Time loop
A time loop is a fictional situation in which time runs normally for a set period (usually a day or a few hours) but then skips back like a broken record. When the time loop "resets", the memories of most characters are reset (i.e. they forget all that happened). This situation resembles the mythological punishment of Sisyphus, condemned to repeatedly push a stone uphill only to have it roll back down once he reached the top. The plot is advanced, however, by having one or more central characters retain their memory or become aware of the loop through déjà vu.
The most well-known example of this is in the 1993 film Groundhog Day, although time loops had appeared in many fictional works prior to that. Stories with time loops commonly center on correcting past mistakes or on getting a character to recognize some key truth; escape from the loop may then follow (this can be seen as a metaphor for reincarnation).
Time loops are a common plot device in science fiction, especially in universes where time travel is commonplace.
References
Television
The following series featured time loops as a main theme or at least fairly frequently:
- It is hinted in Andromeda that Trance Gemini has already experienced the time-line in which the series takes place several times.
- Code Lyoko - Time is reset at the end of each episode in the first season, but seldom in the second; called a "return to the past".
- Day Break - A cop relives the same day over and over, and has to figure out how to save himself and those close to him from a host of threats.
- Several episodes of The Dead Zone have a virtual time loop by virtue of Johnny Smith living out several versions of the same future scenario through his psychic foresight.
- Doctor Who is all about time travel. Three episodes with time loops: "The Armageddon Factor", "The Claws of Axos" and "Meglos".
- Seven Days - Alien technology allows one person to go back in time seven days to prevent whatever catastrophe is typically shown in the show opening.
- Tru Calling
- The season one finale of Witchblade featured a time-loop that reset the universe to the beginning first season, with the second season following an alternate path.
Time loops have been featured in individual episodes of many TV series, including:
| TV Show | Episode |
|---|---|
| Andromeda | "When Goes Around..." |
| Angel | "Time Bomb" |
| The Angry Beavers | "Same Time Last Week" |
| Buffy the Vampire Slayer | "Life Serial" |
| Charmed | "Deja Vu All Over Again" |
| Charmed | "The Good, the Bad, and the Cursed" |
| Charmed | "Show Ghouls" |
| Crime Traveller | "Final Episode" |
| Early Edition | "Run, Gary, Run" |
| Fairly Oddparents | "Christmas Every Day!" |
| Farscape | "Back and Back and Back to the Future" |
| First Wave | "Gulag" |
| Justice League Unlimited | "The Once and Future Thing: Time Warped" |
| Lois and Clark | "'Twas the Night Before Mxymas" |
| The Outer Limits | "Deja Vu" |
| South Park | "Cancelled" |
| Stargate SG-1 | "Window of Opportunity" |
| Star Trek: The Next Generation | "Cause and Effect" |
| Star Trek: The Next Generation | "Time Squared" |
| Star Trek: Enterprise | "Future Tense" |
| Star Trek: Voyager | "Coda" |
| The X-Files | "Monday" |
| Xena: Warrior Princess | "Been there, Done that" |
| Weird Science | "Universal Remote" |
Music video
- “7 Days” [1] (2000) from Born To Do It by Craig David
Film
- 12 Days of Christmas Eve - a mix of time loop and "A Christmas Carol". A cold-hearted executive is given the chance to replay a Christmas Eve 12 times, with a horrible fate in store if he does not change things for the better by the 12th replay.
- 12:01 and 12:01 PM - two films (a 1990 short and a 1993 full-length), based upon Richard A. Lupoff's short story of the same name
- 'Christmas Do-Over'--a bitter divorced man finds himself reliving the same Christmas Day and trying to use it to reconcile with his ex-wife and son.
- Donnie Darko
- Christmas Every Day - A 13-year-old boy relives Christmas day again and again
- Galaxy Quest - the Omega 13 device which replays the last 13 seconds: enough time to redeem one mistake.
- Groundhog Day - arguably the most famous fictional time loop.
- Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas
- Nirvana - time loop happens to a fictional person in a virtual reality game.
- Primer - A "reverse time loop": You go to the immediate future and wait for yourself to arrive
- Run Lola Run
- Taan (Turn in English) - Japanese romance film
Literature
- "12:01 PM", a 1973 short story by Richard A. Lupoff
- "A Little Something For Us Tempunauts", a 1975 short story by Philip K. Dick.
- Dark Tower, a Stephen King series featuring many elements of time travel, including a time loop.
- "Escapement", a 1956 short story by J. G. Ballard.
- The Neverending Story, a book by Michael Ende - a time loop is deliberately set in motion at one point to force Bastian's hand.
- The Plot To Save Socrates, a novel by Paul Levinson
- Replay a Ken Grimwood novel in which the main character suddenly shifts to much earlier in his life, then relives shorter and shorter periods.
- "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French", short story by Stephen King
- "HELP! I'm Trapped In the first day of school!" by Todd Strasser. A boy keeps repeating his first day of school.
Art
- The Father Time Loop The mythology created by Joe Korsmo and Dylan Reiff centering around the time loop integrated robocalypse and its ultimate cessation by the work of human savior Velocity Gnome.
Video games
- Shadow of Memories
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask The entire game is set around a three-day time loop, which the player can reset at any time he pleases.
- Breakdown There is one part in the game in which the main character experiences an illusion that causes him to repeat the last few seconds of what just happened.
- Dragon Quest VII One town in this game is placed under a curse so that the same day is repeated, with only the heroes, not native to the town being cursed, knowing that there is a time loop.
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time The player is given the "Dagger of Time," allowing them to continuously relive the previous ten seconds of game-play for a set amount of times, or until the player is satisfied with the way he or she played those ten seconds.
- Final Fantasy I Garland, once loyal knight of the Kingdom Coneria(Cornelia), is sent back 2000 years into the past. There he became Chaos, the Master of Evil, and sent the Four Fiends of the Elements ahead 2000 years into the future, where they sent him back in time. Garland/Chaos theorized that in 2000 years the time loop would close and he would cease to exist, which he thought would make him immortal. This was a poorly thought out plot as it says nothing about the Fiends of the Elements themselves, and it doesn't make sense for the loop to ever close given the linear nature of time as it seems to be set in the Type 0 universe of Final Fantasy.
- Ephemeral Fantasia The game centers around a five-day time loop, about which only the hero is aware.
- Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Each chapter is a different iteration of the same month, with only one character being aware that she is living in a time loop.
- Final Fantasy VIII The first sorceress you fight in the game, Edea, is actually posessed when you fight her, and after losing her powers, she eventually tells Squall, the protagonist, about how she gained her powers. She gained her powers by accepting them from a fallen sorceress, in order to protect the children at the orphanage from coming in contact with the sorceress. At the end of the game, it is revealed that a sorceress from the future was sent into the past after being defeated by Squall. This happens due to "Time Compression", which resulted in past, present, and future being combined. The sorceress then passes her powers on to Edea, enabling her to posses Edea before her death.