15 TV Shows That Predicted The Future

The best TV shows mirror our reality in some way. They may reframe it through science fiction and fantasy, or heighten certain characteristics to the point of parody, as in sitcoms or comedy sketch shows. No matter how fantastical the premises of these shows are, there has to be something real for audiences to latch on to. But what happens when TV reveals itself to be not a mirror, but a crystal ball?

That’s right, we’re talking about fictional TV plotlines that became reality. Within science fiction, these shows often created the future worlds they depicted, either by coincidence or through direct inspiration. In comedy, stories can be just as far-fetched as those in science fiction or fantasy, which is why it’s all the more surprising when they come to life. Put on your tinfoil hats, because it’s time to dig into 15 TV shows that predicted the future.

We haven’t officially crunched the numbers on this one, but by our estimate, no TV show has predicted the future as often as “The Simpsons.” The long-running comedy show, which premiered on Fox in 1989, frequently satirizes Western culture and the absurdities of the human condition, leading to hilarious, absurd gags and occasional dips into surrealism. But as outlandish as the show can be, it’s been spot-on many, many times about the state of our world.

To give you just a small sampling of the most unexpected “Simpsons” predictions that came true: murder hornets, the U.S. winning Olympic gold in curling, the mass of the God Particle, the construction of the Shard, Daenerys destroying King’s Landing on “Game of Thrones,” Bengt Holmstrom winning the Nobel Prize in economics, Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl halftime show, and of course the biggest of them all, Donald Trump becoming president. 

We don’t know how creator Matt Groening and his team have done it. Do they actually have a crystal ball? Do they just have their fingers more firmly on the pulse than the rest of us? Only Homer Simpson himself knows the answer.

Before 2020, many TV shows depicted pandemics that devastated the world in some way, including, of course, the ever-prophetic “The Simpsons.” But pandemics have occurred throughout history, and these stories don’t amount to a prediction of the future. However, more difficult to predict were the social behaviors that emerged during COVID-19 — sourdough baking, quarantine pet adoptions, Zoom parties, and the popularity of “Tiger King.”

In a Season 5 episode of “Supernatural” called “The End,” Dean (Jensen Ackles) travels into the future (2014, to be exact), confronting a world where everything is shut down, humans are infected with something called the Croatoan virus, and Sarah Palin is President. Close, but not quite what happened in our world. The most prophetic part of the episode concerns not COVID-19 itself, but a weird trend that emerged: stocking up on toilet paper. In one scene, Chuck (Rob Benedict) warns Dean to “hoard toilet paper […] like it’s made of gold.” How did he know?

You may have forgotten about “The Lone Gunmen,” a spin-off of “The X-Files” that aired only 13 episodes before it was canceled. The show follows three characters from “The X-Files” whom Mulder (David Duchovny) often turns to for help: conspiracy theory experts Ringo Langly (Dean Haglund), Melvin Frohike (Tom Braidwood), and John Fitzgerald Byers (Bruce Harwood). It’s a shame the show isn’t better remembered, because co-creator Vince Gilligan considers it some of his best work, and it features one of the most eye-popping TV predictions we’ve ever seen.

In the pilot episode of “The Lone Gunmen,” cheekily called “Pilot,” the guys uncover a nefarious plan to crash a plane into the World Trade Center. This attack would give the U.S. government justification to go after its enemies abroad, but the trio eventually stops the plot before it can be carried out. The episode aired on March 4, 2001, mere months before the real 9/11 occurred. Speaking with the Television Academy, co-creator Frank Spotnitz revealed that on the morning of September 11, he thought, “Oh, my God, did they watch our show? Did they get this idea from us?”

On May 10, 2012, “Person of Interest” aired an episode called “No Good Deed.” In it, Henry Peck (Jacob Pitts), an NSA analyst, discovers that his employer is illegally surveilling the American public. Young and idealistic, Peck takes this information to a journalist, which puts a target on his back. Finch (Michael Emerson) and Reese (Jim Caviezel) have the difficult task of protecting him from the government assassins who want him dead.

On June 9, 2013, Edward Snowden revealed himself as the whistleblower behind the NSA leaks, which exposed a system of mass surveillance quite similar to what Peck uncovered in “Person of Interest.” What began as a dystopian science fiction story became reality far quicker than anyone imagined. As Amanda Segel, a writer and producer on the show, told The New Yorker, the team came in to work that morning having read about Snowden, confronted with the idea that their story was no longer fiction.

In his groundbreaking interview with The Guardian, Snowden spoke of “this massive surveillance machine [the U.S. government is] secretly building.” Before Snowden’s revelations, the “Person of Interest” writers made that machine a reality — on screen, that is.

One of Donald Trump’s most incendiary campaign promises during the 2016 election was his plan to build a wall between the United States and Mexico to keep immigrants from crossing the border. As it turns out, that wasn’t exactly an original idea.

In the fourth season of “Arrested Development,” which aired in 2013, Lucille (Jessica Walter) and George Bluth Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor) come up with an idea to construct a border wall between the two countries. They bribe politician Herbert Love (Terry Crews) into throwing his support behind the project so their company can reap the rewards. Even this aspect of the plot mirrors real life — the company hired to build Trump’s wall was endorsed by the president himself. “The wall was my idea, it was,” Jessica Walter joked in an interview with SiriusXM.

In Season 5, the show leaned into these parallels, as Portia de Rossi’s Lindsay Bluth Fünke becomes a Trump-like political figure. “It’s like the more offensive it is, the more people are behind her,” says her daughter Maeby (Alia Shawkat). At the end of Season 5, Lucille and George take down the wall after realizing how easily it could be scaled with a rope.

“Quantum Leap,” which was rebooted in 2022, is a show about time travel, so we can’t be that surprised that it correctly predicted the future at least once. Scott Bakula plays Dr. Sam Beckett, a physicist who discovers that it’s possible to time travel within one’s own lifetime. Sam spends the series “leaping” through time, inhabiting different bodies as he travels and fixing various problems while he’s there.

In the episode “All-Americans,” which aired in 1990, Sam enters the body of a high school football star in the ’60s. Meanwhile, a hologram of his friend Al (Dean Stockwell) appears to Sam intermittently. In Al’s world, it’s 1996, which also happens to be the year of Super Bowl XXX. When Sam asks Al what he’s been doing, Al tells him he’s been watching Super Bowl XXX, and he’s rapt because “the Steelers are down by three.”

We bet you can guess where this is going. The Pittsburgh Steelers really did play in Super Bowl XXX, and even more surprisingly, they were down by three in a nail-biting fourth quarter, though they ultimately lost to the Dallas Cowboys.

“Legends of Chamberlain Heights” was never a particularly popular show. It aired on Comedy Central from 2016 to 2017 and follows three teenagers, Jamal, Milk, and Grover, who are the worst players on their basketball team but imagine themselves as local legends. In 2020, the show was in the news for a grim reason. In January of that year, basketball player Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and seven others died in a helicopter crash.

In the Season 1 episode “End of Days,” Kobe Bryant dies in a helicopter crash witnessed by the three protagonists. Following Bryant’s death, Comedy Central removed the episode from its website and from social media. “Out of respect for Kobe and his family we have removed the clip of him and ask that you please don’t share it,” the show’s creators wrote on X. The episode is still available to rent on Prime Video, but not on Apple TV.

In May of 2011, President Obama authorized Operation Neptune Spear, in which SEAL Team Six killed terrorist Osama Bin Laden in his hideout in Abbottabad. It took the U.S. government over a decade to find Bin Laden, though he was hiding in plain sight in Pakistan, which borders Afghanistan, the entire time.

Perhaps Obama should have asked an oddly prophetic janitor for his opinion. The beloved medical sitcom “Scrubs” features a janitor character played by Neil Flynn, who was originally intended to appear only in the pilot episode but eventually became an essential part of the show. The Janitor is known for tormenting J.D. (Zach Braff), but also offering occasional kernels of wisdom. 

In 2007, “Scrubs” aired a Season 6 episode called “His Story IV.” In one scene, the Janitor is discussing the Iraq War with colleagues at the hospital. “In my opinion, we should be looking for Bin Laden in Pakistan,” he says. What else does he know?

Not many people remember “Second Chance” (later called “Boys Will Be Boys”), a short-lived sitcom that ran for one season in 1987, but perhaps they should. Best known for being Matthew Perry’s first starring television role, “Second Chance” follows Charles Russell (Kiel Martin), a man who dies in 2011. He arrives at the palace of Saint Peter (Joseph Maher) in order to determine if he will be sent to heaven or hell. Saint Peter decides that he doesn’t belong in either place and sends him back to 1987 to relive his life as a teenager (played by Perry) and become a better person.

In the pilot episode, which takes place on July 29, 2011, the second person to be judged by Saint Peter is Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Obviously, Saint Peter sends him to hell, but not before Gaddafi tries to blow Saint Peter away with a machine gun. This means that “Second Chance,” which aired in 1987, predicted that Gaddafi would die in 2011 — and they were right. Though he died in October, not July, Gaddafi was killed by rebel forces that year during the Libyan Civil War.

“Laugh-In,” also known as “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” was a sketch comedy series that ran on NBC from 1968 to 1973. Hosted by Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, the show took inspiration from 1960s gatherings like “love-ins” and “be-ins,” aiming to fill an hour of television with nothing but laughter. One segment on the show was called “Laugh-In Looks at the News,” and featured Martin reporting on “News of the Present” and Rowan discussing “News of the Future” (in this case, 20 years in the future), as well as “News of the Past.”

In these segments, Rowan correctly predicted the future on two occasions. In one episode, he predicts that Ronald Reagan will be president in 1988, and is met with laughter from the studio audience. In another, he suggests that the Berlin Wall will fall in 1989 — and will be replaced by a moat of alligators. While that last part is not quite accurate, the predictions are strikingly prescient nonetheless.

Sports betting is all the rage these days, but what if you could determine the outcome of a sports match by watching your favorite TV show? If fans of “Parks and Recreation” had been paying attention, they could have made a lot of money. In the final season of the beloved sitcom, which aired in 2015 but is set in 2017, Tom (Aziz Ansari) and Andy (Chris Pratt) travel to Chicago to visit Lucy (Natalie Morales). Describing the vibe in the city, Lucy tells them, “Obviously, everyone’s in a really great mood now because of the Cubs winning the series.”

Fast forward a year, and the Chicago Cubs take home a World Series win in 2016, their first win in 108 years and their first World Series appearance since 1945. In response to the win, Morales posted a screenshot of the scene on Twitter and wrote, “There is a chance Lucy predicted the future.” When someone noted that the episode is set in 2017, she responded, “well she could be talking about 2016 :).”

Co-creator Mike Schur doesn’t want to take too much credit for the prediction, though. He told the Washington Post that he had been following the Cubs’ minor league system, and noted, “It’s not like I was the only person who thought the Cubs were going to be good.”

“Star Trek” is one of the most prolific and influential television shows of all time, and in many instances, its awe-inspiring visions of the future have come true. The franchise has spawned 12 major television series and just as many movies, exploring new facets of this future, spacefaring civilization. 

Which predictions became true? Cell phones are a big one. In the original “Star Trek” series, members of Starfleet used handheld communicators to contact one another and transmit their locations. Communicators served as early prototypes for modern-day cell phones, and this connection isn’t incidental. “Star Trek” inspired Motorola engineer Martin Cooper to create the first cell phone.

Cell phones aren’t the only devices that “Star Trek” imagined before they became a reality. Other examples include the PADDs from “The Next Generation,” which look a lot like tablets and voice-activated computers, also found in “TNG”; medical tricorders, which function sort of like MRIs or CT scans; and replicators, which correlate with developments in 3-D printing technology. “Star Trek” is an interesting case of prophetic television because not only did the show predict the future, but it also helped create the future its writers imagined.

Many of the best “Black Mirror” episodes depict a dystopian future that doesn’t seem that far off from our increasingly terrifying present. But the first episode of “Black Mirror” isn’t really a techno-dystopian story — in fact, it’s bizarrely close to real life. In “The National Anthem,” Rory Kinnear plays British Prime Minister Michael Callow. When a member of the Royal Family is kidnapped, Callow is forced to have sex with a pig on live television to release the captured princess.

“Black Mirror” creator Charlie Brooker thought it was a reasonably unbelievable plot for an episode, until a political scandal proved him wrong. As reported in The Guardian, Lord Ashcroft’s biography of former PM David Cameron includes a revelation that Cameron “‘inserted a private part of his anatomy’ into the mouth of a dead pig during an initiation ceremony while he was studying at Oxford.” This revelation threw Brooker for a loop. “I did genuinely for a moment wonder if reality was a simulation, whether it exists only to trick me,” he shared.

Considering its outsized influence on pop culture, you might be surprised to learn that “The Jetsons,” one of the best shows set in the future, only ran for a single season, from 1963 to 1964. For those who grew up watching it in the 1960s, or during reruns in the following years, “The Jetsons” was synonymous with the future. But how much did the iconic show actually predict correctly? Quite a lot, it turns out.

Sure, we don’t have flying cars (though we do have self-driving ones) or jetpacks, but we do have tech like FaceTime and Skype, which the show depicts as videophones. The show also featured smartwatches decades before they became commercially available. What about smart homes? That was a big part of the show, too, and now it’s become a reality with voice-activated lights, smart fridges, smart thermostats, and all sorts of other home tech. We may not have Rosie the robotic housekeeper, but we do have Roombas. Flat-screen TVs were another “Jetsons” creation, as were moving sidewalks, now an airport staple.

In 2016, “The Young Pope” creator Paolo Sorrentino predicted the future in a major way, as the central premise of his series came true nine years later. Jude Law plays New York City cardinal Lenny Belardo, who becomes the pope as part of a compromise vote by the cardinals. Taking the name Pius XIII, the young pope shakes things up at the Vatican, reinstating archaic rules and behaving in ways that frighten his Catholic colleagues.

In 2025, Pope Leo XIV became the first American pope, just like Jude Law’s character in the HBO series. Though not quite as young as his fictional counterpart (who is 47 on the show), Pope Leo XIV, at 69, is several years younger than the last two popes were when elected. Pope Leo is generally considered a moderate pope, and upon his election, the Italian media reported his down-to-earth interests, which include playing tennis, swimming in Lake Michigan, and eating fried chicken. No word on whether Pope Leo shares Pius XIII’s fondness for the song “Sexy and I Know It.”