History AlternateHistory / LiveActionTV

** The entire franchise itself runs off as one, having history diverge during the 1990s due to the introduction of augmented superhumans [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke that subsequently decide to take over the planet, viewing themselves as the new evolution in humanity]]. Humanity is plunged into a second "Dark Ages" due to the Eugenics War, humans recover to create a much different society (which included giving up on helping the poor and homeless and stuffing them into homeless districts) and then WorldWarThree occurs, going nuclear to the point that more people die than in any other previous conflict. The last event proved to be the final straw that got humanity to finally wake up to their problems, and worked to rebuild from there, leading to the franchise taking its current form.

* ''Series/TheWestWing'', like ''House of Cards'' and ''Political Animals'', has this in the background. The last real-life President who is identified is UsefulNotes/RichardNixon, and the US election rotation is two years off from what it is in the actual world (i.e. President Bartlet was first elected in 1998 and ran for re-election in 2002, instead of 1996 and 2000 respectively).

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* In ''Series/QuantumLeap'', it's not clear from the start, but over time, ignoring both the effects of Sam's leaps and the TwentyYearsIntoTheFuture nature of the show's "present", it's soon made clear that the world the show takes place in isn't one-for-one the same as ours. For example, in Season 5 alone, it's not only revealed that Lee Harvey Oswald had killed both JFK ''and'' Jackie, but also that Marilyn Monroe committed suicide in ''1960''.

* ''Series/ForAllMankind'' is about a [[UsefulNotes/TheSpaceRace Space Race]] that becomes more intense after the Soviet Union manages to land a human on the Moon a month before Apollo 11.

* Implied in ''Series/ThirtyRock''. Events mirror the real world pretty closely (i.e. the Clinton, Bush and Obama presidencies), but there are some key differences, and the point of divergence appears to be around World War I. For instance, although the Austro-Hungarian Empire still fell, the Hapsburgs are apparently still in power as monarchs of both Austria and parts of what is modern Germany in our world, Transylvania is an independent country rather than part of a united Romania, and Kristen Chenowith was murdered in Yemen.

* ''Series/{{Hollywood}}'' is an idealistic fantasy in which a group of 1940s Hollywood players, wannabes and hustlers team up to make a film that ushers in a diverse, homophobia free Hollywood that frowns upon sexual harassment.

** The main ''Star Trek'' universe is already an alternate history compared to ours, with an incredibly devastating eugenic war taking place in the late '90s and at least 4 additional Voyager probes being launched by the end of the 20th century. Of course when ''[[Recap/StarTrekS1E22SpaceSeed Space Seed]]'' or ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' were shot, these points of divergence were still in the future.

* ''Series/ThePlotAgainstAmerica'': Like [[Literature/ThePlotAgainstAmerica the book]] upon which the miniseries is based, the divergence point is Charles Lindbergh running for president in 1940 and defeating Roosevelt to keep America out of World War 2.

* ''Series/Hollywood'' is an idealistic fantasy in which a group of 1940s Hollywood players, wannabes and hustlers team up to make a film that ushers in a diverse, homophobia free Hollywood that frowns upon sexual harassment.

** Promotional materials seem to suggest that in the Motherland universe, the American Civil War never happened, as Sarah Alder's likeness occupies the universe's equivalent of the Lincoln Memorial. She also seems to have displaced UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington in the Revolutionary war, as her visage occupies his place on Mount Rushmore, and she is depicted in his place in Emanuel Leutze's "Crossing the Delaware" painting.

* ''Series/MotherlandFortSalem'': The series has Salem witches being real, who made a pact with Massachusetts Colony to fight on their behalf in exchange for ending persecution of them. It carried over into the US, until in modern times the Army has witch soldiers fighting the country's battles.

* ''Series/TheHandmaidsTale'': The first episode shows the birth rate had plummeted in 2015 to catastrophic levels. While the US birth rate has fallen, it's still only slightly below replacement levels. (And in the real world, this is more due to societal changes where people ''choose'' to have children later, or not at all, rather than having [[SterilityPlague pollution cause an epidemic of miscarriages and stillbirths]], although the former was blamed as well.) This explains the "present day" being not far in the future after this. [[spoiler: It is later shown that June gave birth to Nichole in 2017, when the TV series began. She also says her previous child Hannah was taken away five years before, setting the coup which led to Gilead in around 2012.]]

** ''Series/HouseOfCardsUK'' does something similar, with the events of the series kicking off after Margaret Thatcher resigns from office several years before she did in reality.

* A minor one, but according to WordOfGod ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' takes place in a universe where George A. Romero's ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' was never made. As a result, zombies never became a pop-culture phenomenon, which is the main reason why the zombies in the series [[NotUsingTheZWord are never called zombies]].

* A minor one, but according to WordOfGod ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' takes place in a universe where George A. Romero's ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' was never made. As a result, zombies never became a pop-culture phenomenon, which is the main reason why the zombies in the series [[NotUsingThe"Z"Word are never called zombies]].

** The series is pretty much about alternate histories in practice, they are just super subtle about it. Over the years, many incompatible histories and futures are shown from adventure to adventure. [[WordOfGod Showrunner Steven Moffat has outright SAID]] that [[SeriesContinuityError continuity errors]] aren't continuity errors, we just haven't seen the episode where the Doctor's traveled back in time to change history.

* In the 2006 BBC adaptation of the short story "Literature/RandomQuest" by Creator/JohnWyndham, the PointOfDivergence between Colin Trafford's universe and the AlternateUniverse to which he is sent was the Berlin Wall never falling due to the fact that there was no ''glasnost'' and ''perestroika'', which implies that Mikhail Gorbachev never became the leader of the Soviet Union. As a result, the Cold War continued to intensify until the United States and the Soviet Union's power dwindled and both were eclipsed by the People's Republic of China. In 2005, Japan discovered significant oil deposits in the South Pacific and its threatening behaviour towards the Philippines and Indonesia over the course of the last 18 months has placed it on the verge of war with the US. The UK is suffering a severe drought with reservoirs throughout Southeast England and Wales being dry for months. This leads to the declaration of a state of emergency. The Western world is experiencing a severe fertility crisis which is expected to worsen over the course of the next ten years. Consequently, the United Nations Security Council has lifted its ban on human cloning and the first viable human clone has been already been born to a couple in San Francisco. In contrast to the 1971 film adaptation ''Quest for Love'', the space programme in the parallel universe is more advanced than in Colin's universe. There has already been a manned mission to Mars. In 2005, in a joint operation between NASA and the Chinese National Space Administration called the Juno mission, an unmanned Jupiter polar explorer was launched from Cape Canaveral. It took fifteen months to reach Jupiter.