[Toast and Kent love time loop stories. With this "Loopty Loo" series, T&K explore just what's happening in a film or TV show loop, and maybe over time, they will deconstruct what it is that makes for a good time loop. Also, we forgot this for a few posts, so consider this a new loop where its back.]
DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Season 3, Episode 11, "Here I Go Again"
[Toast] Full disclosure. I really don't watch this show, but when I walk in while The Peanut Gallery is watching, I sit down and watch the episode, doing my best to not, "Who's that? What's going on?" That said, I have probably seen most of the episodes. To the uninformed, it is a spin-off the DC Comics "Berlantiverse" that includes all those CW superhero shows like Arrow, The Flash and Supergirl. Its a much more wacky show with an ensemble cast all flying around in a time-traveling space ship fighting monsters, magic and getting up to hijinx all over time and creation.
[Kent] Full disclosure, I did watch the show (and have written about it multiple times ) and enjoyed it quite a bit for what it was, but I also never really got past what I wanted it to be, which was a forum for introducing many different DC heroes and villains and stories and concepts from the comics. It forged its own path and became its own thing outside of the DC Universe trappings, heck mostly outside the Berlantiverse/Arrowvers/DCCWverse trappings. It abandoned superheroes to be a dicordant mix of cheeky time-travel sci-fi and darkly magical fantasy. The cast was always game but the more it ventured away from superheroes (by season 4, with the exception of crossovers, it had all but abandoned its supehero nature) it just wasn't something that excited me, even though it did entertain me. As well, the end of Arrow for some reason also ended my interest in most of the DCCW shows. At this point, late in the third season, it's already shedded much of that superheroicness, and it's working on shedding any continuity outside of the immediate cast of characters.
How did the Loop Begin?
[Toast] Zari, a character from an alternate dystopian future who bears a magical "wind totem" is on the spaceship Waverider while the team goes on an adventure that involves disco and the battle of Waterloo, cuz that's the sort of thing they do. Zari was left behind to do a diagnostic on the ship's AI Gideon. Instead Zari futz's around with a program mod of her own, a simulation, so she can find a way to alter the timeline in order to save her brother. Changing the future is considered a bad thing.
She gets some time goo sprayed in her face and then the ship blows up, ala ST:tNG "Cause and Effect". And Zari is back at the beginning being yelled at by ship captain Sara Lance.
Later in the loop we find Gary, the nerdy agent of the Time FBI in the trash compactor with some sort of time loop doohickey because he became aware of the ship blowing up (because, Time FBI) so he created a loop to give the crew time to figure out what blew up. But that never explains why only Zari experiences it.
And then finally we learn that its all a simulation created by the meddlesome AI Gideon, actually a successful implementation of Zari's original simulation program but meant to expose her to the crew over and over and over until she learns to work better with them.
Kind of cruel if you ask me. But it works and they all become best buds.
[Kent] I'm glad you explained that and not me. It's a really good summary. I think if I were explaining it, I'd either get too deep in the weeds on the history of Legends or I would have stripped it down to two sentences, worried that I was overexplaining things. You struck a nice balance.
I guess I would only say that the "time goo" is Zari is working on the ship when one of its hoses squirts her in the mouth with the time goo. I like the luminescent effect it had on the actress Tala Ashe's mouth. But I had to wonder... doesn't putting that tube back with a big air bubble in the time goo cause problems?
[Toast] Maybe it did ! Thus the REAL reason for the time loop ;)
What was the main character's first reaction to the Loop?
[Toast] The initial reaction is the typical one, in that she is somewhat confused. But soon after she realizes what is going on and seeks assistance. And being who they all are, they immediately get it, and help.
[Kent] Right, it goes back to the whole point Gideon was trying to make with her... as she systematically starts to trust the other characters to help her. And yeah, I mean, they've been time travelers for three years now, some of them, so of course they'll get it.
WHY did the main character get put into the Loop? Can someone else be brought into the Loop?
[Toast] Well, its all a simulation created by a spaceship AI while Zari sits sleeping in a chair in the med-bay.
No, nobody can be brought into the loop as its not a real loop.
[Kent] Heh, yeah, even within the simulation she couldn't bring someone else in the loop with her because it's not designed for such an occurrence.
How long is this time Loop? What resets it? Can you force the reset?
[Toast] The loop is about one hour. We assume the reset is triggered by the ship blowing up. But considering its all a simulation, I assume Zari can trigger an early reset by just being "dead" or unconscious.
[Kent] For the most part, Zari runs through the hour and the ship blows up and the loop resets. At one point her and Ray (The Atom) shrink down to spy on Sara thinking maybe it's something she did that blows up the ship only to be mistaken for flies and get swatted with a magazine (ostensibly dying) and the loop resetting.
How long does the main character stay in the Loop? Does it have any affect on them, their personality, their outlook?
[Toast] She stays in the loop long enough to feel the existential dread of going through it one more time, enough dread to want to shoot herself in the head, hoping it can be ended by her own self-inflicted death. She also stays in the loop long enough to learn how to play the violin most beautifully. So yes, experience in the simulation is retained.
Zari is initially seen as somewhat self-centered, focused only on her own goals, to save her brother, to change the future so things are not as dystopian as what she lived through. She doesn't feel connected to the rest of the crew. But by the end she has learned to love each of the crew members, including the incredibly irascible Mick Rory, once the villain Heat Wave, who she discovers is writing really really bad scifi erotica. But not before she or Nate are injured or maimed by Mick's booby traps.
Amusingly enough each secret or heart felt aspect of each person she learns of is real. I guess Gideon is aware of everything going on inside her hull, whether the crew is aware of it or not.
[Kent] If you look on IMDB, the actress playing Gideon (Amy Louise Pemberton, who we see as a person only twice in the entire series, I believe) is right behind Caity Lotz (Sara/White Canary) in number of appearances in the show. So Gideon has been there from the beginning as the ship's AI, and she knows kind of everything about the characters. In fact, maybe I'm wrong, but they use Gideon to alert them to blips in the timeline, which may mean she knows pretty much everything about the entire history of everything? I dunno. She smart.
What about the other people in the Loop? Are they aware? Can they become aware? Does anything happen if they become aware?
[Toast] They aren't initially but this is a smart crew (simulated crew) quite used to wacky, weird things going on, so they adjust pretty quickly. The first person she goes to is Nate, known to be nerdy and pop culture dialed in. Of course, almost immediately he references it as a "Groundhog Day" event, which she is completely unware of, being from a dystopian future. Also, as soon as Ray learns of the loop, that the ship is blowing up, he references "Cause and Effect" which made me LOL. Smart crew.
Nate, in this aspect, is us (as in, me and Kent, fans of time loops) and when he sees on her face that she is starting to suffer under the weight of the repeated, deadly loops, he suggests some time off, and we get the "fun montage". I absolutely love that Nate gets it instantly, but once Zari gains more confidence in her relationships with the rest of the crew she brings them in and soon everyone is helping investigate, albeit with difference focuses depending on the Loop and who she focuses on.
[Kent] I couldn't help but think of Morgan from back when we looked at The Mindy Project time loop... I was just expecting it to shorthand to Zari saying "Groundhog Day" and Nate saying "I'm in."
But yeah, Nate is definitely our stand in, the guy who is completely thrilled by the idea of being in a time loop, even if he's not the one looping. Although it was not planned at all, when the character Maisie Richardson-Sellers is playing in this episode (Amaya/Vixen) leaves the crew (Richardson-Sellers then takes on a different non-DCU shapeshifter character), Nate and Zari wind up hooking up, and this really sets the stage for that I think, even though it was meant as strictly platonic time-loop friends. But oh, wait, it's not real.... but for Zari it is. But is Gideon that good at predicting people's behaviour (or just her knowledge of the future at play). Sorry, just let the nerd out.
[Toast] That IS the point of writing these posts :D
[Kent] I also enjoyed Ray trying to "well actually" Nate about the fact that "Cause and Effect" predated Groundhog Day. Such nerds.
What does the main character think about the other people in the Loop? Are they real? Do they matter?
[Toast] Zari always thinks the people are the real people. There are no NPCs in this scenario.
[Kent] There is a moment of despair there where she thinks nothing matters, but she comes back around through the help of her happy time-travel pals.
Most memorable event in a Loop? Most surprising event during a Loop?
[Toast] Honestly, the most fun is had with the Rory and the space opera erotica novel. That he has so many horrible booby traps keeping people away from his type writer just cracks me up. Also, a quick scene with Zari standing behind two characters with their lines on cue cards was worth a snort.
[Kent] The nerd in me liked Zari putting on everyone's costumes... including Hawkgirl's (who left after dragging season 1 way, way down). But you're right, the reveal of Rory's trashy sci-fi romance novel was a great reveal (and pays dividends for the character from here on out, in case you may have thought it just a cute one-off joke).
How does this stack up in the subgenre?
[Toast] It is a good meta-example of the subgenre, in that its less about the time loop itself, given that it was a double-blind fakeout, and more about the trope. But that fakeout also makes it a let down. She was never really in any danger, existentially or not, and I am sure Gideon would have let her out before damaging Zari's mind to any extent.
[Kent] Right! I remembered liking this episode, but forgot about the fact that it wasn't a real time loop. This is a time travel show, there should be time loops like, once a season. It is disappointing. For the character needing to embrace being part of the team, I think it delivers the point pretty well. It's like the writers wrote themselves into a corner with how to resolve the loop and the explosion (I loved Gary crawling out of the trash compactor with the time loop doohickey as an explanation for the loop) even though it doesn't seem that complex a problem to write your way out of.
Overall, it's fun, but middle-of-the-road. I don't think any episode of a TV show will rank high in the subgenre by sheer fact that there has to be some investment in the show in order for the overall story to have its greatest impact.
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