Groundhog Day - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Sometimes I think I’m happy here
Sometimes I still pretend
I can’t remember how this all got started
But I can tell you exactly how it will end...
Every day is exactly the same
Every day is exactly the same..."

Nine Inch Nails - Every Day Is Exactly The Same

A plot in which the character is caught in a time loop, doomed to repeat a period of time (often exactly one day) over and over, until something is corrected. Usually, only one character or group of characters realizes what's going on -- everyone and everything else else undergoes a complete Snap Back, and if not interfered with will do the exact same things every time, right down to dialogue.

Derived from the Bill Murray movie of the same name.

See also Set Right What Once Went Wrong, which includes a description of the distinction between the two. Also Ripple Effect Proof Memory, since the character remembers the events that apparently never happened as far as everyone else in the universe is concerned. Also Mental Time Travel, because it's usually that.

Examples:

Live Action TV

The Star Trek The Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect", in which the ship keeps exploding but also sends the crew back in time a few hours until they figure out how to prevent it.
The X Files episode "Monday" came years after this and echoes the plot structure completely, right down to the characters' deja vu and the explosion before every commercial break.
The Charmed episode "Deja Vu All Over Again" where a demon repeats the plan of attack every day until it is perfected so he can finally kill the sisters.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode "Life Serial" has a Groundhog Day sequence. The characters specifically mention the Star Trek: TNG and X-Files episodes.
Stargate SG-1 episode "Window Of Opportunity". In the episode, the term "Groundhog Day" is used at one point in a partial Lampshade Hanging that implies the characters are aware of the film and its premise, even though the similarity was not actually discussed within the episode.
Farscape episode "Back and Back and Back to the Future".
Early Edition's "Run, Gary, Run" (itself a parody of the German art film "Run Lola Run"), combines this trope with Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
There is also a Xena: Warrior Princess episode, called "Been There, Done That", that has her going through the same day until she figures out how to stop the day from repeating.
Give My Head Peace also has such an episode. Uncle Andy has a drunken 11th Night and wakes up on the 12th only to find that a precious Orange Banner depicting the Battle of the Boyne has been destroyed, presumably by the thuggish Scottish bandsmen who drunkenly slept the night off in his house.
The new ABC series Day Break seems to be based entirely around this plot.
Seven Days mixed this with Cuckoo Nest, as Frank was repeatedly sent back to the same series of events by another version of himself until he could save one of his friends without innocents dying in the process.
Tru Calling revolved around a variation of the "reliving days" premise - Tru is asked by the dead to save her, resetting time to allow her the chance. One episode had her going through the same day about four times, each time in response to a different deceased asking for her help.
Lois And Clark: The New Adventures of Superman features a somewhat darker version, in which Mr. Mxyzptlk creates a time loop in which things get a bit worse each time, to eventually result in The End Of The World As We Know It. World War Three is looming by the time Lois and Clark fix things. And this is the Christmas episode, no less...
Strange Days At Blake Holsey High used this one with the twist that time will actively oppose any attempts to change the loop - if you decide to avoid bumping into someone by taking a different route, the other person will change their route to counteract this.
The Blood Ties episode "5:55".
The Supernatural episode "Mystery Spot". Sam is the one replaying the same Tuesday over and over. The episode makes direct reference to the movie when Sam tries to explain what's happening to Dean, who responds "Oh, like Groundhog Day". Particularly cruel is that the trigger for the snap back is Dean dying. The loop is stated by Sam to have repeated at least 100 times, and in each one, Dean's deaths start to become exponentially more comical. and at least once, Sam kills him accidentally.
In an episode of The Outer Limits called Deja Vu, a time loop occurs due to a failed wormhole experiment. However, at each round the loop gets shorter and shorter, with less time to prevent the impending disaster.
An episode of Eureka featured the main character Carter repeating the wedding day of Allison to Jerkass Stark. The day is eventually saved after a Heroic Sacrifice from Stark himself)

Film

The movie Boris & Natasha, a live action Rocky And Bullwinkle movie, has a device which prevents accidents by reversing time by a few seconds any time it is destroyed. This allows sequences in the movie to be repeated until things change.
12:01 is a made-for-cable movie on the same subject from 1993. Same year as Groundhog Day, surprise! It was a direct "descendant" of a 1990 short film and a 1973 SF short story by Richard A. Lupoff. The hero was given an electric shock at exactly 12:01 as a nuclear device came on line that causes time to loop. He's the only one who realizes this, and when he's not being killed each day, he tries to figure a way to prevent the nuclear device from going on-line.
The film A Chinese Odyssey has a sequence where a bandit discovers the magic words of the Monkey King which allow him to travel a short distance backwards in time. He uses them to go back and try to avert the multiple tragedies that have befallen himself and his friends. He winds up having to make multiple trips and run around like mad to keep everyone alive.
Lola rennt (aka Run Lola Run): the eponymous Lola runs through a madcap twenty minutes, attempting to get 20,000 marks to her boyfriend before the mob kills him. The results vary wildly; she gets it right on the third try.
And of course, the trope namer, Groundhog Day is the most commonly known version of this trope. One thing not noticed by most people is just how long the loop in the original Groundhog Day went on for -- Phil memorizes every book in town, knows the complete backstory of every person in town, becomes an accomplished pianist and sculptor, and goes from being a self-centered ass to universally beloved. The Word Of God suggested that it was on the order of several millennia -- one day at a time. We can attribute his calm acceptance of the end of the loop to the fact that, well, he's a couple thousand years old--he's gotten used to rolling with the punches.
- However, in a DVD special feature, Harold Ramis, the director, suggested that only ten years had elapsed.
- The temptation for these plots is to reuse footage to pad out a film and save money. Apart from possibly one shot, this film does not do that at all.

Western Animation

Featured in an episode of Angry Beavers, "Same Time Last Week", where Dagget keeps getting literally knocked into last week by Norbert for annoying him all week.
In an episode of Code Lyoko, Big Bad XANA took control of the time reset device the kids used to fix things after each attack and continued to turn back time to the start of the same day until the kids could regain control.
- The series also features evidence that Franz Hopper intentionally relived the same day over two thousand times to give him the time he needed to program Lyoko and X.A.N.A. before the Men In Black came for him and his daughter. He might have also lost his marbles during this scenario.
Pepper Ann subverted this trope; the cycle was only broken by doing everything completely wrong.
One episode of Disney's Aladdin had the main characters getting stuck, one by one, in a constantly repeating showdown between a band of adventurers and a gang of rogues, until they managed to prevent the crystal the adventurers were carrying from breaking and thus acting as a Reset Button.
Featured (and parodied) in Sealab 2021, "Lost In Time", where Quinn and Stormy are repeatedly blown back 15 minutes in time by an explosion that destroys Sealab, and keep getting mistaken for doppelgangers and thrown in the brig when they try to warn Captain Murphy.
In the machinima series Red vs. Blue, the antagonistic mercenary Wyoming has the ability to rewind little segments of time, essentially making him impossible to defeat: whenever something doesn’t go to plan, he simply backtracks a few moments into the past and takes steps to avoid being beaten down by the protagonists. He’s only foiled when one character’s Deus Ex Machina allows him to keep his memory during rewinds and kills him before he has a chance to activate his power.
In Stickin' Around, Stacy and Bradley keep getting sent back 15 minutes whenever gym class ends, until Bradley takes full blame for something he did instead of letting everyone share the punishment. Then again...
Not an exact use of this trope, but in The Simpsons, on a trip to Itchy and Scratchy Land, Homer and Marge go to a restaurant where New Year's is celebrated every fifteen minutes or so. Marge actually remarks to one of the servers that it must be fun to celebrate New Years Day all the time, to which the despondent man replies, "Kill me."

Anime

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni is based on a rather dark version of this. Piecing together hints from the various repetitions to figure out what is really going on is an important aspect of the series. The nature of the loop--and who is involved--is not immediately apparent, and the underlying causes aren't fully stated until halfway through the second season.
- In the original games, it's not made really apparent until the 8th game -- which requires you pass a trivia puzzle based on the hints given in the other 7 just to start.
In Card Captor Sakura, the Time card keeps the same day repeating indefinitely, untill it is caught by Shaoran.
In D Grayman, a town repeats October 28th over and over, until the main characters (not previously caught in the loop, which was a localized phenomenon caused by Innocence) find a way to fix it.
In the manga Tsubasa, the main characters find themselves trapped in the exact same day in the newest arc.

Video Games

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask involves repeating the same 3 days over and over, solving puzzles by use of the daily schedules of the NPCs. Strangely, once you actually beat the game, everything you've done seems to have happened despite it usually not being the case -- there's not enough time to do everything in the game in a single pass, and there's no duplicate Links running around, so one would assume events from the last cycle would be the only ones to persist. The opposite of No Ontological Inertia is at work.
- It is kind of the universe apology for you for causing you all that trouble.
- This troper begs to differ - on my most recent playthrough, I decided to make the last cycle meaningful, and so fought all four bosses and did just about all of the sidequests. I'm fairly certain I actually managed to redo just about everything in the Bombers' Notebook before heading up to the final battle.
- Though some are mutually exlusive, like saving the bomb bag lady and doing the Anju & Kafei quest, which makes no sense with the game's ending.
  - I thought I was the only one who did this. I felt that the characters deserved it. I was a bit pissed when I saw the ending movie with all of my good deeds done actually.
One quest in Dragon Warrior VII sends the heroes to a town that is stuck in an infinite time loop. The heroes themselves are not affected, and have to find the source of the curse.
The main story of Grim Grimoire is also based on this trope. The same five days are repeated several times throughout the story, but only Cute Witch Lillet Blan seems to notice (and also seems to be the only one powerful enough to stop it.)
The main story of Ephemeral Phantasia. The hero is initially the only one unaffected, but he gradually frees others (who become playable) from the cycle by changing the way events play out.
In Little Busters!, any increase in the protagonist's strength in one playthrough carries over to the next playthrough. It turns out that this is because he is actually in a hospital recovering from a bus crash of which he was the only survivor, and the whole thing is a Lotus Eater Machine replaying the same scenario over and over again until he's strong enough to deal with this fact.
The premise of Episode Aigis (The Answer in the US), the epilogue scenario of Updated Rerelease Persona 3: FES. The main characters find themselves trapped inside their dorm house in a one-day time loop, endlessly reliving March the 31st. This is caused by (and representative of) Aigis' inability to move on after the death of the Main Character of Episode Yourself, who sacrificed himself to prevent The End Of The World As We Know It.
Rematch, a TADS text adventure, is based around this idea - the aim of the game is to find the one single command that will prevent you from being killed and break the time loop.
The Tsukihime sequel game Kagetsu Tohya seems to take this form. It has the added trippiness of the fact that, though Shiki repeats the same day over and over, just what sort of day it is can change. Is it a school day? A holiday? The day of the culture festival? A day where, for whatever reason, Shiki wakes up as a cat?
It's implied that Siren takes place in one of these, and the gameplay also bears this out -- you can only fully complete a stage in at least two playthroughs, and a sequence of stages from the start, to one of the endpoints is referred to as a "loop" by the game. In the true ending, the loop is seemingly broken and events resolved... but the recent direct sequel Siren: Blood Curse reveals that things aren't totally back to normal, after all.
Shadow Of Destiny. The whole premise is that the main character is trying to change history so that he doesn't die; being killed results in living through the events prior to his death again until he gets it right and survives. Amusingly, in one part of the game it's possible to go through the same conversation for a third time, which results in the main character pre-empting what he knows the NPC he's talking with is about to say.

Literature

In Ken Grimwood's novel Replay, the protagonist lives large chunks of his life repeatedly (as do a couple of other characters), waking after dying to find himself back in his college days. However, with each subsequent cycle of death and reawakening, the cycle gets shorter as he wakes up at a later point in his own lifetime.
In "Endless Eight", a short story in The Rampage of Suzumiya Haruhi, the SOS Brigade has been repeating the same two weeks of August nearly 15,500 times, causing all but Haruhi to suffer bouts of déjà vu, though only Yuki retains conscious memory of the preceding cycles. This is around 600 years. Of the same two weeks. No wonder Yuki snaps at some point and remakes the world so that she's a normal high school girl.
In "The Tunnel Under the World", by Frederik Pohl, Guy Burckhardt lives in a town where June 15th is repeated every day, but the inhabitants don't realize. It is later revealed that everyone in the town is a miniature robot who was imprinted with the mind-pattern of a citizen of the real town, which was destroyed on June 14th. Advertising executives then used them to test various advertising techniques. It makes much more sense than it seems.
This trope is the arc connecting both acts of Waiting for Godot.
In The Dark Tower, the entire plot of all seven novels (excepting a few Flash Back's) is revealed at the very end to be a cycle. How long the cycle has been repeating, and how long it will continue, is left to the reader's imagination.
Two books in the Help! I'm Trapped in _____'s Body! series had the character repeating either the first day of school or of summer camp, until he stopped acting like a jerk.

Fan Work

This Fan Vid Hourglass anthologizes the use of this trope in many TV shows and movies.

Variations:

This is often done with Christmas:
- The Family Channel's Christmas Every Day (in fact, one of the characters even mentions how his situation is similar to Groundhog Day).
- 12 Days of Christmas Eve, starring Steven Weber and Molly Shannon.
- Christmas Do-Over, also on ABC Family.
- Disney's animated Christmas special featuring Mickey, Donald and Goofy in three mini-stories centered around X-mas themes. The Donald Duck feature had the triplets Huey, Duey and Louie wish that is was 'Christmas every day'; it ended in a case of the aforementioned trope.
- Kimagure Orange Road had Kyosuke repeat Christmas three times, trying to get to the party with the "right" girl (without pissing off Madoka or crushing Hikaru's happiness). No one else was aware of the repeats (though series Butt Monkey Yusaku gets wiped out in increasingly violent accidents each time). This came out in 1989, considerably predating most of the other examples.
- There was even a Sweet Valley Twins book on this (weird as it sounds) where the more selfish of the two twins is forced to relive Christmas Eve day until she figures out it's, well... because she's selfish. Aesop ahoy!
- The Fairly Oddparents had a Christmas special where Timmy wished it was Christmas every day. It culminated in physical representations of all the other holidays heading to the North Pole to take out Santa, ending Christmas once and for all.
One episode of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron had Jimmy hypnotizing his parents into having his birthday party early. Unfortunately, he told them that his birthday was "tomorrow", meaning another birthday party the day after that, and then the day after that, and so on. Unlike the other examples, everyone but Jimmy's folks is aware of the repetition. They later reveal that the hypnosis broke sooner than it appeared to, but they kept going through the motions to teach Jimmy a lesson.
A rather localized variation crops up in one issue of Lucifer, where Erishad gains a kind of immortality by her body reliving one day over and over. Unfortunately, that happens to be the day she miscarried.

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