From soap opera twists to procedural mysteries, twins are often used as a plot device on television. As a twin, I find myself often annoyed by these portrayals, but sometimes, the writers get it right. This is the thread devoted to discussing the good and the bad of TV twins.

So, to get things started, what were some of the more realistic shows that dealt with twins? I thought Nip/Tuck did a fantastic job in the episode about the conjoined girls.

L&O (i think it was SVU) did an interesting episode where the twins were identical but due to a botched circumcision one was raised as a girl (and told they were fraternal).

Okay...not high on realism....

Wait, what? Wouldn't the "female" twin notice s/he wasn't a girl when breasts and menstruation failed come a-knockin?

That's actually a true story.

David Reimer

Jesus. I can't even imagine what that would have been like.

The X-Files had quite a few episodes where one or both of a set of twins were evil. Perhaps the most notable was where the evil twin was just a misshapen mass of cells that somehow gained sentience and the ability to separate itself from its brother's body. I've seen a few posts on that board from twins who were unhappy about how often the show went to that well.

One of the lesser eps of Homicide:Life on the Street was when they had a killer driving up to Baltimore, and they arrest him, only to find out it was his twin brother who really did it.

Rules for TV Twins:
Male identical twins- The evil one has a goatee (See Knight Rider)
Female identical twins- Will sleep with each other's boyfriends (See any soap ever made)
Female fraternal twins- The quiet and studious one will be brunette and the dumb and slutty one will be blonde. (See Twins)
Male-Female twins- Will move to Beverly Hills from Minnesota and get into all sorts of trouble until the female one goes to England and is never heard from again.

Do chimera's count? Both House and CSI: Original Recipe had episodes last year about chimerism. That is the condition where two separately fertilized eggs, which should develop as fraternal twins, somehow merge and form one human being. In television land this rare phenomenom seems to happen more often than in real life, and the resulting human being is always evil or crazy.

It's funny that this thread started today, because my girlfriend and I were just talking last night about how both Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie and Samantha from Bewitched had twins (both characters played by the same actress, of course). We couldn't remember the name of Jeannie's twin, but my girlfriend found the answer online: Jeannie. Samantha's twin was named Serena. Both Jeannie II and Serena were troublemakers, if not outright evil.

Wasn't that a L&O crossover, where the "good twin" was the bad guy?

But Serena belies the blonde=bad girl and brunette=good girl hypothesis.

The weirdest of all still may be "identical cousins" Cathy and Patty Lane.

On Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the family secret was that everyone in the family had an evil twin. Sabrina has to compete with her twin to see which is the evil one. Her evil twin gets sent away, but would show up occasionally to cause trouble.

Or how about the fact that every TV show really hits home the fact that the two are, in fact, twins by having the actors dress in the same clothes.

Speaking of soaps, All My Children has Adam and Stuart, played by the wonderful David Canary. Yes, there are many of the conventions mentioned in this thread, but DC does such a wonderful job making the characters different and not just evil twin/good twin. Case in point: During the storyline where a gay teacher was in Pine Valley, Stuart, who was Forrest Gump years before the book was writren, much less the movie, unintentionally embarrasses his teen-aged adopted son by bringing him his lunch to school. Scott, the son, reacts badly and Stuart is deeply hurt by it. Adam talks to Scott and explains about Stuart's situation and also encourages him to support the teacher.

Cool topic.

I'm a twin, and I'm one of those grumpy people who complains about the evil twins in The X-Files and on lots of (especially sci-fi) shows.

I don't think I've ever seen a show or even a movie where the twins were relatively normal people who happened to be born on the same day from the same mother. At very least, something terribly traumatizing has to happen to one or both of them.

I think the most disturbing "twin thing" I've ever seen on TV was that Cold Case episode where the little girl twins have an abusive father, and the mother tries to run away with them, and the father catches up. He threw one of the girls off a bridge while her sister and mother watched. My whole family was sobbing. I can't watch that show anymore.

In spite of the fact that "All My Children" has played a kind of roulette with the character of Stuart [he's a psychotic killer who Adam keeps in the attic to save him from prison/psychiatric confinement! no, he's severely retarded and never killed anyone! no, he's just simple and good natured! He's really the good twin and Adam is the evil twin! he's a floor wax! he's a dessert topping!] that David Canary does an amazing job in the dual role, and especially at conveying the deep and loving bond between the twins. Even when Adam is being portrayed as 'evil', it is never questioned that he truly loves Stuart and does all he can to help his brother, even if said help is often misguided. Canary has four Emmy Awards for his work on AMC and is up for another this year and as far as I'm concerned deserves them all and more.

There's one thing that sets David Canary's AMC work as Adam & Stuart apart for me. AMC has often had Stuart pretend to be Adam, or Adam pretend to be Stuart, as most twin storylines do - but David Canary makes those scenes work better than anyone I've seen. DC is able to subtly convey to the audience that it is indeed Stuart pretending to be Adam (or vice versa), while believably convincing the other characters in the scene otherwise. There's no need for wardrobe, music, dialogue or voice-over cues - DC always manages to slip in one of the many traits he's made a part of each separate character, in order to tip the audience off. It's a trick I've seen other actors attempt, but DC pulls it off better than anyone I've seen. I fully agree - his awards, past and future, are all well-deserved.

Actually my girlfriend informs me that Jeannie and Jeannie II were also cousins rather than siblings, although they were both played by Barbara Eden.

Samantha Stephens and Serena were also identical cousins. Seems it was a theme in the 60s.

I'm a twin, so this topic is interesting to me. However, my favorite TV twins will always be the one-dimensional Sherri and Terri from The Simpsons. They're just so MEAN.

The one time I ever thought the evil-twin scenario worked on soaps was Derek and Ben on Sunset Beach during the "Island Killer" storyline, but that may have been because I was in sixth grade.

The 90's too. They did it with A Different World (Whitley), and with Martin (Pam).

I HATE episodes set up like that.

I think my favorite set of twins are the Mowry sisters from "Sister, Sister".

I like them too. I didn't care for Sister Sister, but one of them, I think Tia, did a great job as a regular on Strong Medicine, and Tamera guested once....Kayla's sister who was either a junkie or mentally ill and off her meds...very strong performance. Kayla was a little too much on the perfect side, but still a very good job in the role.

Unfortunately "creepy" twins - and creepy children are still an effective plot device, so don't expect them to disappear anytime soon

One thing about the portrayal of identical twins is how, if they are not interchangeable, they have to be so different in order for viewers to tell them apart. One will be good while the other is evil, One will be on the straight and narrow while the other is in the dumps. One is uptight while the other is a rebellious free spirit. They cannot have some similarities outside of accent or parentage. The one possible exception that I can think of off of the bat is that movie with Kim Raver where the child of one of her characters dies...but I did not watch that movie all of the way through, so I am not sure how that turned out.

Does reality television do this too? I have watched a few episodes of Jon and Kate + 8, and the fraternal twins come across as very different. One is relatively quiet, sporty, responsible, and rarely prone to outbursts; the other is obnoxious, devious, uncooperative, domineering, and a little violent towards her little siblings.

(snip)

There was just a Twin plot line on Medium just this week where Miguel Ferrar played "good" and "bad" twins. The good, living twin could be inhabited by the dead, evil twin and the bad one could make the good one do bad things. Make sense yet?

There was also a show a long time ago called Double Trouble with Katey Segal's (from Married with Children) real twin sisters. One of course was quieter and more reserved while the other was more outgoing and a fashion student. It was a cute show.

So true. That drives me nuts! Like, have writers ever even met a set of twins before? If they have, they should know that twins are never exactly alike or totally different. 99% of the twins I've ever met fall somewhere in the middle. I guess the other 1% are all on TV.

My secret shame--which is probably a different thread--is the TV movie, Deceptions. Twin Trash! Barry Bostwick in all his wooden glory! Jeremy Brett totally slumming! Brenda Freakin' Vaccaro! Gina Lollobrigida for Christ's sake!

More shame--I think Stefanie Powers did a really good job of creating two personalities and working with the twist of the 'good' twin turning out to be the bad, and the 'bad' twin saving the day. Although I must admit I can't see how you can have a truly happy ending when you're taking over the life of your dead twin.

So, instead of just, you know, hiring a set of actual twins, do TPTB have the one actor play both to be cheap? Or for the wacky hijinks of trying to have one person play both people at the same time? Or both?

edited for clarity

We just lost one of the Hager twins from "Hee Haw"...Jim, I think. This could go in the Bad TV Movie thread, but they did a TV-movie or pilot or something in the late 70's called "Twin Detectives".

Also, weren't Alf and Ralph Monroe on "Green Acres" twins?

Days of Our Lives had two sets of twin actresses in Deidre Hall and Andrea Hall Lovell (later Gengler) and Corey and Carey Moore. Both did the good twin/bad twin scenarios to a degree.

How in the world did this get all the way to the third page with no mention of Mary Kate and Ashley?

I don't know where your girlfriend got her information, but she's wrong. Jeannie and Jeannie II were sisters. Jeannie always addressed Jeannie II as "Sister," not "Cousin," and Jeannie II also always addressed Jeannie that way. In fact, in the first episode where Jeannie II makes her appearance, she sets her sights on Major Nelson, and the two sisters eventually have a genies' duel over him, which he tries to stop by reminding them that they are sisters (and then, of course, he hilariously ends up being the "victim" of their duel!)

Oh, and just to add another layer to Jeannie/Jeannie II? Barbara Eden also played their mother in one episode.

She said that she got the information from IDreamofJeannie.com, but when I look there under "Characters" it shows that Jeannie II was Jeannie's sister. And Wikipedia confirms this, as well as Barbara Eden playing her own mother:

Because they didn't play twins on TV, and the rest of us would like to forget them.

Though I saw a picture of Ashley the other day, and I was surprised to see that she's starting to look like a normal young woman. Too bad her sister still looks like a hot mess.

Okay, my sister (who's of the age to have been into the Olsen twins when they were in their heyday) said they did some other TV stuff. I'm going to make the statement that the only reason those shows/movies/specials were made was to make money off the fact that they are twins.

Let the "thanks for the info Mrs. Obvious" replies begin.

They didn't play twins on Full House, but they did in the couple of other shows. Jean and Liz Sagal were the twins on Double Trouble. I liked them, the adhering to stereotype aside.

I realized I forgot to mention a use of twins on TV I've actually liked: the episode of Buffy where Xander gets split into two. I think it's awesome that neither was evil, and they really were just two aspects of his personality. I also think it must have been incredibly fun for Nicholas Brendon to act onscreen with his twin (for them both to have real parts).

There were a few episodes of Xena in which there were multiples or look a likes of Xena. There was Princess Diana, Meg, and the Hestian Priestess Leah. TPTB never specified whether these multiples were supposed to be Xena's identical cousin--they just appeared randomly.

And what about Sister, Sister and Sweet Valley High? While SS didn't have an "evil" twin, arguably, Jessica Wakefield had more evil tendencies than Elizabeth (though, she got on my nerves with her passive aggressive ways).

"With my good looks and your ability to look like me, we're unstoppable!" That is really sad that I still remember that quote! But adding to the topic, they were also played by real-life twins (Brittany and Eve Daniel) as opposed to one actor doubling.

I thought Brittany Daniel's twin's name was Cynthia? If it wasn't, my mistake.

(snip)

Amazingly enough, it's true that biologically, they are fraternal, rather than identical, twins. It's just a cosmic coincidence that they so closely resemble each other that they can pass for identical twins.

I never believed that they were fraternal and not identical - I know they went around saying it in interviews (in answer to the obvious questions) but we only have their word and I just never believed them. To continue to look this much alike as adults is too far fetched (except for the previously mentioned hot mess, which is environmental, not biological).
I think at some point a business decision was made that it would be better financially to have two discernibly different products to sell, rather than two exactly identical products.

Ellen Wheeler was very good at one-twin-impersonating-the-other as Marley and Victoria on Another World back in the 1980's. Marley was fairly normal and well-adjusted back then and Victoria was sullen and needy and heavily-made-up. Vicky impersonated Marley more often than Marley impersonated Vicky, but I was always impressed with how distinct the characters were even within the impersonation. Anne Heche played Vicky with verve after her, but her Marley was not as well-rounded.

I saw all three actresses who played Marley/Victoria at different points on "AW", and while I thought Anne Heche was justifiably acclaimed for her work, I agree that she was better at Vicky than at Marley, as was Jensen Buchanan later on. To me, only Ellen Wheeler was able to convey the complexity of both sisters at any given time.

I agree that Marley was an afterthought post Wheeler. Ironocally, Wheeler played another set of twins, though not concurrently, on AMC. Her Cindy Parker married Stuart Chandler in a story involving a woman with AIDS finding true love. The Scott mentioned in my earlier post was her son from an earlier marriage whom Stuart adopted. Her twin came to town after her death, but didn't stay long.

Oh she really does. Ashley looks pretty good but MK looks demented, and what is with that fetal cling?

I actually watched AW when Anne Heche was on it, and thought her work was unbeliievably good. I didn't like Ellen Wheeler?

(snip)

I'm only about half-a-year older than Mary Kate and Ashley, so I did grow up with them...

They played twins on Two of Kind, which lasted for one season, and on this ABC-Family show called So Little Time, which also lasted for one season but also netted one of them a Daytime Emmy nod for favorite kid show performer or something.

On So Little Time, I remember Chloe and Riley being pretty similar, for the most part, and they didn't go overboard with trying to make them different.

I'm in their age range too (23) and I definitely watched both of these shows (those I favored So Little Time). In both shows, they weren't trying to play drastically different teams, as you mentioned---they pretty much only had different interests.