History ItsAWonderfulPlot / LiveActionTV

* ''Series/XenaWarriorPrincess'': An episode of Season 2 has a variation of sorts, wherein Xena accidentally wishes to the fates that she had never become a warrior and done all the horrible things that haunt her with guilt now. In a partial subversion, for most of the episode Xena actually ''prefers'' this alternate universe -- even after the fact that she never stood for her village gave a chance for three notorious warlords to join forces and Gabrielle was enslaved by them (she still intends to find a way to stop them, to her it's just like any other problem she's run into). The only thing that finally convinces Xena not to stay in this universe is [[spoiler: Gabrielle accidentally stabbing a man, thus getting blood on her hands]].

* The final episode of ''Series/{{Dallas}}'' showed what the world was like without J.R. Ewing. In some cases, it's worse: Without J.R., Gary would have driven Ewing Oil into the ground, which killed their parents earlier. Jason (the brother who would have existed without J.R.) then sold Southfork to become a housing development. Bobby would be a bitter and divorced gambler, Ray ekes out a poor living as a ranch hand (having never discovered he was Jock's son) and Cally is arrested for shooting her abusive husband. However, some folks are [[BetterIfNotBornPlot better off]]: Sue Ellen is sober and a successful actress; Kristin is still alive (albeit a con artist); and J.R.'s mortal enemy Cliff Barnes is happily married with good kids and about to become President of the United States. It had a twist ending, [[spoiler:that implies that J.R. shot himself in the end, though [[ReunionShow reunion movie]] retcons that.]]

* With some mild parody, ''Series/NightCourt'' had Judge Harry Stone led through a "Wonderful Life" vision by his guardian angel, Herb. Subverted somewhat when Herb (assuming the image of Mel Torme) admits that the reason the vision was in black and white was not (as Harry suggested) because his absence took color out of the world, but nothing more than an artistic device meant to cater to Harry's love of FilmNoir and that Harry needed to get over himself. In addition to the requisite ForWantOfANail changes (sleazeball lawyer Dan Fielding becomes a truly diabolical villain without Harry's friendship), there were a few random changes. For instance, in the FilmNoir AlternateUniverse, Jack the Speakeasy Owner has no sense of taste, whereas in the main universe Jack the Shopkeep is blind.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'''s season 3 episode "The Wish" did a Wonderful Life variant, in that Cordelia wishes that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale. In this reality, Cordelia doesn't manage to come to an {{Aesop}}-style revelation, because she is killed half-way through the episode before Giles manages to reverse Cordelia's wish, turning the rest of the episode into a ForWantOfANail situation.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': The seventh season episode "[[Recap/CastleS7E6TheTimeOfOurLives The Time of Our Lives]]" covers this plot. Thanks to an Incan artifact that the Killer of the Week was trying to steal (or [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane maybe]] ItWasAllADream) Castle finds himself in an alternate reality where he and Beckett never met. [[spoiler: In this reality, his star faded after the Derrick Storm novels ended because he never created Nikki Heat, and he never outgrew his Casanova phase. Martha is now supporting him and Alexis is now a goth who regards her dad with mild contempt. Meanwhile Beckett is now a police captain, but she never solved her mother's murder and long ago learned to compromise her principles. She also admits to Castle that she is chafing behind the captain's desk and wants to be a detective again. Once reality is restored, Castle, realizing how he and Beckett complete each other, convinces Beckett to marry him that evening in an intimate family-only ceremony.]]

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'' features an alternate reality in the third-season episode "Birthday". A demon gives Cordelia the chance to enter a world in which she does not have the prophetic visions, which after three years are near the point of killing her. In this parallel world, Cordy has become the rich and successful actress she always wanted to be - but the sight of a one-armed Wesley, and an Angel driven insane from getting the visions in Cordy's stead, quickly convince her to go back to the real world (though changed to become part demonic so she can survive the visions).

* An episode of ''Series/{{Providence}}'', aptly titled "It's a Wonderful Providence", involves Sidney's mother's ghost showing her what her life would've been like had she not moved back to Providence after her mother's death.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Tapestry", Q shows Captain Picard what he would've become had he not gotten into the bar fight as a cadet that gave him his artificial heart. Needless to say, he wasn't the same lovable stoic badass we remember. Can you say, Lieutenant j.g. Picard? As Q explains it, without his near-death experience, Picard never realised how fragile life was, and thus never pushed himself as far as he did in canon, playing it safe and never standing out so that he would actually accomplish anything. Although, oddly enough, [[InSpiteOfANail everything else seemed to remain exactly the same]], except for the unseen Captain Thomas Halloway being in command of the Enterprise. Though that was fulfilling Picard's request when he first took up Q on the offer: ''only'' Picard could be affected by the change.
* Invoked in the ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "Non Sequitur"; Harry Kim falls through a rift to a parallel universe where he never joined ''Voyager'', but while almost everything else is the same apart from his best friend being the one who was lost in the Delta Quadrant as he and Harry essentially got each other's posts, another key difference is that Tom Paris was never on the ship as he got into a bar fight with Quark, instead of saving Harry from being conned by the aforementioned Ferengi as he did in canon, and the man who would be ''Voyager'''s chief pilot is now a lonely drunk living in Sandrine's.

** If you take this theory of the episode "What Is And What Should Never Be", then things tend to get a bit vicious. Tracking a djinn, Dean makes a wish the boys' mother had never died. He finds himself in a world where Mary lived, John never became a hunter, Dean is a baseball star and Sam happily engaged. Dean is happy at first... until he reads how the various people the Winchesters saved over the years all died. He talks Sam into tracking the djinn down but then finds that this is not alternate world; rather the djinn puts his victims into a dream where their wish comes true and feeds off them. ItMakesSenseInContext but the message to Dean is "Be thankful for all your abuse and parentification because without it, you would be worthless with no good qualities." Ouch. And also subverted in the fact that it's pretty clear at the end of the episode that Dean would have rather stayed and, in the next episode, things go even more to hell and his mental state gets worse.
** Season 4's "It's a Terrible Life" showed that even if the boys weren't Winchesters, they'd still end up as hunters somehow, which is pretty awful when you think about it. [[spoiler:Zachariah]] serves as their Clarence-figure, [[spoiler:disguised as Dean's boss]].
** An alternate reality without the Winchesters plays a key role in the events of the Season 12 finale "All Along the Watchtower" (and features in some Season 13 eps), when the Winchesters, lost for a better solution to defeat the released Lucifer, trap him in a rift that leads to a post-apocalyptic world where their mother never made a deal to save their father from death in 1973, with the result that Michael and Lucifer found other vessels to wage their war in.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': The seventh season episode "[[Recap/CastleS7E6TheTimeOfOurLives The Time of Our Lives]]" covers this plot. Thanks to an Incan artifact that the Killer of the Week was trying to steal (or [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane maybe]] ItWasAllADream) Castle finds himself in an alternate reality where he and Beckett never met. [[spoiler: In this reality, his star faded after the Derrick Storm novels ended because he never created Nikki Heat, and he never outgrew his Casanova phase. Martha is now supporting him and Alexis is now a goth who regards her dad with mild contempt. Meanwhile Beckett is now a police captain, but she never solved her mother's murder and long ago learned to compromise her principles. She also admits to Castle that she is chafing behind the captain's desk and wants to be a detective again. Once reality is restored, Castle, realizing how he and Beckett complete each other, [[TheyDo convinces Beckett to marry him that evening]] in an intimate family-only ceremony.]]

* ''Series/NineOneOne.'' In the episode "In Another Life," Buck ends up in a coma after getting struck by lightning and has a dream where he's shown what his life would be like if he never became a firefighter. On the plus side, Buck is a teacher who is adored by all his students, his parents are much happier, and his brother Daniel is alive. And a doctor. But on the negative side, Maddie is still married to her abusive husband Doug, Eddie lost custody of Christopher, and Bobby is ''dead''.

* ''Series/NineOneOne.'' In the episode "In Another Life," Buck ends up in a coma after getting struck by lightning and has a dream where he's shown what his life would be like if he never became a firefighter. On the plus side, Buck is a teacher who is adored by all his students, his parents are much happier, and his brother Daniel is alive. And a doctor. But on the negative side, Maddie is still married to her abusive husband Doug, Eddie lost custody to Christopher, and Bobby is ''dead''.