While I finish up a rewrite on “Brother’s keeper” I am starting a new TV series. In it a number of people are switched in a parallel universe. (Can’t believe I’m goin’ sci fi here) They are identical character with different qualities.

Example -
Bob, Joe, Bill are in universe A.

They switch with

With Brad, Mike and Phil who are identical (same actors) but different lives.

How do I write these characters after the switch.

i.e. Bob and Brad are the same (just random names now.)

After the switch is Bob written as Brad or BOB/BRAD which would make Brad BRAD/BOB

Really confused.  Any help.

Do you know of any movies that deal with this type of thing? If so, definitely try to look up those scripts. Lol.

Anyway, I would say keep Brad/bob and also mention in the script as a character description that brad from before goes by bob now.

For instance:

Character: bob!

BOB raises his head. Bob is identical to brad from before but goes by a different name, bob.

End of example.

Execution is going to be very important here. It’s going to be a mix of telling/showing.

Hope this helps
Gabe

First, kudos for not going the "everything is so identical that everyone even has the same names" route.

Second, I would introduce some terminology fairly early through exposition and use that in your introductions.

Perhaps an ALTERNATE is a virtually identical person from a different Universe while a NEAR-ALTERNATE is merely similar (maybe swapped gender) and a ROLE-ALTERNATE is a completely different person with an eerily-similar history (the replacement for someone whose alternate died in a car crash).

Of course, shade all of that to the needs of your story, then you can use it as shorthand in your character intros.

BOB (27) is Brad's ALTERNATE. The only observable difference is that Bob's facial scar is slightly lower on his cheek.