The more things change...
This is when a series
celebrates a milestone or anniversary that relies primarily on references to or even the entire plot of the first installment. May or may not be justified in-universe. Similar to
Book Ends, except the series hasn't ended.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Following the mid-series time skip, One Piece returned with a color spread mirroring the very first, only with added crew members and post-time skip designs, as well a volume cover mirroring also the very first, with updated crew members.
Comic Books
Live-Action Television
- The Doctor Who 25th anniversary season opener "Remembrance of the Daleks" took place the day after the first story, and features the return of the Foreman junkyard and the Coal Hill School. Ace notices a book Susan left behind, and we nearly see a BBC ident advertising the show's premiere.
- The Colbert Report's 100th episode saw the return of the show's first guest.
- Jeopardy!'s 3,000th episode's first round features the clue categories from the first episode.
- Grange Hill opened its 26th season with a new batch of first year students...who all bore vague similarities to the first year students of its very 1st season, including their names and general behavior. Plotlines and characterizations diverged significantly after that first episode, however.
Toys
- The first Barbie and Ken dolls came with a zebra stripe swimsuit and red swim trunks, respectively. As an homage, Barbie's 50th anniversary saw the release of a doll with a zebra stripe bikini. Ken's 50th anniversary a few years later coincided with Mattel's announcement that he and Barbie finally decided to become an Official Couple again, so a giftset of the two dolls in updated versions of their original swimsuits became available.
Video Games
Web Original
- Linkara's anniversary episodes always have to do with Spider-Man's Clone Saga, because that's what his very first video review was about. He also celebrates the anniversaries of the show proper (the anniversary of his text recaps as opposed to video reviews in general) by reviewing an issue of Youngblood, his first text recap.
- Homestar Runner's 10th Anniversary saw the re-creation of the children's book the Flash-animated web series was based on (The Homestar Runner Enters the Strongest Man in the World Contest) as an episode of said series.
Webcomics
- The 10th anniversary Joyce & Walky! comic was a redrawn version of the first two Roomies! comics, keeping the dialogue in place until the surprise twist at the end.
Western Animation
- What was intended to be South Park's 100th episode (it was actually the 97th) starts out with the events of the first episode repeating exactly as before.
- "The Powerpuff Girls Rule!!", the tenth anniversary special of...well...guess, takes its Mario Kart-homage sequence almost directly from the first Whoopass Girls short, in which the Girls race Him.
