Suggestions on Alternate History TV/Films

[DarthTom]

The 50th anniversary of JFK's murder got me thinking - are their any good alternate history TV/Films that you can recommend?

The HBO production, "Fatherland," comes to mind in a what-if scenario had Germany not been defeated and the Normandy invasion had failed. But also looking for others.

 

[Mistral]

There was a season of FRINGE that was very alt hist. And the Paltrow movie Sliding Doors. Plus Sliders(tv). Alt hist is very hard to do on tv/movies, especially in America, because the audience has to know something ABOUT history in order to get what/why things are different. And that, my friend, just doesn't happen enough around here to justify a sustainable audience.

 

[DS9forever]

C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America is a mockumentary of a timeline where the Confederacy won the American Civil War.

 

[stj]

There's an interesting Joseph Gordon-Levitt film, Uncertainty.

In TV, there's the alt-history fantasy Kings.

I've forgotten if anyone else thought part of Six Feet Under was an alternate life where the hero didn't die from his first AVM rupture.

 

[James Cole]

Shot in South Africa Canadian series Charlie Jade, which is kinda a cyberpunk Fringe.

 

[Mistral]

Shot in South Africa Canadian series Charlie Jade, which is kinda a cyberpunk Fringe.

Tough to get into-but it just kept getting better...

 

[Goji]

After revisiting the first two seasons of Sliders recently I was surprised at how well they've held up. Go beyond that at your peril, though.

 

[T'Girl]

Opinion might vary as to whether it's alternate history, The West Wing.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Technically, Watchmen, District 9, and Inglourious Basterds all qualify.

Back to the Future II also features an alternate timeline.

 

[Harvey]

There's an interesting Joseph Gordon-Levitt film, Uncertainty.

Sounds like an interesting riff on the same set-up for the movie Run Lola Run.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The best Alternate History stories for tend to be books not on film or tv. A lot more room to explore things.

Man in the High Castle and Years of Rice and Salt are a couple of good ones.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Opinion might vary as to whether it's alternate history, The West Wing.

Since there never was a real president named Jed Bartlet, then logically it must be.

(As I learned in my previous thread, the timelines apparently diverge after Nixon's fall. In our timeline, Ford filled out the rest of the Nixon term - only two years, then Carter was elected. In the WW universe, there was a special election, and a new four-year term with a fictional president began in '74 - thus putting all WW election years offset from our own by 2.)

Oh, and one more vote for Charlie Jade.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I looked up uncertainty on IMDB.

A young couple, in love and facing a life-changing decision, find one seemingly ordinary July 4th cleaved in two by the flip of a coin on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Doesn't that sound like the coin somehow bisected each of them into two pieces of meat?

I suppose if the coin was hot, or spinning quite quickly, or it was flipped on the top the Empire state building and they were standing on the foot path below?

 

[Pavonis]

A young couple, in love and facing a life-changing decision, find one seemingly ordinary July 4th cleaved in two by the flip of a coin on the Brooklyn Bridge.

No. It sounds like the day was cleaved in two by the coin. I don't see how you can read "cleaved" as referring back to the "young couple". Some sentences are ambiguous, but I can't get my mind to read it that way.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I see that now.

Bah!

Just started Outpost 11.

Alternate 1950s, half way through the the second Hundred Year War where everything, not that I've seen the tech yet, is steampunk.

Could be good, could be shit. I guess I'll find out in an hour and a half.

 

[Fist McStrongpunch]

Fido seems to take place in an alternate 1950s in a timeline that had a zombie apocalypse instead of World War I.

 

[stj]

The movie Uncertainty alternates between the different chains of events consequent to the coin toss. The two histories are fairly easily distinguished by the protagonists' clothing. Since one timeline is a thriller plot, the movie's structure implicitly compares adventure stories to realistic narratives. "Realistic" here means "following the narrative conventions of drama that shares the methods and/or goals of those previous dramas labeled 'realistic.'"
Since it's implicit you can easily ignore this aspect.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Outpost 11 sucked.