Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome / Live-Action TV

• In the Angel episode "Birthday", Cordelia is no longer a talentless, out-of-work actress, but the star of her own hit sitcom Cordy! The Hyperion Hotel also gets a face lift in this story: rather than an abandoned wreck, it's glamorous and still in use.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer had "Superstar" where a B-list nerd character was suddenly propelled to the show's main hero, even dominating the opening credits sequence. According to Xander, Jonathan is a polymath scientist/athlete/singer/military commander who was responsible for killing the show's Big Bad, had the lead role in The Matrix, and led an Olympic sports team to victory. The episode is plastered with Jonathan-related merch (with Giles secretly owning the swimsuit calendar). Turns out Jonathan cast a spell to alter the whole town's memories.
• In the revived Doctor Who, Rose's dad Pete, was known for his attempts at half-baked get-rich-quick schemes in her native timeline before he ended up passing on. However, in an alternate timeline, we find out that had he survived, he would've become very rich and successful showing that Pete was smarter than he appeared. While she does not exist in that timeline, he named their dog "Rose". Furthermore, it doesn't take long for him to somewhat adopt her as the daughter he never had the chance to had.
  • Additionally, in "Pete’s World" (as the Doctor takes to calling it) Rose’s Butt-Monkey boyfriend Mickey is the leader of an anti-Cyberman resistance, and he goes by "Ricky". After Ricky is killed, Micky ends up taking his place in Pete’s World as the leader, finishing off his Took a Level in Badass arc
• The Flash (2014), in the Flashpoint timeline, Cisco Ramon is a tech billionaire, who owns Ramon Labs (formerly S.T.A.R. Labs) and takes his private helicopter to work every day.
• Fringe gives a classic example with Walternate, who is the alternate universe's Secretary of Defense, inventor of many of the alternate universe's incredibly advanced technologies and one of the most highly-respected scientists on the planet. Compare with the prime universe Walter, who is a literal Mad Scientist, spends most of his time cloistered in his lab or seeking out snack foods and doesn't do much beyond help Fringe Division solve cases.
• Hercules: The Legendary Journeys: "Stranger in a Strange World" deals with a mirror universe. Hercules' counterpart, the Sovereign, rules the world with an iron fist. Aphrodite, normally a spoiled Valley Girl, is Queen of the Gods. Joxer, normally a bumbling Non-Action Guy, is a tough Rebel Leader against the Sovereign.
• Heroes: Season 3 features characters from an alternate future where a formula can give superpowers to anyone who wants them. But future Peter claims that superpowered people end up destroying the world so this future has to be prevented.
• Legends of Tomorrow, as strange as it seems, Eobard Thawne gets this treatment in "Doomworld", where he is hailed as a savior of the world's ecology (including the polar bears and the ice caps). To be fair, he is smart enough to do all that, but he's usually obsessed with either fighting the Flash or trying to avoid being killed by the Black Flash in order to use his genius for the good of all.
• On Lois & Clark, Lois was taken to an alternate timeline where Clark married the priggish Lana Lang, thus being forbidden to save anyone. While life in the alt-U.S. is pretty lousy, Jimmy Olsen is now publisher of the Daily Planet, and Perry White is a Mayoral candidate.
• Misfits: One episode has the public finding out that superpowered people exist. The most famous one is a girl called Daisy who can heal anything. After a guy who can control milk starts killing everybody, Curtis rewinds time back to the start of the episode. Daisy is never mentioned again and we don't know if the public knows about superhumans.
• Red Dwarf:
  • Arnold Rimmer is a small-minded, egotistic, controlling, anal-retentive Jerkass who's disliked by everyone around him and terrible at his job. However, it's revealed that in a parallel universe where he suffered a Break the Haughty moment early on, he managed to turn things around and become "Ace" Rimmer, daredevil test pilot and Comically Invincible Hero who fights Nazis, but remains a Humble Hero throughout it all.
  • Lister's counterpart in Ace's universe is a successful flight engineer who is married to Kochanski with two kids.
  • The episode "Skipper" shows Rimmer visiting a universe where the crew of the Red Dwarf are still alive (himself included) and he's finally achieved the promotion of his dreams. Lister also happens to be the new captain of the ship and extremely wealthy, and the thought of Lister being more successful than him drives Rimmer to skip out of this universe.
• Smallville, has a number of alternate universes, all radically different from the main one.
  • Lexmas: To put it simply, Lex Luthor is the ultimate Nice Guy.
  • Pandora: Chloe Sullivan is the head of La Résistance, a Memetic Badass who killed Tess with an offhand shot. She is also rude and distrustful towards Clark.
  • Luthor: Clark Luthor, a.k.a. Ultraman, kills anyone who sees his face and reinforces the Luthors' reign of terror.
• Played with in Stargate Atlantis, when an Alternate Universe Rodney McKay ("Rod") who is friendly and personable, yet every bit as intelligent as the local Rodney McKay comes over, and Rodney starts feeling majorly inadequate. Sheppard gets a bit of this too, since Rod says that his counterpart is a member of Mensa (though he's also apparently a smug Jerkass), although, to be fair, this Sheppard is just as smart (he mentioned to have taken and passed the Mensa test). However, Rod later reveals that he's actually the one who is jealous of local Rodney: he puts up a front all the time in order to be liked, but this universe's Rodney speaks his mind yet still has genuine friends who like him in spite of his faults.
• Inverted in an episode of Stargate SG-1, where a civilian contractor Samantha Carter from a world being invaded by the Goa'uld feels this way about "our" Major Carter. In another episode, Sam accidentally ends up in yet another parallel world, where her double's ex-husband Rodney McKay is a tech billionaire (although, at the end of the episode, he's strong-armed by the government into taking over his ex-wife's research).
• Star Trek's mirror universe is generally populated by complete boobs, especially the evil versions of the heroes, who aren't markedly smarter or more successful than their counterparts. Even Garak, who is still a high-ranking spy in this reality, is reduced to the universe's chew toy (even being kept on a chain leash by Regent Worf!) However, special mention goes to Intendent Kira on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, who not only runs an entire planet, but gives orders to the Klingons and Cardassians as well.
  • There's also the mentioned Regent Worf, who runs not just an entire planet, but an entire Empire. Until he gets captured and becomes a prisoner of the Terran Rebellion, at that point lead by another example — O'Brien, who has risen to lead the Rebellion in the wake of Sisko's death.
  • Hoshi Sato: in the normal universe the linguist and communications officer of the NX-01. In the Mirror Universe: seductive Femme Fatale, and ultimately Empress of the Terran Empire!. The cast joked that the Mirror Universe “brought out the ho in Hoshi”.
  • Inverted with Archer, whose Evil Counterpart reads the historical 23rd century notes on his Prime universe double double (from the time-shifted USS Defiant, the one from TOS) and scoffs at a mere diplomat being regarded as a great man, who was instrumental in founding the Federation. In his mind, only conquerors are great men, then he starts having hallucinations of his counterpart mocking him for having never risen above second officer, revealing that mirror Archer is in fact deeply troubled over his Federation self's greater importance.
  • In the second season of Star Trek: Picard, an alternate timeline human supremacist empire called the "Confederation Of Earth" has annihilated & conquered the other major powers apart from the Vulcans. This includes having exterminated the Borg in local space.
    • The Vulcans are the only major power left unconquered, somehow managing to survive when the Klingons, Borg, Cardassians and Romulans were wiped out.
• Xena: Warrior Princess: "When Fates Collide" is where Julius Caesar manages to escape the Underworld and change history so he was never assassinated. Among the changes is that Xena is his wife and Empress of Rome, Gabrielle is an award-winning writer whose works are turned into plays, and Joxer is a tough and disciplined Roman soldier.

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