With time travel, the possibilities for where(or rather, when) the characters can go are virtually endless. One time travel hotspot is the events of a previous episode, or the pilot of the season/series. As the viewers have already seen what happened, it can come off as a nostalgic re-visitation of previous events, and can serve as a celebration of the show as a whole. Or in a more story-driven note, it might involve some sort of time travel mess with the past or solve some sort of plot point in that episode.
Can serve as justification for Meet Your Early-Installment Weirdness, and lead to Once More, with Clarity. Guaranteed to have some sort of Continuity Nod.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- In one early arc of the Adventure Time comics, a time-traveling Finn and Jake pass through the pilot episode, where they see the pilot versions of themselves from a distance and lampshade/hand-wave the Early-Installment Weirdness.
- Booster Gold: Many of Booster’s solo adventures feature him traveling to various historic stories in the DC Universe, including the death of Ravager I, Barbara Gordon’s paralysis, and more personally the death of Ted Kord. He tried to stop the latter two, but Barbara’s future as Oracle was already set in stone, and letting Ted live didn’t go very well in the long run.
Film - Live-Action
- Avengers: Endgame: Thanks to Thanos destroying the Infinity Stones after his infamous snap, the Avengers have to use time travel to go to the past where they still existed so they can undo the snap. To find them they go to the events of The Avengers (2012), Thor: The Dark World, and Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). We get to see them arrive during the 2012 Avengers' famous pose, and right at the start of Peter Quill going after the Power Stone.
- Back to the Future Part II: After the 2015 Biff Tannen steals the Grey Sports Almanac and goes back in time, Doc and Marty have to go back in time to get it back and avert the Bad Future it created. They travel to the events of the first movie since that's when Old Biff wanted to give his younger self the Alamanac, with their secondary concern being avoiding meeting themselves and interfering with the events of the first movie.
Literature
- A variation in Animorphs: When Tobias is given his morphing ability back (but his hawk body remains his default form), he is sent back in time a day before he met Elfangor along with the rest of the cast. Tobias uses the opportunity both to acquire his human body as a morph and instructs his past self to go through the construction site with other students the next day.
- Artemis Fowl: Once time travel is introduced, Holly uses it to go back in time before Commander Root was murdered. She knows she can't save him, so instead uses the opportunity to thank him for everything he's done for her.
Live-Action TV
- A third season episode of Andromeda had a flashback that showed there was an attempt to make Gaheris Rhade The Chosen One, but after failing, he was forced to travel back mid-Season 2 and Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
- Doctor Who
- "Remembrance of the Daleks" is set in Shoreditch, London, in 1963, just weeks after the events of the very first episode, "An Unearthly Child", and involves the school that the Doctor's first human companions, Ian and Barbara, worked at. However, this is downplayed as the 20th-century events of the early serial are not themselves revisited.
- A season-wide example occurs in "The Wedding of River Song". The Season 6 premiere "The Impossible Astronaut" has a future version of the Doctor appear and end up gets shot at a distance from the screen by a mysterious astronaut. The episode starts with the Doctor knowing this and it shows it from his perspective, until River Song refuses to shoot and time breaks. Eventually it's fixed at the Doctor survives by Tricked Out Time.
- The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" has the cast traveling back in time to the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Trouble with Tribbles."
- The final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "All Good Things...", has Captain Picard traveling back to the events of the series' first episode, "Encounter at Farpoint".
Theatre
- A Very Potter Sequel is both a sequel and a prequel to A Very Potter Musical, since it features characters going back in time. At one point at the climax (as in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), Harry, Ron, and Hermione travel back to earlier in the play. They see earlier versions of themselves played by other actors, which causes them some confusion (although nobody else sees a difference).
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: The climax involves Harry, Ron, and Draco traveling back in time to the death of Harry's parents in order to prevent Voldemort's daughter from completing her father's victory by distracting her at the right moment. By preventing her from warning Voldemort, they ensure he is defeated by murdering Harry's parents, which sets off the long gambit that leads to his own final death.
Video Games
- Dragon Quest V: Early in the game (while the hero is still a child), you meet a man looking for your father. Much later in the game, you are that man, and can meet your past self through fairy magic (and attempt to warn your father about his imminent fate, but he doesn't listen).
- Empire Earth: The final level of the Russian campaign sends the heroes back in time to the first level, but on the opposite side as they're there to stop Grigor Stoyanovich (the campaign's initial hero) before he can turn evil. Unfortunately, his successor also had access to the time machine, and is helping Grigor by bringing in troops from the future, two or three Technology Levels ahead of you. The mission ends without telling you whether the future changed for good or bad.
- Life Is Strange
- Midway through the game, Max discovers the ability to travel through photographs to earlier points in the game that were previously too far back to rewind to.
- One ending lets Max travel back to the confrontation in the bathroom where she first discovered her powers.
- Space Quest IV has Roger steal an alien time-machine. The first place he visits is Ulence Flats, from the very first game of the series— complete with the original graphics, while he and the time machine remain in the much more modern graphics of the current game.
Web Animation
- This is how Bonus Stage originally ended after a Creator Breakdown: Phil goes back to the first episode and kills his past self along with his costar, Joel, thus preventing the show from existing.
- Pokémon Rusty: After the Bidocalypse, Rusty is sent back to the first episode to stop himself from ever going on his Pokemon journey. He succeeds, but ends up doing everything all over again and failing to Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
- Talking Tom and Friends does this, with Tom and Ben travelling back in time to episodes from earlier in the season.
Webcomics
- Bob and George: While most of George's time travel involves events of 8-bit Mega Man (Classic) era, George has also been involved in past arcs of the strips.
- "Another Bad Time
" has George being sent back in time to investigate the arc Mega Man turned evil to find out what really was going on. It ultimately involved the Helmeted Author up to a nefarious scheme to destroy the comic. - The last arc of the comic, "All Good Things", has George being shifting around the past, present and future. The past segment culminates in showing the original introduction of him and Bob arriving into the sprite comic portion in the first place.
- "Another Bad Time
Web Video
- The Angry Video Game Nerd: The "Mega Man Games" review has the Nerd being sent further in time to the events of previous episodes, first to his 2007 Independence Day episode, then to his 2006 A Nightmare On Elm Street review, before finally arriving in 2004 with his very first bad video game review, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He inspires himself to continue reviewing shitty video games in the first place.
- Everyman HYBRID:
- In the Mind Screw episode that is "The Property", many strange things happen to Vinnie. He's in a place that is, against all logic, a seamless combination of random rooms from his and his friend's homes in one, and then gets taken to Dr. Corenthal's ethereal sanctuary. This episode also somehow took him back in time to the events of "Hidden Videos", a video from two years prior, and he watches the events of that video happen from a distance, in shock at everything he's experiencing.
- Inverted in "Last week / taking it back", where through some unexplainable circumstances, Evan, Jeff and Alex mysteriously end up at Baldpate mountain. Based on evidence such as the clothes they're wearing and the location they ended up in, they were actually going through the events foretold in a mysterious video called "78of76.avi", received months earlier— they'd somehow gotten footage of something that happened to them in the future, and then lived those events in "Last week / taking it back".
- I'm a Marvel... And I'm a DC: Rorschach and Deadpool has the two go to the first episode, Deadpool wanting to travel to early episodes to mess with and roast the superheroes in the past.
- The Nostalgia Critic: In the Christmas With The Kranks review, the Nostalgia Critic is trying to put as little effort in the review as the movie had. Santa Christ sends him back to when he started reviewing in the first place, in 2007. The two Critics don't get along, but eventually learn from one another.
- Tribe Twelve: The Collective like to show their power over Noah by putting him through time-warp events. The most notable one happened in "The Live-Stream Incident", where he was taken back in time to two earlier episodes, "Device Analysis" and "Halloween Hotel", in which he caused some of the oddities that happened in those previous episodes, events that he, in the past, had been very confused and unsettled by.
Western Animation
- Family Guy: The Season 10 episode "Back To The Pilot" has Stewie and Brian travel back in time to the first episode "Death Has A Shadow" so Brian can find his ball, noticing the oddities of the art style and Early-Installment Weirdness. Brian tries to stop 9-11 from happening, but it backfires.
- Futurama
- "The Why Of Fry": The Brainspawn give Fry a chance to go back in time and stop himself being frozen, sending him under the same table he leaned against in "Space Pilot 3000". He and Nibbler talk while his past self is leaning, and Fry chooses to freeze himself by blowing his past self off the chair.
- "Bender's Big Score": Thanks to the paradox-free time code Fry and Bender are able to travel across history, eventually leading to Fry fleeing back to the same place and hour he got frozen to avoid the scammers shooting him, and Bender brainwashed to follow after and kill him. Bender is also revealed to be the one who flash-fossilized Seymour and behind the first alien invasion in the original Time-Passes Montage, while Fry falls into the same tube and is behind his pilot self defrosting in New Years' Eve 2999, pulling his pants up before freezing for another 7.95 years.
- The Kid vs. Kat two-part episode "Kat To The Future" revolves around Coop using Kat's time machine to go back to the first episode to stop Millie from finding and adopting Kat. He succeeds, but winds up causing a Bad Future where Kat's alien race has enslaved humanity with himself as ruler and Coop's friends, family, and neighbours becoming La Résistance. Coop then has to sneak into his house turned Kat's headquarters to retrieve the time machine to stop himself from causing this future to happen.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "The Cutie Re-Mark", Starlight Glimmer travels back to the past to prevent the main six from becoming friends in the first place. She winds up in one of the flashbacks from "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", where she prevents young Rainbow Dash from performing her first Sonic Rainboom. Since the ripples of this change don't just prevent the main six from befriending each other, but also result in various villains conquering Equestria, Twilight Sparkle has to time-travel back to prevent Starlight's meddling.
- Regular Show: The episode "Bad Kiss" revolves around Mordecai and Rigby using a time machine to travel back to prevent Mordecai from eating smelly foods that makes his breath stink when trying to kiss Margaret. The plan goes haywire when the past Mordecai steals the time machine and the duo chase him through the events of past episodes.
- Samurai Jack: In the Series Finale, Jack finally manages to return to the past from the Bad Future thanks to Ashi inheriting Aku's ability to send things through time. We see the original fight between Jack and Aku in the pilot, with the future Jack arriving about 10 seconds afterwards and annihilating the already tired and weaker Past Aku.
- In the Wander over Yonder episode "The Waste of Time", Wander and Sylvia accidentally buy Time Orbbles, giving them the ability of Time Travel. They briefly end up in the time of "The Picnic", the show's first aired episode (although continuity-wise the third); Sylvia, fortunately, stops Wander from greeting himself.
