What TV Time Loops Teach Us About Storytelling

I'm on a mission to watch 100 time loop stories, and along the way, I'm sharing some of my discoveries.

In this video, I've gathered some of the most interesting examples from the world of science fiction television.

If there are any you think I should add to this list, let me know in the comments.

This is Goodnight Rita, and my name is Christopher Bingham.

Okay, so I'm gonna go down my list and describe the episodes.

I'm gonna talk about how the loop works, what I like and dislike about them, and at the end we'll see if there are any lessons we can learn from it overall.

And just a quick spoiler warning for, like, little bits of all of these shows.

So let's start at the top in 1992 with Star Trek The Next Generation and an episode you might know called Cause and Effect, directed by Jonathan Frakes and written by Brannon Braga.

The crew is stuck for 17 days in a loop of just a few hours, always ending with the Enterprise destroyed and all hands lost.

Dr. Crusher is the first to start noticing, followed slowly by other members of the team.

The whole episode is played for eeriness bordering on horror.

Emphasized by strange wide shots and unusual angles.

It's a fairly creepy episode filled with dread.

We've kind of talked about this on a previous episode.

I think most Trek fans agree it's a really strong episode of TNG.

And I think it's generally a really solid example of a time loop story in science fiction television.

This predates Groundhog Day and is often cited as inspiration for others on the list.

Cause and effect.

Star Trek Next Generation.

Up next, first aired in 1999, we have The X-Files Monday, directed by Kim Manners and written by Vince Gilligan and John Shaban.

It's always fun to remember that Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad, worked on The X-Files.

Also one of the guest stars in this episode is Darren E. Burrows, who was in my favorite show of all time, Northern Exposure.

Everyone in this story is stuck looping for at least seven days that we see, although it's implied there are more.

Write down schedule.

This woman, Pam, who's stuck in an abusive relationship with Bernard, is the only one conscious of it.

Although slowly over the course of the episode, Mulder becomes aware as well.

Each loop ends with Bernard holding up a bank that Mulder and Scully just happened to be in that day.

Like most of the X-Files, it's played with this kind of low-key tension and slightly uncomfortable tone.

Mulder is having a pretty bad day, which is played for comic relief, but Pam is having a genuinely bad day.

Her loop is used to heighten the reality of being stuck in a toxic environment or relationship, a situation where you feel powerless.

It's a really good and really interesting example that I can't recommend enough.

You have control over everything that happens here.

And it doesn't have to end this way.

Stargate SG-1, Window of Opportunity.

2000.

Directed by Peter DeLuise and written by Joseph Malozzi and Paul Mully.

Or are we just somewhere else?

Where?

Some planet.

When?

Just now.

No.

In this episode of Stargate, the SGU and its staff are trapped for three months repeating the same day, always ending with the gate being mysteriously activated remotely.

It's revealed that the loop is a byproduct of a faulty alien machine on the planet they just visited.

The race who created it was dying, and tried to go back in time, but could never get it to work.

It lets us see some of the main characters in really unusual situations, particularly Jack who gets the majority of the screen time and gets to let loose with no consequences.

It tightly expresses the freedom turning to monotony paradigm we see in a lot of examples.

In the last act, Jack's reality comes rushing back.

The person responsible for the loop is trying to use the machine to turn back time so he can see his dead wife.

We're reminded that Jack had a son who died, and his experience with that kind of loss helps him reach Malachi.

I lost my son!

I know!

And as much as I...

I could never live that over again.

This remains one of the best TV examples of the trope, possibly the best.

It makes efficient use of limited time by not showing us the normal day first, but having us get to know the routine once the loop has already started.

It uses Groundhog Day's visual language by repeating the same shots and camera movements, you know, being really efficient with its shooting.

And most of all, the concept serves an emotional story about grief.

Supernatural The Mystery Spot.

2008.

Also directed by Kim Manners, who did the X-Files one, and written by Jeremy Carver and Emily McLaughlin.

In this Sam lives the same day over a hundred times, each one ending with Dean dying.

The time loop eventually turns out to be the work of an entity called the Trickster, who has appeared in the series before, getting revenge by torturing Sam with visions of his brother dying for all eternity.

It's generally played for comedy once we know the loop is happening.

Did it look cool like in the movies?

You peed yourself.

Except the last act, which then gets really serious and melodramatic.

It explores Sam and Dean's bond, but, you know, otherwise it's not particularly deep.

In my opinion, it's a fun homage to Ground Dog Day, but the late game reveal of the trickster kind of spoils the fun, and also makes it less accessible to people who aren't familiar with the show.

Cut it out, Sam.

You think you're being funny, but you're being really, really childish.

Sam Winchester wears makeup.

Sam Winchester cries his way through sex.

Sam Winchester keeps a ruler by the bed, and every morning when he wakes up, he's okay enough.

Eureka!

I Do Over.

2008.

Directed by Matt Earl Beasley and written by Tanya St. John.

Okay.

I don't like this one.

This episode starts with Carter walking into an unseen character's room and getting flooded with weird blue light, after which he gets stuck reliving the day of his crush's wedding multiple times.

The loop is caused by some poorly explained sci-fi guff, like everything in Eureka, and ends with a recurring character sacrificing his life to stay inside the machine

In my opinion, this is a pretty poor example.

Just in terms of mystery storytelling, it's full of red flags.

The stakes and danger throughout the episode feel really vague and underexplained, leading to a pretty unsatisfying conclusion.

Fringe, White Tulip, 2010, directed by Thomas Yatsko and written by J.H.

Wyman and Jeff Vlaming, which I'm probably pronouncing incorrectly.

Also, it gets points for guest starring Peter Weller, who you might recognize from any number of things, including Robocop.

If it is right, then we may well have apprehended this man already, possibly several times.

This story involves a 12-hour loop caused by our guest character, who's trying to use it to save his fiance's life.

Like all of Fringe, this episode has this kind of heightened self-seriousness, thrown off at times with moments of comic relief from Walter.

Although I should say this is a pretty serious one for him.

Like Window of Opportunity, it explores grief, but it does so more deliberately and seriously.

Peck's grief and survivor's guilt is used to emphasise Walter's own feelings about his son.

I'm not the biggest fan of Fringe, but this is a really effective example.

It tells a compact little story, which also resonates with the larger series arc.

It'll be especially rewarding to people following the show, but enough context is given, I think even a casual viewer could have a good time.

Dark Matter, all the time in the world.

2017, directed by Ron Murphy and written by Joseph Malozzi.

Joseph Malozzi and Paul Mully, who 17 years prior wrote Window of Opportunity, are actually the creators behind Dark Matter.

So there's quite a lot of shared DNA in this one.

In the episode Three, which is this guy's name.

If you don't know the show, they all have numbers for names.

Three gets stuck living the same day for over a month.

What the hell is wrong with you?

You'd never believe it.

The episode opens with the loop already in progress and later two other characters get caught in it as well.

Towards the end it kind of goes off the rails with the androids skipping about through different time periods and getting glimpses of the future.

And the solution turns out to be just destroying a device that literally looks like a glowing clock.

What are you doing?

Ending the time loop.

So it's mostly a really fun time, and it did actually convince me to start watching Dark Matter from the beginning.

But as an example of the time loop trope, it kind of falls apart.

The last act, to me, feels like a cop-out.

Instead of a satisfying conclusion to the episode's story, we get a kind of Marvel post-credits sequence to hype us up about something else.

So that didn't really land for me, and I think it makes it inaccessible to a newcomer.

French, maybe?

Oh, God.

I'm gonna need a drink of water before this one.

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In this episode of Discovery, Michael is caught in a 30 minute time loop for over 60 loops.

Midway through the episode, it's revealed that Stamets is also in the loop, and they work together to try and solve the problem.

At the end, we discover the loop is being caused by a time crystal in the possession of Harry Mudd, a womanizing conman who first appeared in the original series.

The vibe of this episode is a nothing burger for me.

It touches on a lot of different little things, like making yourself vulnerable and going for romance and taking chances, but it feels like it's only paying lip service to these ideas.

It's a poor execution of the trope overall.

When I try and divorce my overall feelings about Star Trek Discovery, I still think it's bad.

Warning, critical drive overload in 60 seconds.

Can we just jump ahead to the part where you tell me how to make these systems operational, please?

The opening act does a half-decent job of establishing the day's routine, then we see the loop.

The reveal that Stamets is also remembering the loops is pretty cool, but it isn't done very well.

The time crystal explanation made me actually laugh out loud when I remembered that that's what it was.

And the story wraps up with this dumb throwback fan service thing to Mudd's Women, which is an episode of TOS.

So not only does this not stand alone, it's anticipating deep prior knowledge of a show from the 60s that a lot of its viewers won't know.

Dipping back into disco to watch this reminded me how stilted and awkward it is.

The deliveries are weird, nobody's makeup is done correctly, Anthony Rapp talks like he's had a stroke.

I try to stay positive on this channel, but if you get me talking about Discovery, that will not last.

A lot of people in the comments recommended an episode of DC's Legends of Tomorrow called Here I Go Again, which aired one year after the disco episode, directed by Ben Hernandez Bray and written by Ray Utanichit and Morgan Faust.

Zari finds herself caught in a loop after accidentally overloading the ship's artificial intelligence, Gideon.

Each loop is an hour long and ends with the ship exploding.

And we see 13 or so of these loops, plus a montage.

At the end we discover Zari was actually injured by some kind of time goo that powers the ship, and Gideon put her consciousness into a simulation.

The loop and the explosion were all a scenario designed to help her bond with the crew.

It makes no secret of being inspired by Groundhog Day.

If what you're saying is true, and you find yourself in the loop again,

It's emotional through-line, Zari learning about the other characters and developing empathy for them, feels very true to those origins.

Although I personally feel a bit betrayed by an ending like that, it has to be said that it's still pretty effective, and I bet it lands pretty well if you're following the show.

One thing I'll say is that it is very self-aware.

It's very meta.

Wait, you're caught in a time loop?

That's awesome!

Great.

Did you do the, uh... Fun montage?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thanks for that.

You're a good friend.

which some viewers might find a bit much.

But overall, I enjoyed it.

I don't know the series at all, and I was able to follow it and have a good time.

And finally, in 2020, during its final season, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

aired the episode, As I Have Always Been, directed by Elizabeth Henstridge and written by Drew Z. Greenberg.

This episode features over 100 short loops.

The team on the Zephyr are caught in a storm, slowly getting closer to destruction.

Daisy is experiencing the loop at first, and later we discover Coulson is also looping, but he starts each loop charging.

We later discover that Daisy loses her memories if she dies, so there have actually been far more loops than she first thought.

The situation resolves with Enoch sacrificing himself to save the crew.

We do what we can with the time in between, but the cycle is always there.

No one escapes it.

Not even me.

This has very strong storytelling, typical for S.H.I.E.L.D.

The episode manages to be playful, intriguing, and emotional.

It provides a lot of fun character moments, as well as a sad conclusion to Enoch's arc.

It's an amazing episodic example of the formula, up there with Window of Opportunity.

Maybe even better.

It packs a lot into one episode, including a murder mystery element and a second looper reveal.

These little details elevate the narrative, which I think really showcases something the writers on S.H.I.E.L.D.

were always trying to do.

Finding a story that's already really strong, and then throwing something into the mix that makes it better.

And reliving this made me want to go and watch the whole show again.

Jump successful, everybody.

We're safe.

So what can we learn from all of this?

I think when you look at this list, you can see a lot of similar themes emerging.

Most of these stories concern themselves with death, grief, love, and sacrifice.

A lot of them drill down into family grief, losing a loved one or a partner, sometimes imagining a hellish scenario where you experience that loss again and again.

And a lot of them feature a character sacrificing their own life,

or at least learning to let go of something really precious to them.

We can see time loops in the abstract being used a lot to signal a decision that needs to be made.

The majority of television examples are science fiction.

Now there are a few fantasy ones I'm gonna talk about later in the series.

You've got, you know, Buffy, Xena, Warrior, Princess.

We're gonna talk about them, don't worry.

But why are so many of them so firmly rooted in the sci-fi genre?

I've had a lot of time to think about this and I've come to a few conclusions and I think maybe you guys in the comments can chip in if you have your own ideas and between us we might reach some kind of thesis.

Firstly, science fiction lends itself to a narrative explanation for the loop.

You know, it's a genre where you can

just find, you know, a reason for there to be time travel and a reason for there to be a kind of an on and an off switch, right?

I think a lot of it also has to do with the limitations of runtime and strict story formats.

A more kind of nebulous, less defined loop without distinct rules would be very difficult to explore when you're restrained by, for instance, the five-act Star Trek structure, not to mention by narrative considerations for the rest of the show, both before and after this episode.

And I think these reasons go some way towards explaining why so many of these examples feel similar and make it even more impressive.

when they find ways to surprise us.

Thank you for enjoying this episode of Goodnight Rita.

By popular demand, up next I'm gonna do a couple of bonus episodes.

The first about source code, which a lot of people have asked for, and the second about one of the worst time loop films I've watched.

So get ready for that.