20 times TV shows accurately predicted the future

Parks and Recreation’s final season, which aired in 2015, jumped a couple of years into the future, and in one episode, set in Chicago, a character said that all the locals were in a good mood thanks to the Cubs winning the World Series. The Cubs ended their wildly long World Series drought in 2016. 

A 1990 episode of Quantum Leap predicted the exact details of Super Bowl XXX. In the series, the game featured the Steelers and the Cowboys, with the Steelers down by three points in the fourth quarter, which is what happened in real life. 

At this point, it seems like The Simpsons is as good a primary historical source as any. The animated series has predicted much about the future of America, including, most notably, that Donald Trump would become president. 

Seriously, The Simpsons has predicted so much about American life that it’s almost hard to believe. Another wild prediction they made was an underwater submersible emergency while searching for a sunken ship. The details of the episode weren’t too far off from what actually happened years later with the OceanGate submersible implosion. 

Family Guy hasn’t been quite as prescient as The Simpsons, but it hasn’t been running as long. After former vice president Dick Cheney’s hunting accident, Family Guy eerily predicted that he would fatally shoot some prominent conservatives while on a hunting excursion. The episode didn't get everything right, but former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia did die at a hunting lodge (of natural causes). 

Star Trek: The Next Generation predicted the next generation in various ways. Among their correct predictions were flat-screen TVs, automatic doors, and the moon landing. 

In the fourth season of Arrested Development, George and Lucille uncovered that Stan Sitwell had plans to build a wall at the border of the United States and Mexico. As we all know, some other politicians had that same plan, and portions of the wall have since been built. 

Brooklyn Nine-Nine predicted its own saving. In a season four episode, the fictional precinct was in danger of being shut down, but it was saved by online citizens rallying in its support. Just years later, the show itself was cancelled by Fox, but when its fans showed their support, NBC picked it up to air for a little while longer. 

Many unhinged things have happened on Black Mirror, including a prime minister having sexual relations with a pig. A few years after that episode aired, a news story made the rounds claiming that former Prime Minister David Cameron had done something similar with swine while in college. 

Another episode of Black Mirror centered on social media playing a significant role in how people perceive their self-worth. Not long after it aired, the world started reckoning with that exact issue. 

A 2007 episode of Scrubs featured the hospital’s janitor voicing his opinion that the United States needed to be looking for Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. Just four years later, the terrorist was found and killed in that exact country. 

In one episode of Friends, Ross shared that he had joined an online website that allowed him to connect with his college friends. Just one year later, Facebook, which started as a platform for college students to connect, hit the internet.

One episode of 30 Rock had Jenna Maroney pinning some unsavory behavior on Harvey Weinstein. Years later, he was blackballed from Hollywood amid the #MeToo movement. While other shows alluded to issues of the sort happening in Tinsel Town, none of them called out Weinstein like 30 Rock. 

The Young Pope was a limited series starring Jude Law as the eponymous young pope — the first to ever hail from the United States. Nearly 10 years later, the world witnessed the conclave elect Pope Leo XIV, the first to hail from the United States. 

Supernatural also somewhat predicted the pandemic. An episode of the series from 2009 showed Dean living in the future where the entire globe was affected by a deadly virus. 

Some predictions have been absolutely heartbreaking to see come true. The animated series Legends of Chamberlain Heights , which only aired for two seasons in the mid-2010s, had an episode that featured Kobe Bryant dying in a helicopter crash, which tragically happened in 2020. 

The Lone Gunmen, a spin-off of The X-Files, aired an episode in March of 2001 where a plan to crash a plane into the World Trade Center was uncovered. Months later, 9/11 happened. 

In the pilot episode of The Chris Rock Show, the comedian joked that he had a video of O.J. Simpson called "I Didn't Kill My Wife, But If I Did Here's How I'd Do It." Years later, Simpson actually released a book titled If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer. 

We're not too far off from living inside The Jetsons. Some of the animated show's accurate predictions include smartwatches, Roombas, and drones. 

Mr. Robot predicted the future in some terrifying ways. Most notably, it predicted the hacking of the American democratic system, which has been a theme in multiple recent presidential elections.