#parallel dimension

Caitlin’s picks

Caitlin has finally returned to the recording booth just in time for our chat on alternate universes… begging the question: “Do we have the right universe’s Caitlin?” Judging by her taste in shows and movies, this sure sounds like her. We already know from our post-apocalyptic blogpost from the other week that she has an affinity for Fallout if only because the Ghoul is so fuckable. But it’s also a fascinatingly depicted alternate history in which society as we know it split from our reality after World War II with advances in nuclear technology that led to the Great War of 2077. You could also qualify Toontown in Who Framed Roger Rabbit as an alternate reality that somehow coexists with our own, with its own absurd laws of physics that only make sense if you’re a cartoon character. It’s so clever, perfectly filmed and edited, and hilarious that we are all too glad to bring it up! And here’s some more love for toons: specifically, the Futurama episode “The Farnsworth Parabox,” in which the Planet Express crew is forced to partner with their counterparts from a reality in which coinflips have the exact opposite outcome, which is just such a smart joke!

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Chris’s picks

Caitlin may have brought up the Fallout television series twice now, so it’s only fitting for Chris to bring up the Fallout videogame franchise again as well. It makes for a good alternate history for some of the same reasons that it makes for a good overall post apocalypse story: its rich backstory, some solid worldbuilding that gets more intricate the more you play, and a unique aesthetic that sets it apart from other first-person shooters. In all mediums, Watchmen is a fascinating depiction of an alternate history in which the intervention of superheroes impacted past events in significant ways that spill out across time. What starts as an inquiry into superhero culture really expands into more scrutiny on the more inevitable elements of human nature, as tends to happen in these alternate versions of the world. Chris also wants to make sure he mentions The Super Mario Bros Super Show, a half–live action, half-cartoon television series in which the human-portrayed versions of Mario and Luigi access a warp pipe and enter the Mushroom Kingdom where they have the kind of zany adventures you’d expect out of that universe.

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Jake’s picks

We’re big Ronald D. Moore fans here on the podcast. While his Deep Space Nine episodes are great and Battlestar Galactica really upped the bar for serialized storytelling in science fiction, it’s his ongoing series For All Mankind that truly impresses. The domino effect of historical changes that would spiral out if the Soviets had landed on the moon first really makes for a thought-provoking concept meticulously crafted by a great mind like Moore’s. The television series Fringe starts off as your typical paranormal investigation show, but when they get into their more serial storyline that crosses into a nearby dimension, that’s when things get truly interesting. The story and the characters really get their chance to shine when confronted with the “what if” of it all. And here’s yet another Philip K. Dick adaptation for the screen on one of our lists! We’ve already talked Bladerunner and Total Recall a little, and The Man in the High Castle is another imaginative world for today’s writers to really dig into. An alternate history in which the Axis powers won World War II has just so many themes to mine and so many connections to make to modern politics.

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Ames’s picks

But wait, we’re not done praising For All Mankind yet! I really can’t wait for future seasons of this show because it’s nearly flawlessly done. The effects are spot on, the acting of all the interestingly constructed characters is excellent, and the pacing of each time period’s season is how serialized television really ought to be done. You can find a sort of similar alt-history flavor in the Lady Astronaut novel series by Mary Robinette Kowal, which diverges from actual history in the 1950s with a meteor strike that accelerates the space program because the planet will inevitably become uninhabitable. It’s a race to the moon while also exploring universal constants like misogyny and racism and climate change denialists… so kind of For All Mankind meets Hidden Figures. Finally, if you’re not a big Emperor Georgiou fan in Discovery (we sure aren’t), you can get your “Michelle Yeoh in other dimensions” fix from the absolutely staggering Everything Everywhere All at Once. It’s nearly impossible to describe this Academy Award–winning cinematic marvel without it sounding like lunacy, but you just have to experience it in all its parallel dimension–hopping brilliance.

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