Life After Life (TV series)

During the Second World War, Ursula Todd discusses what she would do if she had her time again with her brother Teddy. In 1910, she is stillborn due to a lack of medical assistance, but the birth repeats with a doctor able to intervene, and Ursula survives. Similar situations take place as she gets older, with Ursula drowning on a trip to the seaside and falling to her death out of a window, but avoiding those fates when events play out slightly differently after reincarnations. Whilst broadly enjoying a happy and comfortable upbringing, this cycle of death and rebirth appears to make her a deeply anxious child who frequently dreams about dying. During the First World War, Ursula's father decides to enlist in the army, which upsets her mother; he tells his wife he wants to fight for what he believes in, but she suspects he is looking for adventure. The pair seem to reconcile by the time he leaves but lose contact soon after. The war takes a toll on the family, but Ursula's mother does her best to keep the children happy. At the end of the conflict, the family maid Bridget's attendance at a victory celebration in London brings Spanish Flu into the household. Events play out differently in ways that lead to the death of Ursula, along with (in later cases) one and then two of her siblings (on three occasions). Living through the experience on a fourth occasion, Ursula pushes Bridget down the stairs to prevent her going to the celebration, provoking the bewildered anger of her mother. Ursula's father arrives home to the delight of his family. The narrative returns to an adult Ursula's conversation from the start of episode. She dances with Teddy before he leaves for service in the Royal Air Force.

In the years after the First World War, Ursula continues to suffer from mental health problems, leading to her parents sending her to see a psychiatrist in London. She is looked after by her aunt Izzie whilst in London. She dies when her aunt crashes her car, but avoids that fate after reincarnating. Ursula becomes happier as she gets older and eventually stops her visits. On her 16th birthday, her older brother Maurice brings his friends from Oxford University to visit. Ursula is attracted to an American student, Howie, and they kiss in the garden. The next time Maurice's friends come to visit Howie rapes her and she becomes pregnant. She goes to ask Izzie for help, who takes her to get an abortion, a procedure she doesn't really understand. She develops blood poisoning and is taken to hospital, when her parents discover her whereabouts, but survives. Somewhat estranged from her mother and struggling with her experience, Ursula drops out of school and trains as a secretary. She finds a job before becoming a loner and alcoholic. Whilst sober, she meets Derek when he helps her pick up dropped groceries and the two quickly get married.

Ursula moves in with Derek, but finds married life difficult to get used to. Her new husband is cold towards her, accuses her of wasting money and assaults her because she has joined the tennis club, and appears to lie about having a sister. One day when she believes he is working at the school, the house is visited by representatives of the bank who say that he has lost his job for using excessive force on a pupil. The textbooks he claims to have written don't exist, and he is in large amounts of debt. She attempts to run away from the house and is severely beaten by Derek. She then escapes, going to stay with Izzie, but is found by Derek, who kills her. Living again, Ursula rejects Howie's first kiss, avoiding the course her last life took. She stays at school and goes on to study foreign languages at Oxford. Ursula works for a year teaching English in Munich. In the summer, a friend takes her on a hike with members of the Nazi party youth organization The League of German Girls, where she falls in love with Jürgen, a member of the Hitler Youth. But she is alarmed when she sees his indifferent response to a friend in the SA beating someone up in the street. After returning home, she begins a career as a civil servant, getting a job in the Home Office. The Second World War breaks out, Ursula's two younger brothers join up for military service, her older brother continues his job in the civil service, Ursula works collating air raid statistics whilst having a brief relationship with railwayman Fred, and Teddy is killed in action. Ursula has a long career and retires, but in her old age feels that she has something left to do. A little girl at the start of a new life again, Ursula is introduced to newborn Teddy by her father.

Ursula wishes she could be more involved in the Second World War, fantasises about killing Hitler, and worries deeply about her younger brothers, particularly Teddy, with whom she has an especially close bond. One night, she dies when an air raid directly hits her tenement block's shelter. She is comforted in her final moments by an Air Raid Warden and volunteers as one in her next life. Ursula is killed in an air raid with Fred. Back in 1910, Ursula's mother doesn't have medical help whilst giving birth but manages to free the baby from the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck herself. Growing up again, Ursula frequently ponders the meaning of life and decides to study philosophy. She travels to Germany and meets Jürgen, in this life a privately liberal German lawyer. They marry and have a daughter Frieda. Her family worry about what will happen to them if war breaks out, but she refuses their suggestion that the family, or at least Ursula and Frieda, come to stay at her childhood home in advance of a conflict starting. Her father pleads with her to leave as quickly as possible if a war begins, but she is ultimately too late. Jürgen is killed in a air raid. Starving and without hope of survival by the end of the war, she commits suicide by poisoning herself and her daughter. In her next life, Ursula is a deeply morbid, emotional person. After her brother's death, she becomes determined to kill Hitler, and commits suicide by jumping out of a window in order to get the opportunity to do it. In her next life, she learns how to shoot and goes to Munich where she successfully shoots Hitler in the head, but is immediately shot by his guards. In her subsequent life, Ursula is told by the psychiatrist as a young girl that it doesn't matter whether she has lived before or not because that's the way she experiences life. She tells Teddy she loves him the last time they meet. At her parents' house, the family discuss whether they would live their lives again, and Ursula's father discusses his own wartime experience with her before she returns to London on the train.