This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Georgie: Disturbngly enough, some viewers seem to enjoy retroactively applying this trope to any works of fiction they can get their hands on(as in the Labyrinth WMG). Is there a place here to mention that?
Looney Toons: "me", I seem to recall episodes of DS9 with a 1950s SF-author version of Sisko in a sanitarium, writing the events of the series on the walls of his room/cell. If there are similar episodes in Next Generation, we ought to list them both.
Ununnilium: Okay, somebody has to clear up the DS9 example.
Ununnilium: Took out the St Elsewhere example, since it fits better under All Just a Dream.
"Max Payne 2 has this exact plot". Ok, there's the show within a show. Ok, Max has some lasting psychological damage from the events (and backstory of the first game). But it never seriously maintains or even hints that this is the case. Check the game script, if necessary: http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/game/561633.html
So... edited to limit the trope to the show within a show.
Fast Eddie: I guess the parable of the cuckoo bird laying its eggs in another bird's nest has fallen out the collective consciousness.
alliterator: I removed this:
- An interesting variant is played out in Heroes in the second episode. The viewers follow Hiro through New York city for the duration of the episode until he discovers Isaac Mendez has been killed in a brutal fashion and that he is really five weeks in the future... then a nuclear bomb goes off and Hiro returns to the Japanese Subway he was riding in the last episode. All other stories during the episode take place during the regular date. Unusual also is that the rest of the season is spent trying to stop the events from happening and some actually do happen.
