Groundhog Day Loop: Difference between revisions

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** Well, the first one did. The 2nd is more or less a Deconstruction of this trope, and it turns out that the reason he was going through this was...because he didn't brush his teeth.

* The young adult novel ''Heir Apparent'', by Vivian Vande Velde, is about a girl trapped in a [[Inside a Computer System|full-immersion virtual reality game]]; every time she dies in the game, the game starts over.

* "The Cookie Monster" by [[Vernor Vinge]] is a particularly unusual example—the protagonists don't have [[Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory]], but two of them have figured out how to preserve information -- {{spoiler|they're [[Inside a Computer System|personality uploads of real people]] that [[Do Androids Dream?|retained their human sentience]], and they can store information in the computer and send it out just before their cycle reset}}. This means that every single day they're confronted with the [[Tomato in the Mirror]]. Not to worry, though -- {{spoiler|they're not [["Three Laws"-Compliant]], and ''they're'' the [[Title Drop|"cookie monsters"]] of the title (a reference to a "cookie" on the Internet). [[AI Is a Crapshoot]], and they're preparing for revenge...}}

* "The Cookie Monster" by [[Vernor Vinge]] is a particularly unusual example—the protagonists don't have [[Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory]], but two of them have figured out how to preserve information -- {{spoiler|they're [[Inside a Computer System|personality uploads of real people]] that [[Do Androids Dream?|retained their human sentience]], and they can store information in the computer and send it out just before their cycle reset}}. This means that every single day they're confronted with the [[Tomato in the Mirror]]. Not to worry, though -- {{spoiler|they're not [["Three Laws"-Compliant]], and ''they're'' the [[Title Drop|"cookie monsters"]] of the title (a reference to a "cookie" on the Internet). [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot]], and they're preparing for revenge...}}

* There was even a ''[[Sweet Valley High|Sweet Valley Twins]]'' book on this (weird as it sounds) where the more selfish of the two twins is forced to relive Christmas Eve day until she figures out it's, well... because she's selfish. [[Aesop]] ahoy!

* The book ''[[All You Need Is Kill]]'' is a military-themed version of this. A man is stuck endlessly repeating his first day in combat, going from a green rookie to a seasoned fighter in half a year of constant repetition. Inspired directly by the concept of [[Save Scumming]] in real life.

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== Live Action TV ==

* The ''[[Star Trek: The ~~Next Generation|Star Trek the~~ Next Generation]]'' episode "Cause and Effect", in which the ship keeps exploding but also sends the crew back in time a few hours until they figure out how to prevent it. This happened a couple of years [[Older Than They Think|before]] the [[Groundhog Day]] movie was created.

* The ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode "Cause and Effect", in which the ship keeps exploding but also sends the crew back in time a few hours until they figure out how to prevent it. This happened a couple of years [[Older Than They Think|before]] the [[Groundhog Day]] movie was created.

** Some airings of the episode also looped the commercial breaks; you've got to wonder [[Screw the Money, I Have Rules|how much money]] [[Awesome but Impractical|the station was giving up to do that]]...

** It's worth noting that this is different from the typical in that the loop was only internal. In other words, the universe around the ''Enterprise'' and the ''Bozeman'' kept moving while they looped (The ''D'' was stuck for 17 and a half days, the ''Bozeman'' dated from when they had those [[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan|funky uniform jackets]]...).

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* ''[[Flower, Sun, and Rain]]'' involves one of these... however, the way the day plays out each time is so different that the main character initially doesn't realize it, and writes off the one repeating element as a bad dream.

* The MMO ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has one of these for the last boss of End Time. Nozdormu gives you an hourglass to help you defeat Murozond, the final boss. This can be used up to 5 times; each use ultimately resetting the encounter, including use of skill cooldowns and player deaths.

* In ''[[~~Blaz Blue~~]]'', it's revealed that ''all'' of the multiple endings are canon due to a time loop, with each "ending" being one iteration of the loop. {{spoiler|The cycle is eventually broken in the game's True End}}.

* In ''[[BlazBlue]]'', it's revealed that ''all'' of the multiple endings are canon due to a time loop, with each "ending" being one iteration of the loop. {{spoiler|The cycle is eventually broken in the game's True End}}.

* Similarly, in ''Eternal Poison'', {{spoiler|all five character storylines are revealed to be canon upon unlocking Duphaston's tale, the order in which the several iterations took place somewhat tangible with a bit of thinking. The time loop is also broken in Duphaston's story with the completed Librum Aurora, the death of Lenarshe, and the revival of Izel. The true ending culminates in a final battle between the five main leads and Izel.}}

* ''Marathon: Infinity'' has the potential for getting stuck in a loop. The game is non-linear: [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]], [[Time Travel]], and [[Cosmic Horror]]s are involved, and thanks to their influence, the protagonist finds himself frequently being shipped off to different points in the story (and, sometimes, different realities) based on how he completes any given level. Cycles are one possible outcome: you can find yourself running through the same series of levels over and over again, trying to figure out what you have to do differently to get out. (Note that this is only the one most reasonable and most commonly accepted theory out of the [[Epileptic Trees|many, many possible interpretations]] of just what the hell is going on in that game.)

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* In ''Stickin' Around'', Stacy and Bradley keep getting sent back 15 minutes whenever gym class ends, until Bradley takes full blame for something he did instead of letting everyone share the punishment. [[Mr. Imagination|Then again]]...

* Disney's animated "Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas" has Mickey, Donald, and Goofy in three mini-stories centered around X-mas themes. The feature "Donald Duck: Stuck on Christmas" has the triplets Huey, Dewey, and Louie wish upon a star that is was "Christmas every day"; guess what they get.

* ''[[The Fairly ~~Odd Parents~~]]'' has a Christmas special where Timmy wished it was Christmas every day like Huey, Dewey, and Louie above. It culminated in physical representations of all the other holidays heading to the North Pole to take out Santa, ending Christmas once and for all.

* ''[[The Fairly OddParents]]'' has a Christmas special where Timmy wished it was Christmas every day like Huey, Dewey, and Louie above. It culminated in physical representations of all the other holidays heading to the North Pole to take out Santa, ending Christmas once and for all.

** What made it different is that while it was Christmas every day, it wasn't a time loop. Everyone in the world is baffled that's always December 25, people run out of money to buy toys because they have the day off for Christmas every day, and the economy runs dry.

*** There is actually a flaw in this episode, since it wasn't actually a time loop and everyone remembered then what was to stop them from going back to work, stores from opening, and Santa to stop making toys. The reason the economy ran dry was people didn't go back to work which they could have easily done, just as long as they ignored the calendars.

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* ''[[The Batman]]'' has Francis Grey in the episode "Seconds", who can "rewind" time by a few seconds whenever he wants, without anyone else aware of it. He still can't be in two places at once, of course, which is how he's defeated... {{spoiler|and the end result is that, when it really counts, he finally manages to rewind time all the way back to when he first became a criminal, but he chooses differently.}}

* The [[Animated Adaptation]] of ''[[The Mask (animation)|The Mask]]'' has Stanley Ipkiss trapped in a loop of a few hours by time-manipulating villainess Amelia Chronos. After the first few loops, he starts running to his apartment and getting the Mask on in order to hunt for her. Eventually, he discovers it's because of a watch-like device on his arm. The villainess is using the loops to put herself in a different spot each time, forming a geomantric array that will let her control time. {{spoiler|During their final battle, the Mask gets the device off of himself, resets it, and slaps it on her. Then he drops a grandfather clock on her face. The loop was changed to a few seconds, [[And I Must Scream|so it happens over and over and over...]] When the villainess reappears later, she reveals that subjectively, it took a ''thousand years'' for her to get out.}}

* ''[[Totally Spies]]'' has "Déjà Cruise" (which probably means that this trope is somebody's [[Fetish Fuel]]). In the episode, the girls take a vacation on the WOOHP cruise ship, which gets hijacked by bad guys and eventually ends up sinking somehow, after which the girls wake up in their room and start the loop over. They break the loop by {{spoiler|learning to co-operate with their fellow agents on board instead of telling everyone to stand back while they handled it.}} The whole thing was, of course, {{spoiler|a training exercise set up by Jerry, and the entire ship was in on it.}}

* ''[[Totally Spies!]]'' has "Déjà Cruise" (which probably means that this trope is somebody's [[Fetish Fuel]]). In the episode, the girls take a vacation on the WOOHP cruise ship, which gets hijacked by bad guys and eventually ends up sinking somehow, after which the girls wake up in their room and start the loop over. They break the loop by {{spoiler|learning to co-operate with their fellow agents on board instead of telling everyone to stand back while they handled it.}} The whole thing was, of course, {{spoiler|a training exercise set up by Jerry, and the entire ship was in on it.}}

* A similar situation to that of the ''Supernatural'' episode above happened in the ''[[Jumanji (animation)|Jumanji]]'' animated series: Alan is suddenly killed near the beginning of the episode, but the boys manage to rescue him thanks to the "Slickomatic Chrono Repeater", a device obtained from Trader Slick capable of sending them back in time to the moment they last entered Jumanji. Unfortunately, this seems to be a rather unlucky day for Alan, seeing as he keeps dying in several ways, only for Judy and Peter to keep rescuing him until the device breaks, though they manage to survive the final crisis of the day. Though this may seem like a [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]] plot, it has several Groundhog Day elements, such as the repeated lines and footage, as well as the characters growing frustration with all the repetition (the most visible example being the beginning of the "loop", where they are suddenly confronted with a swarm of giant ants heading towards them: though they were pretty scared at first, they start dealing with the problem with increased apathy as the "loop" repeats, culminating in the last repetition where, when faced with the ants, they simply ''sidestep out of the way'' with the most deadpan expression on their faces).

* ''[[Ruby Gloom]]'' has an episode where Ruby is in charge of the Gloomsville World's Fair. The day doesn't stop repeating until the World's Fair goes right. Played with when Ruby forgets something she was going to say and leaves to take a short nap in order to remember. No one remembers her leaving.

* An episode of ''[[Johnny Test]]'' features a self-inflicted loop. After wasting a whole Saturday being forced to watch ballet on TV with Sissy and Missy, Johnny and Dukey get a device from Mary and Susan that will allow them to repeat the day as many times as they wish. They try to avoid watching the ballet with Sissy by force, but when that repeatedly fails to work, they decide to be nice to Sissy and Missy to see if that will work. This results in them all having the best Saturday ever. {{spoiler|In most instances, this would mean the end of the loop, but instead the trope is subverted when Johnny's dad points out that Johnny is falling in love with Sissy. Wanting to have nothing to do with that, Johnny presses the reset button again and proceeds to be mean to Sissy the next time around.}}

* ''[[Lilo ~~and~~ Stitch: The Series]]'' had a time machine that did this. It eventually broke.

* ''[[Lilo & Stitch: The Series]]'' had a time machine that did this. It eventually broke.

* ''[[Rolie Polie Olie]]'' had Olie trying to clean up the garage. Unfortunately, while he did attempt to do so, it always fell apart, falling on a device that his father was working on that resets time, sticking hin in a time loop.

* In the ''[[Rollbots]]'' episode ''Crontab Trouble'', a renegade Tensai named Reboot teams up with Vertex and attempts to put the City into stasis using the Crontab, a device that distorts time. Spin intervenes, of course, and Reboot uses the Crontab to reset the whole thing by about five minutes. Spin starts to catch on to the time loop, and explains it to the others as he gradually figures it out (Daso also seems to know what's going on). Noone else remembers the events, not even Captain Pounder, who sees concrete proof of Vertex's true identity.

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== Live Action TV ==

* ''[[Star Trek: ~~Enterprise|Star Trek~~ Enterprise]]'' has Captain Archer be infected with strange alternate dimension parasites in his brain that made it so he could not create any new long-term memories, so he would wake up the next day believing it was immediately following the event where he was infected. He would frequently present a new idea he just had only for those around him to mention that he presented the same idea weeks ago. The nature of the parasites gave them a handy [[Reset Button]] for the episode as well.

* ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'' has Captain Archer be infected with strange alternate dimension parasites in his brain that made it so he could not create any new long-term memories, so he would wake up the next day believing it was immediately following the event where he was infected. He would frequently present a new idea he just had only for those around him to mention that he presented the same idea weeks ago. The nature of the parasites gave them a handy [[Reset Button]] for the episode as well.

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' also has an episode in which Teal'c is stuck in what basically amounts to a video game. Each time he fails, it resets, forcing him to start from the beginning. It adapts to his tactics and adds new threats each time, becoming ''worse'' with each go-around. It's based off Teal'c's own perceptions and feelings. At this point in the series, even though he's firmly and truly faithful to [[SG-1]], he also truly believes that [[Failure Is the Only Option|the Gou'auld]] ''[[Failure Is the Only Option|cannot]]'' [[Failure Is the Only Option|be beaten in the long term]] so that any time it looks like they'll win, some new thing suddenly comes around and kicks their ass.

* ''[[My Name Is Earl]]'' has an interesting version where most people hadn't seen a guy in years because a head injury caused him to forget the day he'd just had whenever he went to sleep. Earl uses the intelligence-gaining effect of a Groundhog Day Loop to try to atone for what he'd done to the guy, {{spoiler|but ends up deciding that it'd be better for the guy to just let things go since he ended up causing the guy to attempt suicide.}}