History LotusEaterMachine / LiveActionTV

* The 100th episode of ''Series/{{Arrow}}'', part of the "Invasion" crossover with the rest of the Franchise/{{Arrowverse}}, has Oliver, Sara, Thea, Diggle, and Ray kidnapped by the alien Dominators who put them all into a machine that lets them share a dream world where Oliver never went on his yacht trip and ended up stranded on Lian Yu. Robert and Moira Queen are both alive and together with Robert about to become mayor; Laurel Lance is still alive and engaged to Oliver while Ray is engaged to Felicity; Diggle is the Hood, aided by Felicity; Malcolm Merlyn's wife was never murdered so he never became a villain (or no one knows he's a psycho at least) and his son Tommy is alive; Sara never became a killer and travels the world. Eventually, they all start having flashes of memory of the real world and face a pack of foes trying to get them to stay before escaping. The ''actual'' final obstacle to them leaving isn't the villains however, but Laurel who has no idea what is going on, only that her fiancé and sister are seemingly [[TearJerker abandoning her on the eve of her wedding]].

* On ''Series/TheFortyFourHundred'', Alana's Promicin ability is to create worlds inside hers and another person's head. The future people use this to romantically set up her and Tom Baldwin by creating a world for them where they've been married for a few years and nobody but them even remembers the 4400. Eventually Tom figures this out and he and Alana have to choose to leave the fantasy world after spending most of a decade together happily married.
* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': During the second half of Season 4, [[spoiler: [[MadScientist Dr. Radcliffe]]]] abducts May and sticks her in a Matrix-like machine to keep her out of the way while her [[spoiler: [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot LMD copy]] infiltrates SHIELD]]. Interestingly, he has some trouble keeping her in it -- first, he tries to place her in a simulation of a calming spa retreat, only for her constantly on edge mind to [[AGlitchInTheMatrix latch onto the repetitive nature of the setup]]. To compensate, he puts her into a simulation of breaking out and fighting her way free, [[GroundhogDayLoop on a loop]], but she keeps getting better at it and lasting longer. So, finally, he puts her in another simulation where she relives her [[MyGreatestFailure mission to Bahrain]], but this time with a happier ending. This finally placates her enough to keep her contained. He later decides to see if he can plug ''the entire world'' into this system, which he calls The Framework.
** The Framework later becomes a very interesting Subversion when several other characters, [[spoiler: Coulson, Mack, and Fitz]] are placed into the Framework and ForWantOfANail comes in. Each person inside has their one greatest regret taken away, creating an AlternateTimeline showing the consequences of those regrets not happening. May doesn't kill the girl in Bahrain. However, [[EnfantTerrible the girl is still evil]] and goes on to to murder an entire school, and May suffers a CynicismCatalyst. All the other character have similar things happen to them, and the result is that the world of the Framework is one where HYDRA took over America, Inhumans are hunted like monsters, and the main characters are either [[FaceHeelTurn happily working for them]] or too scared to oppose them. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Oh and]], [[spoiler:Daisy and Ward are dating]]. Not so idyllic anymore is it?

* The 100th episode of ''Series/{{Arrow}}'', part of the "Invasion" crossover with the rest of the Series/{{Arrowverse}}, has Oliver, Sara, Thea, Diggle, and Ray kidnapped by the alien Dominators who put them all into a machine that lets them share a dream world where Oliver never went on his yacht trip and ended up stranded on Lian Yu. Robert and Moira Queen are both alive and together with Robert about to become mayor; Laurel Lance is still alive and engaged to Oliver while Ray is engaged to Felicity; Diggle is the Hood, aided by Felicity; Malcolm Merlyn's wife was never murdered so he never became a villain (or no one knows he's a psycho at least) and his son Tommy is alive; Sara never became a killer and travels the world. Eventually, they all start having flashes of memory of the real world and face a pack of foes trying to get them to stay before escaping. The ''actual'' final obstacle to them leaving isn't the villains however, but Laurel who has no idea what is going on, only that her fiancé and sister are seemingly [[TearJerker abandoning her on the eve of her wedding]].

** The novel version of "Better Than Life" ends with Lister having to make the decision whether to stay in the simulation or return to the hardships of traveling back to an Earth ''six million'' years in the future where he may well be the last human as he understands it. Talk about a DownerEnding. The second novel reveals that the Lotus Eater Machine digs deep into their psyche, bringing to light their deepest desires. Which, unfortunately for Rimmer (or fortunately, since it is what breaks them out of the fake paradise), revolves around his self-loathing. Rimmer's self-hatred ends up destroying the dream world. When they finally leave, they find that reality is suspiciously better than it should be (Lister's 2nd cup of coffee tastes better than the first, he drops a slice of buttered toast 20 times and it always lands butter side up, [[SerialEscalation a TV dinner tastes better than its cardboard box]], etc.) and discover that they're still in the game, at which point the game designer appears and congratulates them for figuring it out, then lets them leave.
** It is later reversed in "Back to Reality" by a hallucinogenic venom from a Despair Squid that causes the group to, together, hallucinate a reality that drives them to the brink of suicide. They are only stopped by Holly forcing Kryten to release a mood stabilizer.
** The three-part miniseries "Back to Earth" that aired in 2009. [[spoiler:Act II and Act III get increasingly bizarre until they are revealed as a Lotus Eater Machine hallucination brought on by a hallucinogen that links all the affected characters in a pleasant dreamworld. After finding out, Lister is tempted to stay but ultimately he opts for the real thing.]]

** ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E28ANicePlaceToVisit A Nice Place to Visit]]", the unsavory protagonist Rocky is trapped permanently in a Lotus Eater Machine where he has easy access to money, women, and everything else that he wants, [[spoiler:that turns out to be {{Hell}} itself]].
** ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "Dreams for Sale", the workers in a future world are connected to a Dreamatron which creates a fully interactive dream for them, depicting idyllic or exciting worlds, when they are not on shift. Options include Country Picnic (experienced by Jenny), Jail Break and Caribbean Cruise.

* In an episode of the TV series of ''Series/{{V 1983}}'', Donovan is captured by the Visitors and wakes to find himself in the bedroom of an apartment where it is ten years in the future, the war has been won and the Visitors vanquished and he is living happily with his son and his wife, Julie. In reality, of course, Julie and his son are Visitors wearing shapeshifting devices to alter their appearance and the aim is to trick him into revealing the time and location of a resistance meeting -- information that he would believe was no longer relevant ten years later. [[spoiler: Donovan finally realises it's all a trick when the Visitors overplay their hand, leaving a future edition of a newspaper in his room which includes a picture of the Star Child still as a little girl. Donovan knows, but the Visitor's don't, that the Star Child evolved into a young woman at the start of the series. Although...you'd think that they'd have figured she might have grown up anyway ten years later, so why they still had her a child...!]]
* ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'' A trap freezes our heroes into a trance where they experience their happiest place while the floor under them starts to crumble. Pete gets to make out with his girlfriend, making him realize that he truly loves her; Helena gets to play with her dead daughter, making her seriously freak out when she is forcibly thrown out of the dream; and Myka... gets to work on a hard problem at the Warehouse while her boss gives her praise and coffee. [[MarriedToTheJob Well, that is just sad.]]

* The main character of ''Series/{{Angel}}'' has a curse where if he's ever truly happy, he loses his soul and becomes a vampire serial killer. In "[[Recap/AngelS04E10Awakening Awakening]]", for plot reasons, the good guys needed this to happen, so they hire a somewhat nefarious looking shaman to cast the spell that would accomplish this. [[spoiler:The shaman, however, is revealed to be an assassin, and attempts to kill Angel, leaving the spell un-cast, though Angel and company decide they have to face the Beast regardless. Over the course of the episode, it plays out just like a normal episode, with gains and losses, things happening, until the Beast is actually defeated and everyone is happy. Then... everything starts getting freaky as too much happiness results, with far too many good things happening, culminating in a rewind back to the supposedly "failed" spell, which actually worked. The entire episode was a hallucination of Angel's, creating a day when everything fit together perfectly in such a way that it culminated in a moment of true happiness. His soul was taken from his body, and we come face to face with Angelus.]]

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E7AmysChoice "Amy's Choice"]]: The Dream Lord traps the TARDIS crew between two scenarios and forces them to choose which one is the dream, and which the reality. One is Rory's fantasy (married to Amy, baby on the way, successful Doctor in Upper Leadworth); one is the Doctor's (on the TARDIS, facing mortal peril). To make it trickier, Upper Leadworth is being invaded by the alien-possessed elderly who can reduce people to ashes. [[spoiler:It turns out ''neither'' is the true reality; as the Doctor ultimately points out, the Dream Lord only has power over dreams.]]

** And ''again'', although subverted, in "Shades of Grey"; Riker is infected with mysterious microbes, and Pulaski plugs him into a neural stimulator to keep his brain active to help fight off the bugs. Turns out the germs [[spoiler:grow better when the patient has happy memories, and dark memories can be fatal to them.]]
** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS6E11ShipInABottle Ship In A Bottle]]". During one of Data's Sherlock Holmes holodeck adventures, Moriarty gains actual sentience. He then theorizes that he must have come to life, and he should be able to leave the holodeck, which he does. The rest of the episode is Data and Picard trying to figure out what's going on until they realize [[spoiler: everybody on the Enterprise suddenly is left handed, like Moriarty.]] They manage to escape the program, and create a small subroutine so that Moriarty, still living in his dream, can dream it for as long as he wants with the love he found in his Lotus-Eater Machine.

** In one episode, O'Brien is caught for espionage (he just browsed some files on some planet's "internet" where apparently it's hacking and illegal) and is instantly sentenced and given memories of years spent in prison, without actually serving the time. O'Brien angsts about what he supposedly did in "prison". While he understands that it was all fake, he still believes that his actions in the illusion were his own. Bashir explains that the reason he can't just erase the programmed memories from his brain is that it wasn't just an implant, it was an interactive (and incredibly accelerated) experience of spending decades in confinement. The place and people weren't real, but O'Brien's choices and actions within it ''were'', including [[spoiler: killing his friend/bunkmate of 20 years in a fight over a scrap of food after they had been starved for weeks on end]].
** In one episode, the crew was stunned to find that Starfleet had [[HeadInTheSandManagement formed an alliance]] with the Dominion in exchange for technology and weapons. With the station now under occupation, Sisko gathers the others together for a coup -- which turns out to be a VR simulation in a cave somewhere. The Dominion's agents were experimenting on Sisko to see how he might try to undermine them in the future.
* ''Series/{{Supergirl 2015}}'' does an adaptation of ''ComicBook/ForTheManWhoHasEverything'' based around Kara instead of Superman. And in her case, it's arguably worse than the source material, in that unlike Clark, Kara actually remembers a life on Krypton, so it's even more poignant for her to find herself back there with her parents alive, her aunt Astra not a villain but a happy part of the family, and Kal-El being young and looking up to her. And thus, it's utterly heartbreaking when she has to fight off the influence of the Black Mercy and break out of the illusion.

* ''Series/Titans2018''. The Season One finale has a variation created by Trigon to drive Dick Grayson over the DespairEventHorizon so he will embrace his DarkSide. It starts off with the usual happy family life version, with Dick married to Dawn and living in sunny California, then goes FromBadToWorse as Dick is asked to return to Gotham and stop Bruce Wayne from going off the rails. Every time Dick wants to give up and return home, there's AGlitchInTheMatrix and something happens to make him go in the direction that Trigon wants.

** ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "A Nice Place To Visit," in which Rocky, the unsavory protagonist is trapped permanently in a Lotus Eater Machine where he has easy access to money, women, and everything else that he wants, [[spoiler:that turns out to be {{Hell}} itself]].

* ''Series/{{Willow}}'': [[BigBad The Crown]] dwells in the Immemorial City, an eerie place [[EndlessDaytime with no night]]. The entrance into the lair of the Wyrm, the being that she serves, is bathed in light too, while its "milk" also glows. At the end of Season 1 as well she claims the Wyrm will usher in "new light" to the world. None of it makes her less clearly evil.