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Here We Go Again: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''So! You will help me find that treasure right Mario? The boat's waiting for you!''
|'''Peach:''', ''[[Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door]]'' (at the end, of course)}}
A story or show that employs an infinite-loop motif, ending in the very way it was put into motion. The circumstances need not be exact.
The idea is that the events that led to the story are going to lead to a very similar story. If the story ends up back in the same place but the situation has changed that's [[Where It All Began
Compare [[And the Adventure Continues...]], and [[Eternal Recurrence]], which does this to the entire [[The Verse|'verse]].
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If the next iteration of the story happens to the next ''generation'' we have [[Generation Xerox]].
Not to be confused with the Ray Charles song; or a [[Groundhog Day Loop]], where time ''itself'' is repeating as a plot device within the story. Compare with [[Status Quo Is God]]. Opposite of [[We Are Not Going Through That Again]], where the hero refuses to set off on another adventure. [[Book Ends]] is a Super Trope, in which the ending has some similarity with the beginning, but Book Ends doesn't require an implication there is a cycle that is going to get repeated.
{{endingtrope}}
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
▲== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Gunslinger Girl]]''. In the last episode of the (first season) anime, Henrietta and Jose are standing in the same places that they did in the first episode, but without the dialogue.
* ''[[Magikano]]'' ends this way by turning back time to the beginning of the first episode.
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* ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'''s [[Spin-Off]] ''[[Puella Magi Oriko Magica]]'' ended this way.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* ''[[V for Vendetta]]'', V rescues/kidnaps someone and brings them to the Shadow Gallery.
* The original run of ''[[The Sandman]]'' ended with the rise of a new Dream, but also with Dream looking out upon and recreating his kingdom, which was a common theme in the beginning of the series.
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* [[Grant Morrison]]'s [[Justice League of America|JLA]] run ends with all the new members added during the run written out of the team, leaving the core seven back in place. Then a distress call comes in about a supervillain threat, and the League heads off to deal with him.
==
* The Robinsons using the hyperdrive again in
▲* The Robinsons using the hyperdrive again in ''[[Lost in Space]]'' (prompting the comment, "Here we go again").
* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' [[Made for TV Movie]] opens with the Seventh Doctor in the TARDIS, where he settles down to read ''[[The Time Machine]]'' and listen to a gramophone record. The record starts skipping, so he abandons this. At the end of the movie, the Eighth Doctor settles in the same chair with the same book and music. When the record starts to skip he says "Not again!"
* At the beginning of the first ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' film, Cap'n Jack Sparrow has only a small boat to his name after his crew stole his ship and set off by themselves to get the treasure he'd found a guide to. The end of the third film finds him in the same situation again. Only this time, he was smart enough to keep the treasure map with him.
** Or more specifically, he cuts out the critical center section of the map, leaving the rest, rolled up to hide the missing section, on his ship so that the mutinous crew doesn't know until he's long gone that it's been stolen.
** It goes a bit further; Gibbs is back in Tortuga, while Barbossa and his surviving crew are back in possession of the Black Pearl after leaving Jack behind again.
* At the beginning of the 1996
* The classic horror anthology ''Dead of Night'' begins with the protagonist arriving at a house and telling the guests that he has seen that house, and those guests, in a [[Dreaming of Things to Come|prophetic dream]]. {{spoiler|It ends with him waking up, then driving out to a familiar house...}}
* The ''[[The Bourne Series (film)|Bourne]]'' films begin and end with the titular protagonist drifting in water.
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* ''[[Jumanji]]'' ends with two French girls walking on a beach hearing strange drumming that was coming from the game, lying not too far away from the girls.
▲== Literature ==
* [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[The Dark Tower]]'' series uses this as well. The final book ends with {{spoiler|Roland making it to the top of the tower, and finding himself in the desert following the man in black - and it isn't the first time he's been sent back to the beginning. There's an ambiguous clue that he might change things this time around, though.}}
* Another King instance in ''Needful Things'', which starts with a narrator talking to the reader about the new store coming into town and telling us a bit about the town, and ends likewise in a different town.
* Terry Pratchett's ''[[
* The first ''[[Artemis Fowl]]'' book starts with the titular character researching a hunch he has about fairies. At the end of the sixth book, he's gone through a [[Stable Time Loop]] back to before the first book with past!Artemis getting [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|mind-wiped]] to preserve the timeline. The last scene is him waking up post mind-wipe, back in the past, and half remembering "Fairies. Something about fairies."
* ''If You Give a Mouse a Cookie'', arguably Laura Numeroff's most famous work, begins with the mouse being given a cookie, and asking for various other favors until the end, where he wants a cookie again. Numeroff herself described it as a "circular story."
** Several of Numeroff's other books follow the same pattern, either with the same mouse (''If You Take a Mouse to the Movies'') or with other animals (''If You Give a Pig a Pancake'').
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** The fourth book is different because John realises that the "Frankenstein's Hamster" ''could'' just be hibernating ...
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* ''[[Seinfeld]]'' did this for the entire series, ending its last episode with [[Downer Ending|the main characters in jail]], having exactly the same [[Seinfeldian Conversation|conversation]] that opened the first episode.
* The eighth season ending of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', "Moebius", would have been this if the show hadn't been renewed; through time travel, the main characters end up fighting Ra again, and in an altered timeline, discovering the Stargate and being brought together to form the Stargate program, and even recruiting Teal'c again.
* While the final episode of ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' does have Mike and the 'bots escaping the Satellite of Love and returning to Earth, the episode ends with Mike, Crow, and Tom Servo sharing an apartment, riffing on the cable broadcast of ''The Crawling Eye'' (the same movie that was featured in the very first episode).
* In the ''[[Twilight Zone]]'' episode "Mr. Dingle the Strong", comical Martians give the milquetoast title character [[Super Strength]]. [[Hilarity Ensues]] until the Martians take Dingle's strength
* In episode 6, Season 2 of ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'' the episode begins and ends with Sheldon having a fan girl graduate student asking him if he wants dinner. He should have learnt after the first time.
** The episode "Shadow Play" ends with a character [[All Just a Dream|waking up from his dream]]... but it turns out, it's a recurring one.
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* ''[[Cheers]]'' began the series with Sam Malone coming out of the back room, turning on the lights and opening the bar. The series ended with Sam locking the bar, turning off the lights, and strolling back into the back room.
* ''[[Yes, Dear]]'' started out with Jimmy and Christine, with their kids (Dominic and Logan), at Greg and Kim's house asking for shelter. The series ended with the same four people at said residence asking Greg and Kim whether the guesthouse they had stayed in before moving out was still available.
*
{{quote|'''Six:''' Commercialism, decadence, technology run amok... remind you of anything?
'''Baltar:''' Take your pick: Kobol... {{spoiler|Earth}}... {{spoiler|the real Earth}} before this one... Caprica before the Fall... }}
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* ''[[Kenan and Kel]]'' often ended their episodes this way with the two addressing the audience after their latest misadventure. Kenan would come up with another zany scheme and tell Kel to meet him somewhere and bring something before dashing off. Kel would complain for a bit before yelling out "Awwwww, here it goes!".
==
* The first season of ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'' did this; the first and last episodes began with the camera rising up to view Simmons and Grif having the same conversation. Grif has a different response each time, though. <s> One of the series' [[Multiple Endings]]</s> the series' canonical ending does this as well, albeit with the red and blue team switching roles.▼
== Music ==▼
* The children's favorite, "The Song That Never Ends" (aka "The Song That Doesn't End").
* [[Coldplay]]'s ''Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends'' ends with the hidden track "The Escapist" which plays directly into "Life in Technicolor," the first track.
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* A variation of this is in Snow Patrol's music video for "Chocolate". The entire video revolves around people panicking while an hourglass and digital timer count down to 0. When it gets there, everybody huddles down, only for nothing to happen. The singer walks up and flips the hourglass over, which causes the timer to reset and the panic to resume.
* In Harry Nilsson's "Coconut", putting the lime in the coconut and drinking them both up gives a woman a bellyache, prompting her to call the doctor and wake him up. He advises her to put the lime in the coconut and drink them both together, assuring her that "then you'll feel better". And so forth.
* [
* The [[Flanders and Swann]] song "The Gasman Cometh" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOA_SUKEZRE utilizes this].
* Taylor Swift seems to be very fond of this.
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* [[Radiohead]]'s album ''OK Computer'' does this. The first song, "Airbag", describes the aftermath of a car crash. The last song, "The Tourist", features the lines "They ask me where the hell I'm going / at a 1000 feet per second" and "Hey man, slow down / Hey idiot, slow down", suggesting an imminent car crash.
* [[Pink Floyd]]'s [[Rock Opera]] ''[[The Wall]]'' begins with, at the very first second, Pink saying "we came in?". The very last song cuts off with Pink saying "Isn't this where". Note that the background music in both the last song and the beginning of the first one is the same. So if you play the whole album on a loop, it will be seamless. The Floyd did this earlier with the heartbeat sound effect (actually a treated bass drum) on ''The Dark Side of the Moon''.
* Almost identical to the Coldplay example, the [[AFI]] album ''Sing The Sorrow'' has a hidden track called [[Tear Jerker|"This Time Imperfect"]] whose ending (deliberately-inserted static) blends seamlessly into the beginning.
* "In the Year 2525" goes to the end of mankind, then starts all over far away.
* In "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves"
* In [[Dream Theater]]'s 24-minute epic "Octavarium," the entire theme is coming full circle. In the second section, for example, the narrator wakes up from a 30-year coma. {{spoiler|By the end, he has fallen back into the coma.}}
* ''All Along the Watchtower'' by Bob Dylan has "Two Riders were approaching" as the second-to-last line. This (likely) refers to the the Joker and Thief who are quoted at the beginning of the song.
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* In the video for the [[Foo Fighters]] song "Monkey Wrench", [[It Makes Sense in Context|Dave and the band find an apparent group of their clones singing the song in his apartment]]. Eventually, they get in to find them running away. So they finish the song, however, we pan out of the apartment to see another group of clones looking inside, wondering what's going on.
== Radio ==▼
* ''[http://www.escape-suspense.com/2007/10/suspense---fran.html The House in Cypress Canyon]'', a horror story featured in a 1946 episode of the CBS show ''Suspense'', concludes in this manner.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* Used word for word in an alternate ending to one of the [[
* ''[[The Skin of Our Teeth]]'' by Thornton Wilder, ends with Sabina coming out onstage, acting out her first scene of the show. She then stops and tells the audience that the play hasn't been finished yet, and they can go home whenever the like, with the implication that the play-within-a-play is on an infinite loop. This is itself meant to symbolize how human history keeps repeating itself, and that most things don't change in the long run.
* ''[[On the Town]]'': Chip, Ozzie and Gabey's twenty-four hours are up, and they return to the ship... but three new sailors get off the ship on ''their'' shore leave, singing "New York, New York." (The ending of the film version is the same.)
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* ''[[The Man Who Came to Dinner]]'' ends with Sheridan Whiteside, having fully recovered from his injury, walking out the front door of the Stanley home and slipping and falling on the steps once again.
== [[Video Games]] ==▼
▲== Video Games ==
* ''[[Prince of Persia]]: The Sands Of Time'' also did a time-reset to the beginning. However, this was followed by a final fight scene in which the [[Big Bad]] is defeated, meaning that the events of the game never actually take place, and [[Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory|only the Prince remembers them]].
* ''[[Prince of Persia]]'', the next-gen game features this: {{spoiler|Before the game, The Mourning King offers up his soul to resurrect Elika. At the end, Elika sacrifices her life to re-imprison Ahriman. Ahriman then whispers the offer to resurrect the Prince's love if he frees the dark god. The Prince accepts.}}
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* In ''[[Tales of Monkey Island]] Chapter 2: The Siege of Spinner Cay'', this is lampshaded by the MerLeader when McGillicutty [[Poke the Poodle|repeatedly attempts to drown him/her as "torture"]]:
{{quote|'''Chieftain Beluga:''' Guybrush, sink his ship!
'''McGillicutty:''' I'll deal with you later, [[My Name Is Not Durwood|Stinkwood]]! I think old fin-face here wants another dip in the drink! [[Evil Laugh|HA ha ha ha harr!]]
'''Chieftain Beluga:''' Here we go again. ''[s/he is lowered into the water]'' }}
* The gun game ''[[Carn Evil]]'' ends with a sick, twisted version of this. After surviving the evil circus, you end up back at the grave where it all began. A moment later, the token used to start the whole business pops out of the bottom of the tombstone like a prize coin. A hand picks it up...and then (even as the girl screams in the background) ''puts it back in the tombstone''. Without saying them, the ending scene depicts the three most dreaded words one can hear at the end of a scary ride: "''Wanna go again?''"
== [[Web Comics]] ==▼
▲== Web Comics ==
* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'''s filler "City Face" lampshaded this. On the bottom right of the last panel, where in the comic proper there would be an antimony symbol marking the end of the chapter, there was a box saying "goto #1".
* ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' gives a single strip-wide example about [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/2/19/ a cyclical argument].
* ''[[Xkcd]]'', being ''XKCD'', puts a non-orientable spin on the concept [http://xkcd.com/381/ here].
* ''Gamergate Triggerhappy: Diversity & comics'' [http://kukuruyo.com/comic/gamergate-triggerhappy-diversity-comics/ here].
== [[Web Original]] ==
* ''[[Atop the Fourth Wall]]'': After {{spoiler|Missingno}} is convinced to kill itself and everything is back to what passes for normal in a [[That Guy With The Glasses]] show, [[That Dude in the Suede]] is seen playing [[Pokémon Red and Blue|Pokémon RED (film)]], talking to the old man who sends you to Cinnabar Island where you {{spoiler|can catch Missingno}}.
▲* The first season of ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'' did this; the first and last episodes began with the camera rising up to view Simmons and Grif having the same conversation. Grif has a different response each time, though. <s> One of the series' [[Multiple Endings]]</s> the series' canonical ending does this as well, albeit with the red and blue team switching roles.
* In ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMJXvsCLu6s Wildebeest]'' a wildebeest says something in the water is a crocodile <!--pretty sure other crocodilians don't share habitat with wildebeests--> and the other says it is a log. Eventually the second wildebeest admits it's a crocodile and the first wildebeest goes away, and then a third wildebeest shows up and says it's a log.
== [[Western Animation]] ==▼
* ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'', "Operation SPROUT": Bored while listening to his father's stories at home, Numbuh 4 accidentally eats a Brussels Sprout, supposedly to turn him into an adult faster. Numbuh 4 quickly calls in his teammates to remove it from his stomach before he digests it a la ''[[Fantastic Voyage (film)|Fantastic Voyage]]''. Numbuh 1, 2 and 5 retrieve the Brussels sprout in time just as the shrink effect wears off within six minutes, but after Numbuh 4 returns home for dinner, he accidentally eats a piece of liver, implying the Sector V team has to do the mission again.
▲== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Dexter's Laboratory]]'', "Nuclear Confusion": The book Dexter had been reading gets stolen after he had to track down some nuclear fuel he was using in his lab to power the lamp he was using to read the book.
* ''[[Johnny Bravo]]'', "Brave New Johnny": Johnny Bravo slips on hair gel, falls into a vat of the stuff. Wakes up in future. Eventually gets back to the present through a descendant of Carl's time machine. Promptly slips again.
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* ''[[Recess]]'', "The Game": It opens with Gus finding a card that was just thrown over the fence, and it's part of a very addictive game. At the end, after everything is straightened out, Gus throws it back over the fence, and the next kids to find it go down to the corner shop to buy some more cards.
* ''[[Rocket Power]]'', "Double-O Twistervision": Opens with the RP gang complaining about a movie they just saw ("A monkey could make a better movie!") and deciding to make their own movie. After the finished product is shown at the Shore Shack (it takes up most of the story), Mackenzie does the same complaining to her friends, replete with monkey comment.
* The ''[[Earthworm Jim (animation)|Earthworm Jim]]'' episode "Hyper Psy-Crow" almost has a
{{quote|'''Psycrow''': Oh well. Here we go again!
'''EJ''': Hold it! We are not going to do a "Here we go again" ending on my show!
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'''Rapunzel''': Yes dear, rampion!
'''Witch''': Well, here we go again! ''([[Evil Laugh]])'' }}
* ''[[Here Comes the Grump]]'' employs a variation: the
* Taken [[Up to Eleven]] in the ''[[Drawn Together]]'' episode where the gang plots revenge on a critic of the show, beginning with them watching a show with a flying kangaroo. Spanky [[Overly Long Gag|farts for an extended period of time]] to show his distaste of the show. At the end of the episode after they finally confront the critic, Spanky calls a flying kangaroo to fly him out of the window. It zooms out to the flying kangaroo, being watched on TV by the gang, when Spanky [[Overly Long Gag|farts for an extended period of time]] to show his distaste of the show.
* The ending of ''[[The Rugrats Movie]]'' has one of these, the movie kicks off when Angelica kicks the reptar wagon out the door with the babies inside causing it to eventually end up in the woods, in a scene after the ending credits a goat Boris had given the Pickles earlier headbutts the reptar wagon with Grandpa Lou inside causing it to roll down the street and the goat chases after him.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Narrative Devices]]
[[Category:Ending Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Here We Go Again]]
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