Next up is the hit 60's show I Dream of Jeannie, in which a 2,000 year old genie serves a strangely unremarkable man called Tony with an outrageous day job (astronaut) in 1960's surburbia before eventually, and rather disappointingly, settling down to become his housewife. But, before her retreat into mediocrity, she managed to fit in some downtime with her evil twin weirdly also called Jeannie. The main difference between them? Evil Jeannie wears green rather than pink, which is definitely an indication of pure evil. While both the Jeannies are troublesome in their own way, evil Jeannie is memorable for being more seductive, causing a lot of confusion in the episode 'My Sister, The Homewrecker', when everyone mistakenly thinks that good Jeannie is cheating on Tony due to evil Jeannie's antics. Awkward.
9. Fringe
If you're a writer for a sci-fi show, and you want to throw in an evil twin here or there, what plot device do you go with to explain it? Parallel universes of course. Fringe is my favourite pseudo-science show, and following in the footsteps of its fore-bearers, 'Fringe' goes for the parallel universe explanation to throw in the 'evil twin' trope. It's up for the debate if the Alternate Universe alter-egos of the main characters of Fringe are corrupt. The most memorable evil-twin moments in Fringe are the ones that highlight what Walter could have been in another dimension - cold and calculating. The major arc of series three is the exploration of the twin trope, with Walter and Olivia's twins dubbed Walternate and Fauxlivia. Walternate is a pretty nasty character, and after a couple of tragic mistaken identity incidents, chaos ensues.
8. Shameless
Some evil twins serve as 'foils' - a character whose traits complete contrast with the traits of other key characters, in order to highlight the failings/strengths of the corresponding character. Shameless has a good example of a twin serving as a foil, with a variation of the evil twin as a good twin, to correspond with the character Paddy Maguire. Paddy is a homophobic violent gangster - who just happens to have a well spoken, well intentioned, gay identical twin brother called Noel, who sticks around for just one episode, but who is memorable nonetheless for being Paddy's complete opposite.
