Such as in the Simpsons Episode where the Real Seymour Skinner turns up and takes over the life of Tamzin who has been living as Seymour for all these years. (I can’t remember the details of the story, and how they re established Tamzin as Skinner but I do remember it was lame)
I just read this dilbert comic. There has been a series of about 5 comics before this involving ‘Asok’ being used to test a moon rocket, dying in the process, being cloned into a snickers/asok hybrid. And this final cartoon, in a very lame but amusing way restores things by… well … just click the link.
I would very much enjoy reading other examples of this in TV/comics etc if you could post them.
It’s sort of a Deus Ex Machina - Deus ex machina - Wikipedia - but maybe not exactly the right concept. I’m sure someone else will be along to confirm or deny that.
The movie Beerfest made a joke about this. One of the characters was killed in the movie. While the other characters are mourning their friend’s death, his previosuly unknown identical twin brother shows up. His dead brother’s friends all tell him he can hang out with them. And he can have his dead brother’s job. And they ask him if he can change his accent so he’ll sound just like his dead brother. And if he doesn’t mind, they’re going to call him by his dead brother’s name.
Judge Snyder ordered that Tamzerian should be restored as principal and only referred to from now on as Seymour Skinner. He decreed that the name “Tamzerian” should no longer be mentioned under penalty of torture.
In the episode “I, (Annoyed Grunt) - bot,” Lisa’s cat, Snowball II was accidentally run over by Dr. Hibbert. After adopting two more cats and naming them Snowball III and Snowball IV, which also died, Lisa was sitting on her porch feeling sorry for herself when the Crazy Cat Lady came up, started blabbering at Lisa, and threw a cat at her. The cat causes a car to crash into a tree, leading Lisa to think the cat will survive better than her most recent cats, so she decides to adopt it. She says, “Instead of calling you Snowball V, I’ll pretend all of this never happened and just call you Snowball II.”
Principal Skinner strolls by and says, “Isn’t that kind of a cheat?”
Lisa replies, “I guess you’re right, Principal Tamzerian.”
Skinner says, “I guess I’ll be moving along. Say, that is a beautiful kitty.”
This was either an inside joke, or a shot at the people annoyed by the whole Tamzerian episode.
I like the term reboot, which implies the return to an original state. A retcon generally means that a series has decided that its back-story no longer works so it invents a new one and then pretends this had been the back-story all along. So a reboot and a retcon are opposite means of reconciling differences between an ongoing story’s past and present; a reboot alters the present to match the past and a retcon alters the past to match the present.
Start Trek Voyager, guess the episode. In case the link doesn’t work it is
Year of Hell, a two parter where at the end things are set back exactly as they started after practically destoying the ship and killing half the crew, entire civilisations are reinstated
The incompetent alien hunters on Torchwood dose witnesses with Retcon in order to obliterate or replace memories of eldrich events. (And excessive doses can cause problems.)
The show’s a spinoff of Doctor Who–one of the oldest “fandoms” around. So “retcon” is a well-known concept for those folks. (See also “fanwanking.”)
I don’t think reboot is what you want, as it has an accepted meaning of completely restarting a franchise, tossing out all previous continuity and starting afresh, like Batman with “Batman begins”. Reboot.
