Groundhog Day Loops

[TaoPhoenix]

Just a little thread asking if people know of any other "Groundhog Day Time Loop" TV/Movie episodes. (For pedantic completeness, Groundhog Day with Bill Murray featured a man who lived the same day over and over until he achieved the mysteriously driven required personal growth to snap out of it.)

The other ones I know of so far are:
Star Trek Next Generation Season 5 Episode 18 (sometimes written as Se05 Ep18) Cause and Effect
Eureka I Do Over Season 3 Episode 4 (Se03 Ep04)
The entire series of Daybreak:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_Break
The entire series of Seven Days: (But he only gets one shot at it)
http://en.wikipedia....Days_%28TV_series%29

Different but an Also Ran for interest is the Star Trek Next Generation finale All Good Things but that's more of a multi shift than a true loop.

Same goes for Warehouse 13 Season 6 Episode 1 (Se06 Ep01) Endless Terror. That one is about alternate realities via time travel which is not my focus here. I'm looking for where the character is in his own same loop and eventually realizes it. Also similar but slower is of course the famous Star Trek Original Series Season 1 Episode 28 (Se01 Ep28) The City on the Edge of Forever. (And many more.)

(Quick Edit: There seems to be a Wiki page!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_loop
(And a TV Tropes page!)
http://tvtropes.org/.../Main/StableTimeLoop

And so I think I am looking for examples that are not on those two pages. Also I think I want to focus on ones that are single episode long and multi loops featuring multiple restarts etc.
(This post has been brought to you by Crabby, who has now canonically documented my 12 minute obsessions that turn into 500 word posts that I only care about for a week!)

[40hz]

You could add

But it would spoil the surprise reveal knowing that...

Lunopolis

Also the film Run Lola Run

Worth it just to watch the incredibly underrated actress Franke Potente.

 

Also that recent Tom Cruise flick Edge of Tomorrow that loops but also does the Cassandra Predicament riff sorta...very close to Groundhog Day in "high concept." (Emily Blunt looking great while doing one of her trademark understated characters in this one.)

The epic action of "Edge of Tomorrow" unfolds in a near future in which an alien race has hit the Earth in an unrelenting assault, unbeatable by any military unit in the world. 

Major William Cage (Cruise) is an officer who has never seen a day of combat when he is unceremoniously dropped into what amounts to a suicide mission. Killed within minutes, Cage now finds himself inexplicably thrown into a time loop—forcing him to live out the same brutal combat over and over, fighting and dying again...and again.
But with each battle, Cage becomes able to engage the adversaries with increasing skill, alongside Special Forces warrior Rita Vrataski (Blunt). And, as Cage and Rita take the fight to the aliens, each repeated encounter gets them one step closer to defeating the enemy.

You might also want to consider Dark City. There is a groundhog loop - admittedly engineered every 24-hrs by an alien social experiment where everyone gets "reset" each night - but to the humans who are subject to it, it adds up to the same thing.

[superboyac]

You might also want to consider Dark City. There is a groundhog loop - admittedly engineered every 24-hrs by an alien social experiment where everyone gets "reset" each night - but to the humans who are subject to it, it adds up to the same thing.

-40hz (May 14, 2014, 01:36 PM)

I saw Dark City in college and it blew me away.  Great looking movie.

[Shades]

Supernatural season 3 episode 11 - 'Mystery spot'  - Great episode, too bad this series went downhill so fast after season 6, especially after the (more than) excellent seasons 2 till 5. So many opportunities missed in season 6 till 9, it is a shame.

[mouser]

There are some very good indie time travel movies that have been mentioned on the forum that have a groundhog-day element (for example Timecrimes).

[MilesAhead]

I also loved Dark City.  I never did make it to Shell Beach.  But I did find an excellent HD version. Another "Loop" in Dark City is you don't quite know what's up the first time you watch it.  You have to loop through it to get it.  

Edit:  I would think there must be at least one Twilight Zone episode with a time loop.  I can't think of one at the moment.  But I can just picture Rod Serling coming up with something where some dude gets nagged by his wife forever or something similar. Like the main character is the only one aware it's going around in circles.

[MilesAhead]

(This post has been brought to you by Crabby, who has now canonically documented my 12 minute obsessions that turn into 500 word posts that I only care about for a week!

But at the end of the week do you forget you already posted and ask the same question again? 

[40hz]

I would think there must be at least one Twilight Zone episode with a time loop.  I can't think of one at the moment.  But I can just picture Rod Serling coming up with something where some dude gets nagged by his wife forever or something similar. Like the main character is the only one aware it's going around in circles.

-MilesAhead (May 14, 2014, 05:43 PM)

Good lordy! Paradoxical loops were a mainstay of the Twilight Zone! In the first season alone there were several stories that used some sort of a loop as a central element in their plot:

Judgement Night

   Judgment Night

        Writer: Rod Serling
        Director: John Brahm
        Producer: Buck Houghton
        Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
        Music: stock
        Cast:
            Lanser: Nehemiah Persoff
            Captain Wilbur: Ben Wright
            First Officer: Patrick MacNee

    "Her name is the S.S. Queen of Glasgow. Her registry: British. Gross tonnage: five thousand. Age: indeterminate. At this moment she's one day out of Liverpool, her destination New York. Duly recorded on this ship's log is the sailing time, course to destination, weather conditions, temperature, longitude and latitude. But what is never recorded in a log is the fear that washes over a deck like fog and ocean spray. Fear like the throbbing strokes of engine pistons, each like a heartbeat, parceling out every hour into breathless minutes of watching, waiting and dreading. For the year is 1942, and this particular ship has lost its convoy. It travels alone like an aged blind thing groping through the unfriendly dark, stalked by unseen periscopes of steel killers. Yes, the Queen of Glasgow is a frightened ship, and she carries with her a premonition of death."

   Carl Lanser is a German on board the Glasgow. He has no memory of how he got there, but he has a strange feeling that he knows the passengers. Lanser is certain that they are being stalked by an enemy sub. He also feels something is going to happen at 1:15 a.m. At 1:15 a.m. a U-boat surfaces. Looking through binoculars, Lanser sees that the captain is himself. The U-boat sinks the boat, and machine-guns the survivors. Later a lieutenant on the U-boat suggests that they may all face damnation for their actions. Kapitan Lanser dismisses the idea - not realizing that he is doomed to repeat the sinking of the ship for eternity.

    "The S.S. Queen of Glasgow, heading for New York, and the time is 1942. For one man, it is always 1942 - and the man will ride the ghost of that ship every night for eternity. This is what is meant by paying the fiddler. This is the comeuppance awaiting every man when the ledger of his life is opened and examined, the tally made, and then the reward or the penalty paid. And in the case of Carl Lanser, former Kapitan Lieutenant, Navy of the Third Reich, this is the penalty. This is the justice meted out. This is judgment night in the Twilight Zone."

And When The Sky Was Opened

    And When The Sky Was Opened

        Writer: Rod Serling (based on a short story "Disappearing Act" by Richard Matheson)
        Director: Douglas Heyes
        Producer: Buck Houghton
        Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
        Music: Leonard Rosenman
        Cast:
            Col. Clegg Forbes: Rod Taylor
            Col. Ed Harrington: Charles Aidman
            Maj. William Gart: James Hutton
            Amy: Maxine Cooper

    "Her name: X-20. Her type: an experimental interceptor. Recent history: a crash landing in the Mojave Desert after a thirty-one hour flight nine hundred miles into space. Incidental data: the ship, with the men who flew her, disappeared from the radar screen for twenty-four hours. [Narration interrupted by character action and dialogue.] But the shrouds that cover mysteries are not always made out of a tarpaulin, as this man will soon find out on the other side of a hospital door."

    Three astronauts have returned from this first space flight. Major Gart is hospitalized with a broken leg. The other two, Colonels Harrington and Forbes head for a bar. Harrington gets a strange feeling and calls his parents. They inform him they have no son. Harrington then disappears, with nobody remembering him but Forbes. When Forbes tells Gart what happened, Gart says he doesn't remember Harrington either. Forbes runs out the door screaming, "I don't want this to happen!" When Gart gets to the door, Forbes has disappeared. Then Gart and their ship vanishes, wiping the last evidence of their existence off the face of the Earth.

    "Once upon a time, there was a man named Harrington, a man named Forbes, a man named Gart. They used to exist, but don't any longer. Someone - or something - took them somewhere. At least they are no longer a part of the memory of a man. And as to the X-20 supposed to be housed here in this hangar, this too does not exist. And if any of you have any questions concerning an aircraft and three men who flew her, speak softly of them... and only in the Twilight Zone."

The Hitch-Hiker

 The Hitch-Hiker

        Writer: Rod Serling (based on a radio play "The Hitch-Hiker" by Lucille Fletcher)
        Director: Alvin Ganzer
        Producer: Buck Houghton
        Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
        Music: stock
        Cast:
            Nan Adams: Inger Stevens
            Hitch-Hiker: Leonard Strong
            Sailor: Adam Williams
            Gas Pump Boy: Lew Gallo

    "Her name is Nan Adams. She's twenty-seven years old. Her occupation: buyer at a New York department store, at present on vacation, driving cross-country to Los Angeles, California, from Manhattan. [Narration interrupted by character action and dialogue.] Minor incident on Highway 11 in Pennsylvania, perhaps to be filed away under accidents you walk away from. But from this moment on, Nan Adams' companion on a trip to California will be terror; her route - fear; her destination - quite unknown."

    After a blowout, Nan Adams repeatedly sees the same hitch-hiker. She tries to run over him, only to be told by a sailor to whom she's given a lift that there was no one on the road. She calls home and learns her mother suffered a nervous breakdown after the death of her daughter in a car wreck. Nan returns to her car, where the hitch-hiker - his purpose and identity known - awaits.

    "Nan Adams, age twenty-seven. She was driving to California, to Los Angeles. She didn't make it. There was a detour - through the Twilight Zone."[/b][/i]

        

The Last Flight

    
   The Last Flight

        Writer: Richard Matheson
        Director: William Claxton
        Producer: Buck Houghton
        Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
        Music: stock
        Cast:
            Flight Lt. Decker: Kenneth Haigh
            Major Wilson: Simon Scott
            General Harper: Alexander Scourby

    "Witness Flight Lieutenant William Terrance Decker, Royal Flying Corps, returning from a patrol somewhere over France. The year is 1917. The problem is that the Lieutenant is hopelessly lost. Lieutenant Decker will soon discover that a man can be lost not only in terms of maps and miles, but also in time - and time in this case can be measured in eternities."

    During a World War I mission, Decker deserts his best friend, who is surrounded by enemy planes. He flies through a strange white cloud, and lands at a modern-day American air base in France. Decker discovers that the man he left behind went on to become a hero in World War II, and is due to inspect the base that very day. Decker, realizing he's been given a second chance, overpowers the major, returns to his plane, and takes off. Later, when Decker's friend arrives to inspect the base, he says Decker did return to save him - at the cost of his own life.

    "Dialogue from a play, Hamlet to Horatio: 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Dialogue from a play written long before men took to the sky. There are more things in heaven and earth, and in the sky, than perhaps can be dreamt of. And somewhere in between heaven, the sky, the earth, lies the Twilight Zone."

Mirror Image

 

 Mirror Image

        Writer: Rod Serling
        Director: John Brahm
        Producer: Buck Houghton
        Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
        Music: stock
        Cast:
            Millicent Barnes: Vera Miles
            Paul Grinstead: Martin Milner
            Ticket Agent: Joe Hamilton

    "Millicent Barnes, age twenty-four, young woman waiting for a bus on a rainy November night. Not a very imaginative type is Miss Barnes, not given to undue anxiety or fears, or for that matter even the most temporal flights of fancy. Like most young career women, she has a generic classification as a, quote, girl with a head on her shoulders, end of quote. All of which is mentioned now because in just a moment the head on Miss Barnes's shoulders will be put to a test. Circumstances will assault her sense of reality and a chain of nightmares will put her sanity on a block. Millicent Barnes, who in one minute will wonder if she's going mad."

    Millicent Barnes is confused by the actions of various employees at the bus station. The ticket taker tells her that she has repeatedly asked when the bus is going to arrive, and that her suitcase has already been checked. The washroom attendant claims she was there a few seconds earlier. Yet she hasn't done any of these things. While in the washroom, she sees herself sitting on a bench out in the bus station. She runs out, but the room is empty. Paul Grinstead, a businessman, becomes concerned for Millicent. They go to board the bus, but Millicent runs back in after seeing her other self already on the bus. Paul stays to comfort Millicent, who now says she knows what is happenning: a mirror image of herself from another world has entered this world, and must take her place to survive. Paul, certain she's mentally ill, calls the police. After the police take Millicent away, Paul chases a man who he believes has stolen his case. As the man turns around, Paul realizes that the man is a duplicate of himself.

    "Obscure metaphysical explanation to cover a phenomenon, reasons dredged out of the shadows to explain away that which cannot be explained. Call it parallel planes or just insanity. Whatever it is, you find it in the Twilight Zone."

A Stop At Willoughby

   A Stop At Willoughby

        Writer: Rod Serling
        Director: Robert Parrish
        Producer: Buck Houghton
        Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
        Music: Nathan Scott
        Cast:
            Gart Williams: James Daly
            Jane Williams: Patricia Donahue
            Mr. Misrell: Howard Smith

    "This is Gart Williams, age thirty-eight, a man protected by a suit of armor all held together by one bolt. Just a moment ago, someone removed the bolt, and Mr. Williams' protection fell away from him and left him a naked target. He's been cannonaded this afternoon by all the enemies of his life. His insecurity has shelled him, his sensitivity has straddled him with humiliation, his deep-rooted disquiet about his own worth has zeroed in on him, landed on target, and blown him apart. Mr. Gart Williams, ad agency exec, who in just a moment will move into the Twilight Zone--in a desperate search for survival."

    Gart Williams is a very unhappy man. He has a terrible boss and a shrewish wife. Riding home on the train one day he falls asleep, and dreams it is 1880, and he is entering a small town called Willoughby. The conductor tells him Willoughby is a town where "a man can slow down to a walk and live his life full measure." Williams realizes this is the place for him, but he receives only ridicule from his wife. The pressure of his job being too great, he finally cracks. He calls his wife to tell her he is quitting, but she hangs up on him. On the train home, he suddenly finds himself back in Willoughby. The townsfolk all greet him by name. He's there for good this time. Meanwhile, the train has stopped. A Mr. Williams has jumped from the train yelling something about "Willoughby." The body is loaded in a hearse that bears the name "Willoughby Funeral Home."

    "Willoughby? Maybe it's wishful thinking nestled in a hidden part of a man's mind, or maybe it's the last stop in the vast design of things - or perhaps, for a man like Gart Williams, who clmbed on a world that went by too fast, it's a place around the bend where he could jump off. Willoughby? Whatever it is, it comes with sunlight and serenity, and is part of the Twilight Zone."

The After Hours

   The After Hours

        Writer: Rod Serling
        Director: Douglas Heyes
        Producer: Buck Houghton
        Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
        Music: stock
        Cast:
            Marsha White: Anne Francis
            Saleswoman: Elizabeth Allen
            Armbruster: James Millhollin

    "Express elevator to the ninth floor of a department store, carrying Miss Marsha White on a most prosaic, ordinary, run of the mill errand. [Narration interrupted by character action and dialogue.] Miss Marsha White on the ninth floor, specialties department, looking for a gold thimble. The odds are that she'll find it--but there are even better odds that she'll find something else, because this isn't just a department store. This happens to be the Twilight Zone."

    Marsha buys a gold thimble from a rude saleslady on the ninth floor. When she goes to complain, she is informed there is no ninth floor. She points out the saleslady, but is shocked to find it is just a store mannequin. She is helped to a store office where she falls asleep. When she wakes up, she finds she is locked in the closed store. She hears voices coming from the mannequins as she wanders through the empty store. She backs into the elevator which takes her to the ninth floor. There the mannequins all come to life one by one, including the saleslady and elevator operator. They explain that she too is a mannequin, and that each of them is allowed a one month journey among humans. She forgot her true identity and didn't return on time. She apologizes, then turns back into a mannequin.

    "Marsha White in her normal and natural state: a wooden lady with a painted face who, one month out of the year, takes on the characteristics of someone as normal and as flesh and blood as you and I. But it makes you wonder, doesn't it? Just how normal are we? Just who are the people we nod our hellos to as we pass on the street? A rather good question to ask - particularly in the Twilight Zone."

With thanks to The Croc's Domain for the above synopses. You can also find entries like the above for all the original TZ episodes plus a wealth of additional information and links at this 'labor of love' website. A great resource for script, TV series, and Rod Serling fans. Find it here.

(Note: He has created episode guides for the newer TZ series plus the Night Gallery too! Awesome! )

[MilesAhead]

Yeah, TZ was one of the best.  Even though I've seen them all a number of times I used to get sucked into watching the New Years Marathon on syFy Channel quite often.  The half hour TZ episodes and the half hour Hitchcocks were the best.  Slam dunks. Too often on the hour shows you could feel the plot stretching tactics.

Hitchcock's putdowns of the commercials were hilarious.  Any anthology has to include the original commercials.

[TaoPhoenix]

(This post has been brought to you by Crabby, who has now canonically documented my 12 minute obsessions that turn into 500 word posts that I only care about for a week!)

But at the end of the week do you forget you already posted and ask the same question again? 

-MilesAhead (May 14, 2014, 05:50 PM)

Heh epic response!

[Edvard]

I usually don't go in for Creepypasta, but boredom and the internet will spirit you away to places you would otherwise ignore.  This one was alright, a few grammar fails and a generally adolescent tone in a few places, but the story is good, and relevant to topic:

The Strangest Security Tape I've Ever Seen

[TaoPhoenix]

Supernatural season 3 episode 11 - 'Mystery spot'  - Great episode, too bad this series went downhill so fast after season 6, especially after the (more than) excellent seasons 2 till 5. So many opportunities missed in season 6 till 9, it is a shame.

-Shades (May 14, 2014, 04:36 PM)

This was a great tip. I just watched this. I've never even heard of this series before. There's just so much out there.

Nice take on the theme with a "double loop" and differing time scales.

That Trickster is nasty!

[TaoPhoenix]

I usually don't go in for Creepypasta, but boredom and the internet will spirit you away to places you would otherwise ignore.  This one was alright, a few grammar fails and a generally adolescent tone in a few places, but the story is good, and relevant to topic:

The Strangest Security Tape I've Ever Seen

-Edvard (May 15, 2014, 07:18 PM)

Decent little story Edvard!

[TaoPhoenix]

Good lordy! Paradoxical loops were a mainstay of the Twilight Zone! In the first season alone there were several stories that used some sort of a loop as a central element in their plot:

-40hz (May 15, 2014, 05:41 PM)

I just watched Judgment Night and it reminded me to say something a little sideways from the main topic here.

A lot of the Twilight Zone original episodes had characters speaking "really slowly" which creeped me out for the "wrong" reasons. I wanna say it has something to do with the state of TV culture at the time. I know I think a lot in "12 minute thought experiments that would take 12 days to prove" but in general the Words Per Minute has dramatically increased in modern TV shows.

A slight bias might be that since one of my favorite shows is Warehouse 13, where at least once or more a season someone's memory gets messed up, and they peel off a huge string of "something" at a really fast clip. All of them: Artie, Pete, Myka, and Claudia.

But even on that episode of Supernatural I just watched courtesy of Shades, a show I'd never even heard of, you can hear it: the characters talk way faster, with far fewer long pauses.

[TaoPhoenix]

I saw Dark City in college and it blew me away.  Great looking movie.

-superboyac (May 14, 2014, 03:19 PM)

I just watched it now. I so did not expect that battle with the alien boss. He was way tougher than I thought he would be! Before then they were using powerful but low level tactics.

So then a brilliant endgame by the doctor with the altered memory syringe for whom he saw as the "savior". Notice he managed to poke his head up a couple of times to see his handiwork. And then way at the end John just barely beats the alien boss by a smidge to free the world.

[40hz]

And lets not forget the classic Monty Python treatment:

 

[40hz]

An interesting variation on the theme is the Nicholas Cage movie Next.

Deals with a man who can see a very small number of minutes into his own future, allowing him get repeated - albeit immediate - "do-overs". Sort of like Groundhog Day but on steroids. Clever (and refreshingly original) in that the window to repeat keeps moving forward - so if he hesitates to make a revised move, the window of opportunity closes and he moves forward like everyone else. Think walking backwards on an escalator rather than the 'climb 20 flights of stairs - then take an elevator trip back to the lobby' mechanism Groundhog Day uses.

Hangs together remarkably well and makes me wish I had a gift like that.

 

[TaoPhoenix]

An interesting variation on the theme is the Nicholas Cage movie Next.

Deals with a man who can see a very small number of minutes into his own future, allowing him get repeated - albeit immediate - "do-overs". Sort of like Groundhog Day but on steroids. Clever (and refreshingly original) in that the window to repeat keeps moving forward - so if he hesitates to make a revised move, the window of opportunity closes and he moves forward like everyone else. Think walking backwards on an escalator rather than the 'climb 20 flights of stairs - then take an elevator trip back to the lobby' mechanism Groundhog Day uses.

Hangs together remarkably well and makes me wish I had a gift like that.

-40hz (May 16, 2014, 11:00 AM)

Yeah I just watched this. After getting a bit mean in places, that woman agent does a decent job of "looking sideways" when she starts to really lock into her real mission. An interesting subtheme often explord in the X-Men movies is raw talent vs training. So if you have this freaky ability, that's one thing, but if you have worked on it, you get to do the subtle stuff.

The movie does a good job about an hour and 20 min in showing that Cage's character really spent some time practicing. (Dodging bullets, spawning 50 iterations to sweep the floors, and more.) It's also awesome that he is a trained pseudo-cheesy stage magician, because he pulls a couple of psychological tricks along with his real ability. (Maybe one creates the other - if you drop and look shot dead, that's the way out and then you don't get shot dead!)

[40hz]

Let's also not leave out Vonjegut's Slaughterhouse Five.

Not so much a loop as being "unstuck" in time. Vonnegut posits that since time is a linear continuum in our reality, what would happen if you could move your consciousness to whatever points on the line you wished.

The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.

When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in the particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is: "So it goes."

Billy, the protagonist, ultimately realizes all lives have their moments of light and darkness. So the smart thing to do is to spend all your time in the bright moments of your lifetime and to avoid the rest.

Not a bad philosophy when you think about it.


-----------

And what about games?

It just occurred to me that computer adventure games (and games in general) are prime examples temporal loops. Same goes for simulations. Get it wrong? Reset or go back to a previous save and try again. I must have died a thousand deaths working my way through the Ultima series. Can't loop more than that!

I always found it interesting that even young children have an innate sense that what passes for 'reality' is largely consensus. When a child says "let's pretend" it's an invitation to experience and explore an alternate reality - with a built-in escape clause. And that reality gets repeated (i.e. looped) and usually embellished with repeated play.

[Edvard]

Exit Log

Time travel will be invented in 2247.
It is limited to 3 minutes travel into the past.
A "Timedrive" wil become an emergency safety feature on all space vessels.
On activation, the Timedrive resets everything on the ship by 3 minutes.
Everything except the warning message left in the exit log.

Very Kafka, I must say...  

Found at Short of the Week