Reset button technique

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (January 2008)

The reset button technique (based on the idea of status quo ante) is a plot device that interrupts continuity in works of fiction. Simply put, use of a reset button device returns all characters and situations to the status quo they held before a major change of some sort was introduced.^[1] Often used in science fiction television series, animated series, soap operas, and comic books, the device allows elaborate and dramatic changes to characters and the fictional universe that might otherwise invalidate the premise of the show with respect to future continuity. Writers may, for example, use the technique to allow the audience to experience the death of the lead character, which traditionally would not be possible without effectively ending the work.

Effective use of this device depends on the audience being unaware of the continuity status, or successful suspension of disbelief that continuity is or will be interrupted, and the eventual communication of the status of continuity to the audience. It is usually employed as a plot twist that effectively undoes all the happenings of the episode. Common uses of this technique draw liberally from science fiction and metaphysical ideas, perhaps contributing to its widespread use in those genres.

Examples of the reset button technique include dream sequences, alternate-history flashbacks, parallel universes, "alternate realities", "alternate timelines", daydreams, time travel and hallucinations. Occasionally, a character will find himself in a situation that seems familiar but during the episode some things seem odd, and then something major happens such as a lead character having a significantly different position or dying. By the end of the episode or story arc the character learns he has been placed in a copy of his normal surroundings, usually to try to obtain information from him, and the mastermind behind the plan made a few mistakes in fashioning the copy environment.

Episodic shows are not examples of the reset button technique, but merely lack of continuity.

Similarly, simple failure to maintain continuity is not use of the reset button technique. For instance, when the Superman movies came out in the 1970's, the screenwriters pretty much simply ignored the decades-long comic book storyline and frequently contradicted previous "facts", e.g., in the comic books, Krypton, Superman's home planet, had a climate pretty similar to ours, but in the movie series it had an icy climate.

Major examples

The 2009 Star Trek movie is an example, where it is pointed out that because time travel has occurred, the "timeline" has changed, so the timeline that will play out will have events different from those of the original series and its spinoffs. By using that technique, new movies or a new TV series based on the Star Trek theme can use the same basic characters without the burden of maintaining continuity with 24 seasons of television (not including those of the prequel Star Trek: Enterprise), 10 motion pictures and various novels and other media.

A major example of the reset button technique occurred in the late 1980's with the Superman comics character. In continuous publication since the late 1930's, the publishers were having too many problems with readers writing in that a particular situation could not happen because 20-30 years earlier incompatible events had been published. Finally the publishers said they were using the reset button technique and unless something was reintroduced, it would be considered that it never happened.

Perhaps the most famous use of reset button technique was on the television series Dallas which eliminated an entire season after Patrick Duffy, who played Bobby Ewing, returned to the series a year after leaving.

See also

• Deus ex machina
• Retcon
• Status quo
• Reboot (fiction)

References

1. ^ Roz Kaveney (2005). From Alien To The Matrix: Reading Science Fiction Film. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1850438064.