Charlie Jade Predicted the Multiverse Craze 20 Years Before Marvel — Then Vanished After One Season

These days, movies are still fascinated with the concept of “multiverses.” It’s safe to say that Marvel brought the idea back into the spotlight, after the success of the cultural juggernaut that is the MCU. Two decades ago, however, multiverses were something you mostly saw in comic books and niche sci-fi projects – and Charlie Jade was definitely one of the best niche sci-fi projects ever released.

Created by Chris Roland and Robert Wertheimer, Charlie Jade was a gritty sci-fi series about multiple realities coming together – or, to be more precise, about multiple versions of Cape Town across time and space. The show had it all: a captivating premise, amazing cinematography, and it also used its location perfectly, truly immersing the viewer into its gritty world. Unfortunately, distribution woes and budgetary constraints resulted in audiences never knowing whatever happened to Charlie Jade after the show’s first season.

But it wasn’t just the budget that ultimately caused its downfall. When the Sci-Fi Channel premiered Charlie Jade in the US on June 6, 2008 (three years after it debuted in Canada), the network removed it from primetime after just two episodes. It moved to a much later time slot, which almost guaranteed that it would never find a big enough American audience to get a second season greenlit.

A Cape Town Dystopia Four Years Before District 9

Charlie Jade took a few notes from The Matrix when it came time to create its own dystopian future. In Charlie Jade’s future, he’s a detective working in a Cape Town segregated by classes and a world dominated by five multinational companies. After an accident with an artificially-created wormhole, Charlie finds himself trapped in the “Betaverse,” which is our present-day (in 2005) Cape Town.

From the start, Charlie Jade distanced itself from other sci-fi dystopias with its unique setting. Remember, this is 2005 we’re talking about – four years before Neil Blomkamp’s District 9 and its dystopian take on Joburg. More than anything else, the show proved that South Africa could be the perfect landscape for sci-fi.

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Green, Blue, Red: How Charlie Jade Color-Coded Its Three Universes

Keeping track of different multiverses in a show like Charlie Jade should be easy for the viewer. Roland and Wertheimer understood that you should be able to tell if the characters were in the Alphaverse or the Betaverse at first glance. They came up with a clever and simple solution: each universe is color coded differently.

Just like The Matrix, the futuristic and oppressive Alphaverse has green hues, while the Betaverse keeps things blue and cool. On the other hand, the idyllic Gammaverse uses red and earthly colors to emphasize its warm, inviting aura. If you saw a color that deviated from these norms, you immediately knew the characters had jumped to a new, unsettling universe, and that only made the show even more entertaining.

Charlie Jade was never properly “canceled” as most unsuccessful shows are. It ran through its 20-episode run, concluded Season One’s storyline, and then was never picked up for a second season. In 2009, a 15-page PDF was uploaded to the official Charlie Jade website; it contains the roadmap for what Season 2 would have been like, and also includes expanded information on the lore and the world of Charlie Jade.

For those who want to know how the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma conflict was supposed to end, Wertheimer wrote “An Insider’s Guide To Alternative Realities” – and it’s still available to read online today.

Unlike other short-lived shows like the doomed Earth 2, the 20-episode first season of Charlie Jade is still available for streaming on Prime Video and Netflix. With its engaging plot and its influence as one of the first sci-fi projects co-produced in South Africa, Charlie Jade remains a fascinating time capsule. If any show deserved a second chance with a modern audience, this would be it.

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