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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46439
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46439
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I can think of a TV example where the timelines are _not_ synchronous and it was a big part of the surprise at the end of S1.

On _Westworld,_ you have human-identical androids (called "hosts") who are not sentient. The androids' attempts to become sentient is part of the season's arc. One host, Dolores, spends a lot of time with one thirtysomething human (called a "guest" because Westworld is a theme park), William. In a separate part of the park there's a different sixty-something human just called The Man in Black. TMIB attacks Dolores at one point. He goes around attacking a lot of hosts, because he's searching for something. He's apparently played the park a lot and now just wants to get to the end.

At the end of each game round, the hosts are brought back to HQ and their memories are wiped... supposedly. Whatever kindness or brutality they have experienced, they aren't supposed to remember it.

Dolores gets flashes of memories from previous game rounds. She tries to go to one section of the park where there should be a church, but it's an empty lot.

We find out near the end of S1

> that TMIB is William in the present. William and Dolores's storyline happened thirty years prior. Dolores, being an android, never ages, so SHE doesn't look thirty years older. The two arcs are about the same character, William, but in two different times.

I thought it worked quite well for a twist, but other viewers' experiences varied.

Original score: 3