So, I've been catching up on my DVR and finally got around to watching the Fringe episode entitled, "White Tulip" where Peter Weller (yes, Robocop) keeps jumping back whenever our intrepid FBI agents are about to catch him. Then, back to square one, the Fringe cast must figure out how to find him all over again.
Doing over the day, this is not a new plot device, in fact it is the entire premise of Bill Murray's Ground Hog Day. Where he keeps doing the same day over and over again until he gets the girl, learns his lesson, and becomes a better man. So for a change of pace, I though I would highlight some great Groundhog Day episodes from Science Fiction Shows.
More after the jump.
Doing over the day, this is not a new plot device, in fact it is the entire premise of Bill Murray's Ground Hog Day. Where he keeps doing the same day over and over again until he gets the girl, learns his lesson, and becomes a better man. So for a change of pace, I though I would highlight some great Groundhog Day episodes from Science Fiction Shows.
More after the jump.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer-Episode 105: Life Serial
In this great episode, Buffy is being tested by the great trio. Jonathan casts a spell to loop time. Buffy assists a man with a candle sale and then goes downstairs to fetch a live mummy hand for a female customer. The hand attacks her and she is forced to kill it, which also kills the sale. Events start to repeat themselves. Buffy must help the customers and fight the mummy hand over and over again. She's stuck in an unsolved dilemma, as events repeat Buffy becomes increasingly agitated, even taking off Giles' glasses in one loop and stepping on them and crying in another. After several loops, Buffy is able to end the spell by telling the woman she'll order the hand instead of going downstairs to fight with the one they already have.
Star Trek TNG-- Season 5, Episode 18,Cause and Effect
It took until the fifth season before TNG brought this hat trick out. In the episode, the Enterprise is stuck in a time loop, with events culminating in the destruction of the ship as a result of a collision with another Starfleet ship that emerges from a space-time distortion. As each loop proceeds, the crew members, though unaware they are in the loop, feel deja vu. The crew discovers they are in a time loop caused by tachyon distortions near the space-time anomaly, and program Data to send a short message to his counterpart in the next iteration to take action on. Data sends the signal moments before the ship is destroyed again. On the next iteration, the crew still experiences déjà vu, but actions performed by Data often reveal the number three, going against their previous conceptions. They make the same conclusions from the previous iteration, and Data realizes the number three must have some as-yet-unknown significance to break the loop. The Enterprise again arrives at the anomaly, and as the other ship emerges, both Data and Riker suggest alternate plans to avoid being hit. Though Captain Picard opts for Data's plan, Data comes to recognize that the "three" message was in reference to the insignia pips worn by Riker, and initiates his plan instead. The Enterprise is able to avoid being hit, and the time loop is broken. The crew discovers they have been stuck in the loop for 17 days, while the ship they narrowly avoided, the USS Bozeman, has been missing for more than 80 years. The Enterprise welcomes the Bozeman to the 24th century at the end of the episode.
Stargate SG-1--Season 4, Episode 6 Window of Opportunity
In this epsode of the ScyFy Channel show, on a mission on P4X-639, a planet experiencing strong solar activity, the SG-1 team encounters an alien archaeologist named Malikai (Robin Mossley). When a geomagnetic disturbance hits its peak, the Stargate activates simultaneously on the planet and on Earth, and a flash strikes Malikai, Colonel O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) and Teal'c (Christopher Judge) near an Ancient altar. Moments later, O'Neill finds himself in the Stargate Command (SGC) cafeteria in the middle of a breakfast conversation with Dr. Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) and Major Carter (Amanda Tapping), who claim to have no knowledge of the planet. O'Neill and Teal'c later express familiarity with the events, but they are checked and certified to be in perfect health. Before SG-1 can resume their planned mission to the planet, an unscheduled offworld activation of the Earth Stargate, accompanied by flashes, transports O'Neill back to breakfast. While the events at the SGC repeat themselves, Daniel makes first progress in the translation of writings in the photos of the ancient altar. SG-1 return to the planet where Malikai makes a slip, but O'Neill finds himself back at breakfast before the altar's activation can be stopped. With the help of O'Neill's and Teal'c's explanations, Carter devises a plan to break the time loop by preventing an incoming wormhole, which fails. Meanwhile, Daniel attempts to translate the altar's writing loop after loop, but his memory is reset each time along with everyone else's, and he cannot possibly translate it all within just a few hours. Ultimately, O'Neill and Teal'c realize the only solution is to learn and remember the alien language themselves. After many loops of teaching, Daniel makes an offhand remark about events that occur during each loop having no consequences once the loop is over, which inspires O'Neill and Teal'c to indulge in wildly outrageous behaviour as a means of dealing with the boredom and frustration of being caught in repeating time. O'Neill and Teal'c play golf through the active Stargate, Teal'c takes action against the painful starts of his loops, O'Neill tries pottery-making, bicycles through the base, and just before the end of one loop, resigns from the Air Force for the sole purpose of grabbing Carter and kissing her.
The X-Files- Season 6, Episode 15, “Monday”
Eventually Mulder and Scully would join the linear-impaired with the sixth season episode entitled "Monday." Monday morning and Mulder awakes to find his water bed has leaked, shorting out his alarm clock making him late. Water has seeped through the floor to the apartment below and the resident calls to complain. On arrival at the X-files basement office in the FBI building Scully informs him he is late for a meeting with Assistant Director Skinner, but Mulder has to make a bank deposit to cover the cheque he wrote to his landlord for the damages. Mulder goes to the Cradock Marine Bank down the street from the FBI offices. In a car outside a woman, Pam, and a man, Bernard, sit talking. Bernard tells Pam he has to run an errand but when he gets inside the bank he starts a robbery. Moments later Scully enters the bank looking for Mulder and draws her gun, in all the commotion Mulder is shot. As Scully tries to help Mulder, who lies bleeding, riot police alerted by the silent alarm storm the bank. Bernard knowing he is trapped detonates the explosives strapped to his chest destroying the bank.... Monday morning and Mulder awakes to find his water bed has leaked, shorting out his alarm clock making him late.....and so it goes on, time appears to be repeating itself in a loop, forcing Mulder and Scully to continually relive the experience with small variations but always the same result, the bank is blown up. Only the woman Pam appears conscious of the time loop, of the events repeating themselves and tries in vain to alert the two agents to their shared predicament.
Angel--Season 5 Episode 19--Time Bomb
In Angel, it was the beatiful Amy Acker, who played the demon llyria, who was experiencing the loop. llyria was sparring with Spike in the training room, but elsewhere begins to act oddly even by her standards, and Wesley theorizes that she is growing emotionally and molecularly unstable as a result of her interdimensional travels; if her energy excess continues to go unchecked, it will result in a catastrophic explosion. As Angel, Gunn, and Hamilton argue over how to handle the Fell Brethren case, Illyria grows increasingly disoriented and paranoid, culminating in a confrontation in which she effortlessly kills Angel, Lorne, Spike, and Wesley in a matter of seconds. At this point, the narrative switches to her point of view, and we learn that her disorientation has been caused by the fact that her excessive mystical energy has been sending her back and forth in time uncontrollably. Illyria again goes back in time to a point before she had killed the other characters, and inadvertently begins taking Angel with her on her trips through time. Angel learns of the deaths of his friends, and is horrified. After Illyria gives him advice about power, she explodes and likely decimates the continental shelf, but the explosion is so powerful it blasts Angel back in time to before Illyria killed everyone. This time, thanks to what Illyria told him, Angel is able to avoid the massacare. Illyria accuses Angel and Wesley of plotting to kill her with Wesley's massive ray gun, but Wes reveals that the gun is not meant to kill her, but rather to disperse her excessive energy and thus prevent the fatal explosion. Wesley manages to activate the ray in time, but Illyria is left emotionally devastated by the resulting loss of some of her super powers.
Title Text.
You know, I really miss Xena. And she had a time loop in season 3, episode 2. In the episode, "Been there done that" Xena lives again and again the same day, until she finds the way to stop a carnage. It seems that Gabrielle leaves some strange love marks on Xena's neck. The main characters die a few times: Xena once, Gabrielle a pair of times, Joxer at least thrice
Superman Honorable mention
Did you really think I wouldn't mention my favorite Superhero. The Man of Steel has experienced time loops in both Lois and Clark and Smallville.
First, in Season 4, Episode 11 of Lois and Clark, entled, "'Twas the Night Before Mxyma," Christmas Eve is happening over and over again, and the people of Metropolis begin losing hope. Can Lois and Clark stop an imp from the "Fifth Dimension," best known as "Mr. Mxyzptlk," before it's too late and hope is gone forever?
The episode can be watched in its entirety here.
Then in Smallville's 100th episode, "Reckoning," Clark is finally willing to reveal his secret to Lana, but there are consequences. Jonathan and Lex learn the results of the senatorial election and the life of someone Clark loves - Lana - is finally taken away from him. A desperate Clark appeals to Jor-El for help, only to find himself frantically trying to save her again. Lionel reveals to Jonathan he has a little more up his sleeve. Minutes later, Jonathan dies of a heart attack in front of Martha and Clark.
First, in Season 4, Episode 11 of Lois and Clark, entled, "'Twas the Night Before Mxyma," Christmas Eve is happening over and over again, and the people of Metropolis begin losing hope. Can Lois and Clark stop an imp from the "Fifth Dimension," best known as "Mr. Mxyzptlk," before it's too late and hope is gone forever?
The episode can be watched in its entirety here.
Then in Smallville's 100th episode, "Reckoning," Clark is finally willing to reveal his secret to Lana, but there are consequences. Jonathan and Lex learn the results of the senatorial election and the life of someone Clark loves - Lana - is finally taken away from him. A desperate Clark appeals to Jor-El for help, only to find himself frantically trying to save her again. Lionel reveals to Jonathan he has a little more up his sleeve. Minutes later, Jonathan dies of a heart attack in front of Martha and Clark.
And how could I forget Tru Calling. Where Eliza Dushko plays Tru Davies, a medical grad student in Boston whose grant is suddenly pulled out from under her, takes a job at a local morgue. There, she discovers that she has the power to "re-live" the previous day over again to help the people who wrongly ended up dead. She uses this gift not only to save lives, but to help her trouble-plagued family - her older sister Meredith, a lawyer and drug addict in denial; and her younger, irresponsible, slacker, gambling brother Harrison.
I admit that I did not list a whole bunch of shows from Eureka to FarScape to DS9 to even the Wizards of Waverly Place.
What is your favorite time loop episode.
What is your favorite time loop episode.
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