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Audiences have grown accustomed to dark visions of what could have been. Television alone has been bombarding the public with intriguing dramas that rewrite history, thus showing us the darker recesses of human behavior. Classics such as Sliders and Fringe or modern binge-worthy shows like Dark Matter and The Man in the High Castle make us thankful for our world and the choices we’ve made while horrifying us with glimpses into bleaker universes.
Even some of television’s most popular sitcoms have shown us what could have been, and while they might be trying to create laughs, they still have indirectly sent the odd shiver down the spines of viewers as well. Let’s take a look at some of the most hilarious, yet terrifying alternate realities in sitcoms.
Red Dwarf – “Parallel Universe”
Any fan of the immortal Red Dwarf will probably agree that, while it’s great that we’ve had the crew of Britain’s funniest spacecraft for a run that lasted over thirty years, the earlier episodes are often the best.
In the show’s sophomore season, the original Holly, played beautifully by the ever-dry Norman Lovett, invents a new propulsion engine he calls the “Holly Hop Drive” which he believes will get the Red Dwarf back to Earth in a flash. When Holly gets Lister (Craig Charles), Cat (Danny John-Jules), and the equally eternal smeg-head Rimmer (Chris Barrie) to test out the drive, they end up in an alternate universe where instead of a patriarchy, it is a gynocentric society.
While the two mirror universes are almost identical in every way, every man in the boys’ universe is now female, and our heroes end up meeting their female equivalent. Problem is, women in this universe act just like men do in theirs, they’re disgusting, belching brutes out for a quick shag. Rimmer’s opposite, Arlene (Suzanne Bertish) at one point, even tries using hypnosis to get into Rimmer’s holographic pants.
After a night of binge-drinking with his mirror self, Deb (Angela Bruce), Lister awakens to discover that in typical Lister fashion, he had a drunken one-night-stand. Problem is, in this universe, men are the ones who become pregnant, and sure enough, after a quick test, Rimmer laughs at Lister’s misfortune, proclaiming he’s “going to be an uncle.”
It’s a fantastic episode for chuckles, especially when Cat meets his counterpart, (which just so happens to be an evolved anthropomorphic Dog with no class), but like some of the more poignant episodes in the series, it’s a great examination of the more boorish behavior men are often guilty of.
Friends – “The One That Could Have Been”
As Millenials and Gen Z rediscover the Gen X classic (thank you Netflix), it’s fun to reexamine this beloved episode that shows what would happen to the titular group of friends if they all made different decisions in life.
Naturally, the show needs conflict, so as the audience sees how each of our six favorite New Yorkers lives have changed, clearly it’s not going to be for the better. Ross (David Schwimmer) is still married to Carol (Jane Sibbett), and she never declares that she is gay. Monica (Courteney Cox) never loses the weight she once had, and becomes codependent. Chandler (Matthew Perry) pursues a career as a writer, but becomes Joey’s assistant (Matt LeBlanc), who still works on Days of our Lives. Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) marries Barry and is extremely unhappy, while Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) becomes a stockbroker.
Parts of the alternate reality don’t make a lot of sense. Phoebe suddenly being a career driven woman and such a workaholic she gives herself a heart attack is a complete 180 from what made Phoebe great. Granted, she is shown to be just as “flighty” as she is in the home reality of the show. When it comes to her job performance, Phoebe eventually loses millions for the firm she works for and then tries to shrug off being fired. But as much as that might have been a miss, the other characters are a fun look at what could have been. The writers took one simple concept that was already established in the show and went left instead of right.
It’s a great examination of some of the friends’ most toxic traits and how they made their dark alternate reality lives almost unlivable. Joey’s ego makes him insufferable. Rachel never matures as she never learns to become independent and work for what she wants. Ross never learns to follow his heart, which may get him into trouble in the real timeline, but often leads to some of the best things in his life. In short, their job’s a joke, they’re broke, or their love-life’s D.O.A., that kind of thing.
The Big Bang Theory – “The Cooper Extraction”
Some couch-critics who don’t enjoy the phenomenon known as The Big Bang Theory might think, like his cohorts in the show, that the absence of Dr. Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) is a dream come true. No longer would anyone have to endure his sense of entitlement, rude behavior, or air of superiority. In this holiday-themed episode inspired by the premise of the Christmas-classic It’s a Wonderful Life, Sheldon’s friends imagine how their life would be different if he were never born.
Like the aforementioned Friends episode, “The Cooper Extraction” is a little inconsistent. Every vignette doesn’t necessarily prove that Sheldon is absolutely necessary. One snippet, for instance, shows that Howard (Simon Helberg) and Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) would not have ended up together because Howard and hetero lifemate, Raj (Kunal Nayyar) act perhaps a bit too much like a couple out in public. That has nothing to do with Sheldon, so the concept doesn’t always land.
In the more successful snippets however, the episode shows how without Sheldon, Leonard (Johnny Galecki) would have never moved into the apartment across from Penny (Kaley Cuoco) and therefore their love would have never bloomed. It also shows that in this reality, Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik) and her romance with Sheldon never gets to blossom (pun intended) and Amy is seen devastatingly alone and heartbroken. It was a sickly-sweet way of showing that as much as their relationship might be a struggle, it also is one of the hearts of the Big Bang TV universe.
Malcolm in the Middle – “If Boys Were Girls”
Much like the alternate reality of Red Dwarf, this episode of Malcolm in the Middle is a great examination of gender roles. A pregnant Lois (Jane Kaczmarek) wants nothing more than to take her three youngest boys shopping, but like many who have tried to take a teenaged or prepubescent son shopping, Lois realizes she’d have better luck herding feral cats.
To escape the stress of four sons and being the only woman in her family, Lois imagines a world where her fortunes (or the chromosomes of her children) were reversed. The fantasy starts out beautifully, as the girls all can’t wait to have a day with mom at the mall. They agreeably plan out what stores they’re going to go to, and when they’ll have a frozen yogurt break, but of course, the entire episode can’t be bereft of comedic tension.
Eventually Lois learns that, while boys might be foul odor emitting unruly animals who take mom for granted, the Wilkerson daughters are certainly capable of making mistakes that would terrify any mom. The girls eventually degrade into stereotypically catty behavior, revealing each other’s darkest secrets in a relentless barrage. It teaches Lois a lesson that being a boy-Mom might not be easy, but with girls come all new formidable challenges.
3rd Rock from the Sun – “Dick’ll Take Manhattan”
This is a great two-part episode that uses the sci-fi premise of this much overlooked sitcom. Out of sheer boredom (which might be a meta comment from the writers that they wanted to switch things up in this, the sixth season) Dick (John Lithgow) and the Solomons use their advanced alien technology to jump realities to a version of New York where they all live the high life.
The cast of this show, mainly the Solomon family – Sally (Kristen Johnston), Harry (French Stewart) and Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt – are strong comedic characters, making this episode a fun opportunity to play a slightly different version of their aliens-next-door. Also, like many multi-camera sitcoms, there was a tendency to stay in only a handful of locations (network sitcoms rarely try to challenge the audience, despite mentioning a few in this list that do). This meant we could see our favorite aliens in the Big Apple rather than the fictional, more rural town of Rutherford Ohio
“Dick’ll Take Manhattan” is a great reminder of why audiences fell in love with these characters. We don’t want to see them as successful egotistical lawyers, or hot-shot television executives, we adore these people because they remind us of what it is to be an everyday human, despite them not actually being human.
Community – “Remedial Chaos Theory”
This is not only one of the best episodes of one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, but this writer will boldly claim it is one of the greatest half hours of television ever created. In a series that constantly redefined the sitcom narrative format (as creator Dan Harmon has often done), this half hour has more twists, turns, and laughs than some shows have in an entire season. This comedy was constantly attempting and succeeding to be a challenge to the network TV formula. (Which is perhaps why the show was canceled about three times, as NBC never knew what to do with it). Yet, this episode was so critically acclaimed, it received both an Emmy and Hugo award nomination.
Community season 3 is already one of its most memorable, but in this concept episode, the gang all come together for the housewarming of new roommates Abed (Danny Pudi) and Troy (Donald Glover). When they sit down to play a rousing game of Yahtzee, they’re suddenly interrupted by a pizza delivery guy buzzing to get into the apartment. Since no one wants to go down and grab the pies, Jeff (Joel McHale) devises a plan – he’ll roll a single die, and whoever’s number comes up, has to go. Abed warns Jeff that this specific instance is now creating six different timelines, but Jeff simply shrugs it off.
The rest of the episode is a series of shifts showing what happens when one member is missing from the party for a few minutes, most of them, sadly, ending in some sort of massive conflict within the group. One of the vignettes even coins a fan favorite concept from the show in “The Darkest Timeline.” In that specific timeline, the apartment sets on fire, Pierce (Chevy Chase) is accidentally shot, and the group descends into turmoil and tragedy. In the aftermath (as the show would occasionally revisit the darkest timeline) we see that Pierce died, Annie (Alison Brie) went insane from guilt, and Jeff lost an arm in the fire. Worst of all…? Britta (Gillian Jacobs) got a blue streak in her hair. Things got dark.
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