Who Watches the Watchers - Forum for the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe & Similar Works / Oh, My Prophetic Soul: TV Version

**Posted by Andy E. Nystrom** 12/06/2020 8:50 am

This thread (and I plan to start up similar threads for movies and comics) are devoted to works of fiction correctly predicting the future in some manner. For the below, the format I use is:
[Show title] [Season/Series number].[Episode number] ([Episode date])

Doctor Who (original series) 1.1 (Nov 23, 1963): Students laugh at Susan Foreman because being from the future she forgot that British coins were not yet decimal. As it turns out, Susan was off my less than a decade so her confusion was understandable; the switchover to decimal happened in February 1971.

Son of the Beach 1.1 (Mar. 14, 2000): Notch shows his unit a photo of Osama bin Laden and tells them they'd better keep an eye out for him. Notch clearly had good intel because, of course, bin Laden instigated the 9-11 attacks in 2001.

Last edited by Andy E. Nystrom (12/06/2020 10:11 am)

**Posted by Loki** 12/06/2020 9:35 am

Doctor Who (original series) In 1975's Terror of the Zygons, set an unspecified few years ahead of the broadcast date, the Brigadier answers a phone call from the British Prime Minister with "Hello Ma'am." At the time of broadcast Britain had never had a female Prime Minister. Four years later Margaret Thatcher became the first.

**Posted by Loki** 12/06/2020 9:36 am

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:
This thread (and I plan to start up similar threads for movies and comics) are devoted to works of fiction correctly predicting the future in some manner. For the below, the format I use is:
[Show title] [Season/Series number].[Episode number] ([Episode date])

Doctor Who (original series) 1.1 (Nov 23, 1969): Students laugh at Susan Foreman because being from the future she forgot that British coins were not yet decimal. As it turns out, Susan wasn't that far off; the switchover to decimal happened in February 1971.

Son of the Beach 1.1 (Mar. 14, 2000): Notch shows his unit a photo of Osama bin Laden and tells them they'd better keep an eye out for him. Notch clearly had good intel because, of course, bin Laden instigated the 9-11 attacks in 2001.

The first Doctor Who story, where Susan predicated decimal coins, was broadcast in 1963, not 1969 - so way more prophetic.

**Posted by Andy E. Nystrom** 12/06/2020 10:21 am

I corrected the Doctor Who bit in the first post. That female British Prime Minister bit reminded me of this:

In 24 episode 1.1 (Nov 6, 2001), we see a black US senator run for President. In episode 2.1 (Oct 29, 2002), we learn he was successful. In 2008, a black US senator made a successful bid for presidency, the first in US history. Exact years are not given on the series so maybe this isn't a prediction in the ordinary sense, but it shows the writers certainly conceived this as a possibility.

**Posted by Andy E. Nystrom** 2/10/2023 6:15 pm

Saw this mentioned on Twitter:
The Doctor Who storyline The Tenth Planet from 1966 had as a crucial plot point everyone on an American spaceship dying in 1986. Sadly the Challenger disaster did in fact happen.