futures lie.
- Network
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NBC
- Streaming Service(s)
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Hulu
, Netflix - Writers
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Dan Harmon
- Showrunner
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Dan Harmon
Community may not be an obvious choice for a show with multiple timelines, but in season 3, episode 4, “Remedial Chaos Theory,” multiple timelines are explored. When Jeff attempts to fool the study group into answering the door for the pizza guy with a six-sided dice that will mean he never has to answer the door, Abed reveals that this action will fracture the timeline. The episode explores multiple realities, but what is even more interesting is the darkest timeline born out of these events that returns later in the show to plague the group.
2
Fringe
2008 – 2013
Fringe
This sci-fi procedural follows the FBI’s secretive Fringe Division and its agents Olivia Dunham, Walter Bishop, and Peter Bishop. Together, they investigate cases regarding strange events that threaten society, including cases of parallel universes, human experimentation, and other strange phenomena.
- Streaming Service(s)
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Amazon Prime Video
- Writers
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Roberto Orci
, J.J. Abrams
, Alex Kurtzman - Directors
-
Jeff Pinkner
- Showrunner
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Jeff Pinkner
From the mind of J. J. Abrams, Fringe is an exciting sci-fi story about a fictional division of law enforcement dealing with fringe science. The story may appear to be a fairly straightforward crime drama with some sci-fi elements early on, but as the show progressed, and the reality of multiple timelines was exposed, the show became a lot more interesting. The series also uses color filters to indicate the location of the characters, with red, yellow and blue all indicating different realities or timelines playing out on screen.
1
Journeyman
2007
Journeyman
Journeyman is a 2007 Sci-Fi television series that was created by Kevin Falls for the NBC network. Starring Kevin McKidd, Gretchen Egolf, and Brian Howe, the series revolved around a man who mysteriously began jumping backward in time. It was up to him to help change the destinies of some people he came to know.
- Network
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NBC
- Streaming Service(s)
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Prime Video
Journeyman was only on air for one season before being canceled. However, the series was built on an intriguing premise with the main character, Dan Vasser, falling back in time to help people and change the course of their lives. The series saw Dan reconnect with his ex-fiancee who was assumed dead after a plane crash, but is also revealed to be a time traveler. The series had a lot of potential considering how well it was able to navigate time travel and shifting timelines in season 1, but unfortunately, it never got to play out in the present timeline.
