Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Doctor Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator -- and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Doctor Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to [[Trope Namer|put right what once went wrong]] and hoping each time that his next leap... will be the leap home."''|'''Opening''', ''[[Quantum Leap (TV)|Quantum Leap]]''}}

The character receives foreknowledge of what will happen (or, if [[Time Travel]] is involved, [[Ripple Effect Proof Memory]] will allow them to remember what happened "the first time around") and has to [[Rubber Band History|correct it.]]

The character receives foreknowledge of what will happen (or, if [[Time Travel]] is involved, [[Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory]] will allow them to remember what happened "the first time around") and has to [[Rubber Band History|correct it.]]

Constitutes the plot of nearly every episode of ''[[Quantum Leap (TV)|Quantum Leap]]'' ([[Trope Namer|from which this title was taken]]), ''[[Early Edition (TV)|Early Edition]]'', ''[[Seven Days]]'', and ''[[Tru Calling]]'', as well as a majority of episodes of ''[[The Dead Zone]]'', and numerous individual episodes of other shows. Can form the [[Arc]] of a whole series, as in ''[[Heroes (TV)|Heroes]]''.

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== Films -- Live-Action ==

* In ''[[Triangle]]'' this is what Jess tries to do after she realized she's in a [[Groundhog Day Loop]]. {{spoiler|But it only created another timeline which we don't see completely in the movie.}}

* Most of the ''[[Back to The Future (Film)|Back to The Future]]'' sequels: the second one begins with Doc taking Marty to the future to stop his son from getting arrested, and then having to go into the past to stop teenage Biff from using a [[Timeline Altering MacGuffin]] to become [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|evil and rich]]. The third movie has Marty go back to 1885 to stop Doc from getting shot by Buford Tannen. The main problem in the first movie, however, is Marty's fault to begin with. However, Marty's eventual solution to this problem has the unexpected bonus of his father being more confident and assertive over Biff in 1985, leading to this trope in a roundabout way.

* Most of the ''[[Back to The Future (Film)|Back to The Future]]'' sequels: the second one begins with Doc taking Marty to the future to stop his son from getting arrested, and then having to go into the past to stop teenage Biff from using a [[Timeline-Altering MacGuffin]] to become [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|evil and rich]]. The third movie has Marty go back to 1885 to stop Doc from getting shot by Buford Tannen. The main problem in the first movie, however, is Marty's fault to begin with. However, Marty's eventual solution to this problem has the unexpected bonus of his father being more confident and assertive over Biff in 1985, leading to this trope in a roundabout way.

* ''Cyborg 2087''. In the far future, a mind-control invention has been abused to create a police state controlled by cyborgs. Garth, a good guy cyborg, travels back to 1966 to convince the invention's creator to keep it secret and thus change the future.

* The two [[Time Travel|time travelers]] in each of the ''[[Terminator (Film)|Terminator]]'' films are each trying to [[Terminator Twosome|set right the wrong the other one caused]].

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* Pretty much the point of ''[[Timeshift]]''. The [[Big Bad]] gets the suit that lets him time-travel at will and reshapes the world to his own ideals, so the Hero has to get the toned-down suit and go back after him in order to try to fix things.

* ''[[Singularity]]'' has the main character trying to do this after a time-travel incident leads to {{spoiler|the Soviet Union taking over the world with time-manipulation technology. [[Failure Is the Only Option|It doesn't work.]] At best, the scientist who invented the time-manipulation technology takes over the world because of your actions.}}

* ''[[Millennia Altered Destinies]]'' is built on this trope. You play a human cargo ship captain who is abducted by an alien race called the Hoods and given a timeship with the goal of stopping the hostile Microids from taking over the Echelon galaxy (except that they have already done that in this timeline) and moving on to the Milky Way. To this end, you are to seed four suitable planets with life and help the four different races evolve and deal with various crises. Your ship, the XTM, can go back 10,000 years into the past in 100 year increments. You also have access to the complete history of the four races that, unlike you, doesn't have [[Ripple Effect Proof Memory]]. This means that, as soon as you change something, there is a temporal storm that updates the database right before your eyes. Essentially, you have 2 goals in the game: help the 4 races spread out throughout the Echelon galaxy in equal amounts (defeating the Microids) and have the 4 races reach the technological stage at which they can build replacement parts for your ship's wormhole drive to get back to Earth. Due to the game mechanics, you usually can only accomplish one of these.

* ''[[Millennia Altered Destinies]]'' is built on this trope. You play a human cargo ship captain who is abducted by an alien race called the Hoods and given a timeship with the goal of stopping the hostile Microids from taking over the Echelon galaxy (except that they have already done that in this timeline) and moving on to the Milky Way. To this end, you are to seed four suitable planets with life and help the four different races evolve and deal with various crises. Your ship, the XTM, can go back 10,000 years into the past in 100 year increments. You also have access to the complete history of the four races that, unlike you, doesn't have [[Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory]]. This means that, as soon as you change something, there is a temporal storm that updates the database right before your eyes. Essentially, you have 2 goals in the game: help the 4 races spread out throughout the Echelon galaxy in equal amounts (defeating the Microids) and have the 4 races reach the technological stage at which they can build replacement parts for your ship's wormhole drive to get back to Earth. Due to the game mechanics, you usually can only accomplish one of these.

** Unfortunately, there is an alternate version of you, who has been recruited by the Microids to stop you. He will randomly show up at any point in the past to destroy one of the races, undoing all your hard work. You can't kill him, just as you yourself can't be killed.

** Interestingly, the creators originally planned to have a [[Nonstandard Game Over]] if you happen to have screwed up the history of the four races so much that it can't be fixed. Your ship would be destroyed by a powerful temporal storm. Then they realized that this could never happen in-game, and eventually removed that ending.

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== Live-Action TV ==

* Naturally, ''[[Life On Mars]]'' and ''[[Ashes to Ashes]]'' have played with this: in Sam's case, it was finding out why his father abandoned him, as well as arresting the serial killer who'd kidnapped his girlfriend and a crime lord who'd had a witness in his custody murdered; in Alex's, it was preventing her parents' death by car bomb. Their success rates are... varied; Sam eventually wound up ''convincing'' his father to skip town, because there was that little matter of a murder and racketeering charge if he stayed...

* ''[[~~Doctor Who (TV)|~~Doctor Who]]''

* ''[[Doctor Who]]''

** Officially this can't work in the Whoniverse (the series 1 episode "Father's Day" shows why) but Amy gets a chance to do it in a small way in the series 5 finale -- not by time travelling, but because {{spoiler|the universe is being rebooted from her memories, so if she remembers something the way it was, she can have it back}}.

** Not-quite-subverted in "Genesis of the Daleks". The Time Lords send the Doctor back in time to the creation of the Daleks, with the goal of either preventing their creation, or at least making them less aggressive. While there, the Doctor is captured by the Daleks' creator and is made to detail every Dalek vulnerability he knows about. Being the universe's resident expert on fighting Daleks, this would have been a catastrophe had he not [[No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup|destroyed]] the tape before leaving the scene.

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** [[Russell T Davies]]' view was that this Dalek-Time Lord skirmishing eventually led to the Time War of the new series, thus subverting the trope. Alternatively, this could be playing the trope straight, as the Time War may actually be a ''better'' outcome than what the Time Lords originally predicted.

* In the ''Mirror, Mirror'' series, there is exactly ''one'' person who was trained to do this exactly ''once'', as revealed in the final episode. Everything prior to this point had already happened in her mentor's past.

* In ''[[~~Babylon 5 (TV)|~~Babylon 5]]'', this is a key point in the 5 year plot -- instead of "Sometimes, trying to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]] is what [[You Already Changed the Past|sets everything wrong in the first place]], resulting in a [[Stable Time Loop]].", everything will go wrong unless the heroes go back to keep what's right, creating a [[Stable Time Loop]] by altering the past to what it is. Which gets really confusing if you try to ask, "What happened the first time?". There are a few hints via dreams and a broadcast. It's said the Shadow's army would have been three times larger and more prone to act directly earlier.

* In ''[[Babylon 5]]'', this is a key point in the 5 year plot -- instead of "Sometimes, trying to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]] is what [[You Already Changed the Past|sets everything wrong in the first place]], resulting in a [[Stable Time Loop]].", everything will go wrong unless the heroes go back to keep what's right, creating a [[Stable Time Loop]] by altering the past to what it is. Which gets really confusing if you try to ask, "What happened the first time?". There are a few hints via dreams and a broadcast. It's said the Shadow's army would have been three times larger and more prone to act directly earlier.

* More of a case of "Set right what we messed up" but in an episode of ''[[Hannah Montana (TV)|Hannah Montana]]'', Miley and Jackson travel back in time and mess up their parents meeting. Cue a back to the future style disappearance for Jackson as Miley tries to set things right. It was probably [[All Just a Dream]].

* Done in ''[[Power Rangers Turbo]]'', with heavily debated success. A robot, the Blue Senturion, came from a thousand years in the future to warn the heros about a war two years later... and was intercepted by the villains, who took the message, and deleted it from his memory. Not only did the war still happen, but it happened a year earlier than scheduled. On the one hand, an all-out win for Team Evil was averted, but on the other, [[Power Rangers in Space|it still didn't]] [[Heroic Sacrifice|end very]] [[Bittersweet Ending|happily]].

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* ''[[Stargate SG-1 (TV)|Stargate SG-1]]''

** Subverted in "The Gamekeeper": Jack and Daniel ''think'' that they're being sent to the past to fix mistakes in their lives, but it turns out that they're just mentally reliving them, not really time travelling, and there's no way for them to fix it anyways.

** Played straight in the Aschen arc, in the episodes "2010" and "2001". The former takes place in a [[Bad Future]], where the Aschen, posing as benevolent aliens, infect Earth with a sterility vaccine that will eventually cause its population to die out. To avert it, SG-1 sends a [[Note to Self|note to their past selves]] back in time, leading to a less tragic future.

** Played straight in the Aschen arc, in the episodes "2010" and "2001". The former takes place in a [[Bad Future]], where the Aschen, posing as benevolent aliens, infect Earth with a sterility vaccine that will eventually cause its population to die out. To avert it, SG-1 sends a [[Note to Self:|note to their past selves]] back in time, leading to a less tragic future.

** Played straight in the two-parter "Moebius" when an attempt to go back in time to retrieve a piece of technology results in screwing up the timeline and having to go back in time again to fix it.

*** Not necessarily. It's not made clear if it was SG-1's interference that made Ra leave with the stargate or if that was what originally happened.

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** Although it seems perfectly okay for them to change history in some cases but not in others. In one early episode, our heroes help a struggling musician make it to a gig which he had missed in the original timeline. He's convinced that had he not missed this gig, he'd be a star in the present. Turns out he's still a nobody even after they change history; the only difference is that he no longer blames himself for the breakup of his band. Since the change was so unimportant, our heroes are informed that what they did was okay.

** What the previous two events have in common is that the change prevented the [[Monster of the Week|Imagin]] from making a [[Deal With the Devil]] with that person in the first place. While Singularity Points negate ''some'' of the damage caused by an Imagin to the past, they only negate damage to things that were part of their memory and some things are lost for good. So completely negating the rampage ''better'' preserves the timeline than simply destroying the Imagin in the past, even if it requires a minor change. Strangely, this ''doesn't'' negate the fact the Imagin was destroyed though...

* In the [[Non Serial Movie]] of ''[[Kamen Rider Kiva]]'', ''King of Hell Castle'', Wataru goes back in time in order to prevent a prison inmate from discovering the ruins of an ancient demon race and becoming their king. Unfortunately, his actions don't make any real difference, and in fact may have made it worse, given that when he returns to 2008, the creatures are roaming freely and the moon is covered by a gigantic monster eyeball.

* In the [[Non-Serial Movie]] of ''[[Kamen Rider Kiva]]'', ''King of Hell Castle'', Wataru goes back in time in order to prevent a prison inmate from discovering the ruins of an ancient demon race and becoming their king. Unfortunately, his actions don't make any real difference, and in fact may have made it worse, given that when he returns to 2008, the creatures are roaming freely and the moon is covered by a gigantic monster eyeball.

* In ''[[Primeval]]'', Matt spends the majority of season four and five doing this to prevent a [[Bad Future|bad future]]. {{spoiler|Although, as he doesn't know exactly what went wrong, and doesn't find out what went wrong until halfway through season five, he spends most of the time tracking the wrong person and helping prevent a bad present.}}

* The ''[[Mysterious Ways (TV)|Mysterious Ways]]'' episode "Yesterday" deals with a police officer who relives the previous day after accidentally shooting and killing his partner and praying for some way to make it right.

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* The plot of ''[[Ratchet and Clank Future A Crack In Time]]''. {{spoiler|Subverted in that it turns out to be impossible and/or will only result in tearing the universe apart.}}

* Fails ''spectacularly'' in ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' series.

** In ''[[The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'''s ending, Zelda sends Link back to the beginning of the game so he can avoid his [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]] moment. Rather than changing the future they're in, it creates a second time line. The timeline where Link sealed Ganon away now lacks a hero to take care of him, and the gods end up ''destroying hyrule in a Great Flood'' for lack of any other option. And the other timeline, where Link didn't lead Ganondorf directly to the triforce? Ganondorf ends up with 1/3 of it and gets sealed away ''anyway''. Net result of attempt to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]]: one timeline in exactly the same situation that they were trying to prevent, and one timeline ''utterly destroyed''.

** In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'''s ending, Zelda sends Link back to the beginning of the game so he can avoid his [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]] moment. Rather than changing the future they're in, it creates a second time line. The timeline where Link sealed Ganon away now lacks a hero to take care of him, and the gods end up ''destroying hyrule in a Great Flood'' for lack of any other option. And the other timeline, where Link didn't lead Ganondorf directly to the triforce? Ganondorf ends up with 1/3 of it and gets sealed away ''anyway''. Net result of attempt to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]]: one timeline in exactly the same situation that they were trying to prevent, and one timeline ''utterly destroyed''.

** ''[[The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask]]'' begins with Link dumped into an alternate reality, [[Baleful Polymorph|unwillingly transformed into a harmless Deku Scrub]], and forced to watch helplessly as the world around him goes to hell in a handbasket before its eventual destruction at the end of the third day. Then Link goes back in time, regains his true form, and relives the same three days [[Groundhog Day Loop|over and over]] as he gradually meets and helps everyone the [[Big Bad]] has hurt, until he is finally strong enough to stop it all from happening.

* The entire plot of ''[[Mortal Kombat 9 (Video Game)|Mortal Kombat 9]]'' centers around an attempt to do this. Shao Kahn ends up winning the events of Armageddon, leading Raiden to send a message back to his past self to try and fix this. {{spoiler|He ends up nearly bungling the whole thing. In the end, every single one of the Forces of Light save for Johnny Cage, Sonya, and himself are dead, their souls taken by Quan Chi. Shao Kahn is defeated, averting THAT particular Armageddon event, but Quan Chi has an army of powerful souls at his command now, and the ending implies that Shinnok and the Netherrealm are preparing to attack next...}}

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* Two episodes of ''[[Lilo and Stitch The Series]]'' centered around this plot. In the first, Lilo embarrasses herself in front of her love interest. She find out Jumba has a surfboard style time machine and used it to fix the blunder, but at the same time theres an experiment running around that Stitch tries to catch and each attempt causes a disaster to the area causing multiple re-dos. Eventually Lilo has to let herself get embarrassed to fix the timeline. The second involves Lilo finding an experiment that can warp time forward, allowing her to age into a teenager and later an adult. However since she and Stitch are time traveling, they're not around to catch experiments. Allowing [[Big Bad]] Gantu and Hamsterveil to capture them and take over the Earth. Conveniently said experiment has a [[Reset Button]] but they have to rescue it first to fix the damage.

* ''[[Family Guy (Animation)|Family Guy]]''

** Done as a [[Shout Out]] to ''Back to the Future'', when Peter has Death warp him back in time so he can relive a day in his teenage years. However he does so at a critical moment in the history of his relationship to Lois that ends with her married to Quagmire and him married to Molly Ringwald (its complicated, just go with it). Peter, along with Brian, convince Death to send them back to undo Peter's mistake.

** Done as a [[Shout-Out]] to ''Back to the Future'', when Peter has Death warp him back in time so he can relive a day in his teenage years. However he does so at a critical moment in the history of his relationship to Lois that ends with her married to Quagmire and him married to Molly Ringwald (its complicated, just go with it). Peter, along with Brian, convince Death to send them back to undo Peter's mistake.

** Also, explicitly referenced in an episode where Peter [[It Makes Sense in Context|becomes a Jehovah's Witness (among other things)]] and explains Jesus like this, leading to a ''[[Quantum Leap (TV)|Quantum Leap]]'' sight gag.

** And now Stewie and Brian are credited as using this to CREATE THE FAMILY GUY UNIVERSE. LITERALLY. So that's a... set half-right what was elsetime random-in-the-void? It gets played straight in the same episode when Stewie's sperm-brother tries to erase one of his more 'European' ancestors to erase Stewie.

* Likewise, sister series ''[[American Dad (Animation)|American Dad]]'' had a [[Christmas Episode]] that featured a Ghost of Christmas Past trying to pull [[Yet Another Christmas Carol]] on Stan but he uses the opportunity to try and "fix" Christmas by killing Jane Fonda. His guardian angel stops him, but when they get back to modern times America is under the control of Soviet Russia. [[It Makes Sense in Context]]<ref>Stan also got [[Martin Scorcese]] off drugs, which meant no ''[[Taxi Driver]]'', which meant John Hinkley Jr. didn't try to shoot [[Ronald Reagan]], which meant Walter Mondale gets elected President and immediately surrendered to the USSR</ref>. {{spoiler|In a bit of a subversion, trying to fix the original event by making ''[[Taxi Driver]]'' doesn't work, so Stan is forced to shoot Reagan himself (which much to his relief is told he just has to "wing him") to fix the timeline.}} Note that even in the end [[Close Enough Timeline|the timeline isn't the same]]: {{spoiler|Since Stan only shot Reagan, his assistant James Brady was fine which meant no Brady Bill and thus America has less strict gun laws.}}

* Likewise, sister series ''[[American Dad (Animation)|American Dad]]'' had a [[Christmas Episode]] that featured a Ghost of Christmas Past trying to pull [[Yet Another Christmas Carol]] on Stan but he uses the opportunity to try and "fix" Christmas by killing Jane Fonda. His guardian angel stops him, but when they get back to modern times America is under the control of Soviet Russia. [[It Makes Sense in Context]]<ref>Stan also got [[Martin Scorcese]] off drugs, which meant no ''[[Taxi Driver]]'', which meant John Hinkley Jr. didn't try to shoot [[Ronald Reagan]], which meant Walter Mondale gets elected President and immediately surrendered to the USSR</ref>. {{spoiler|In a bit of a subversion, trying to fix the original event by making ''[[Taxi Driver]]'' doesn't work, so Stan is forced to shoot Reagan himself (which much to his relief is told he just has to "wing him") to fix the timeline.}} Note that even in the end [["Close Enough" Timeline|the timeline isn't the same]]: {{spoiler|Since Stan only shot Reagan, his assistant James Brady was fine which meant no Brady Bill and thus America has less strict gun laws.}}

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[[Category:Plots]]

[[Category:Set Right What Once Went Wrong]]

[[Category:Trope]]