Show/movie with James Dean and time travel to prevent/ensure a car crash

Question

Talking with my wife tonight and I said "Remember that show where someone went through time to set up James Dean's accident?". She doesn't remember it and I can't find it on simple Google or IMDB searches.

I cannot remember the overall plot. I remember an aerial scene of the car approaching an intersection and another car coming in and crashing into the first car. I have a vague feeling there may have been two time interventions, one to stop the crash and another to ensure it happened (but I am not sure).

I think it was most likely an episode in a series, but cannot promise it was not a movie. I watched it in the past 6 years (with my wife, though she does not remember it). No idea how old it was, but it was in colour, and I think not very old.

Answer 1

So it's not video at all — my mistake. "The Cristobal Effect" by Simon McCaffery.

In the past few days I have been reading the anthology Other Worlds Than These edited by John Joseph Adams. I got it from the local library. By the second story, I knew I had read the collection before, but I didn't remember the stories well.

This morning I reached "The Cristobal Effect" and realised in the first couple of lines it was what I had been thinking of when I posted this question.

My memories of the story are so visual I am still surprised it was not something I watched, especially as I am generally more a reader than a viewer.

We round a bend and cruise down a mild hill toward the 41 junction. A car is waiting, a ’50 Ford Tudor, idling on the centerline. Jimmy’s heart—my heart—begins hammering a slow drum-roll. Sweat rolls into my eyes. Piloted by the dependable Donald Turnipseed, the Ford hesitates and then lurches across the ash-colored highway. Rolf shouts above the wind as I veer directly into its path. His hand reaches for the wheel and I bat it away. No sense in fighting fate unless you’re in a Wobbly. The blunt chrome nose of the Ford blots out the high deep-blue sky. I glimpse its driver’s white face. It’s a good death, and just penance for my avarice.

Jimmy’s face smiles in the mirror, young again. Immortal again. In that last instant before we hit, I give him a wink.