History Main / ResetButton

* ''SuicideSquad'' had an interesting psychological version. Late in the run of the first series, cold-blooded DeathSeeker Deadshot hunted down and shot someone who was using his costume, then walked away, effectively killing and abandoning his Deadshot persona. In issues after that you can see him becoming more emotional and engaged, though no less homicidal. But in the final arc of the book, the costume is returned to him; he puts it back on (despite the ''bullet hole in the forehead'') and promptly reverts to his old behavior.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' did push the reset button once, inexplicably, through time-travel; here, they undid events of the past by simply ''beaming'' future persons into their prior selves before the time-change, which somehow erased the future person's memory. This was a Reset Button since they conveniently claimed that by doing this, "it never happened--" when the two Air Force personnel were clearly on the Enterprise.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' finally had to introduce a branch of Starfleet called the "Temporal Investigations", in which they cited Kirk as having committed seventeen separate temporal violations; the biggest file on record.
** One egregious reset in ''Deep Space Nine'' is in the episode "To the Death," where the Defiant returns to the station to find one entire pylon has been blown up by a Jem'Hadar raid. It makes for a shocking visual, but by the next episode the station looks like new....because they fixed it. In the Cardassian architectural style. It's unlikely that the Cardassians would have provided them with the materials to do so, though.

** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', specifically, may have caused irreparable damage to the entire Trope Console due to its constant, eager pounding of the Reset Button. Character development still continues despite the usage of the reset button on ''Voyager''. In fact, fewer episodes hit the reset button than don't. Most of the episodes that do are time travel episodes.

** Oddly enough, one time the writers actually forgot they had pushed the reset button. A time agent is sent back to the 20th century and spends three decades viewed as a crazy bum, until the ''Voyager'' crew fixes things and meets him again in younger form, and he has no memory of the former timeline. Later, the agent shows up again and we find out that now he does remember those three decades and has a grudge against ''Voyager'' due to causing them.
** This apparently had something to do with some sort of temporal insanity caused by having the proverbial reset button pressed one too many times... [[TimeyWimeyBall or something...]]

* Given its dependence on TimeTravel, ''Franchise/StarTrek'' can often be found pressing this button. ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', specifically, may have caused irreparable damage to the entire Trope Console due to its constant, eager pounding of the Reset Button. Character development still continues despite the usage of the reset button on ''Voyager''. In fact, fewer episodes hit the reset button than don't. Most of the episodes that do are time travel episodes.
-->'''{{Website/SFDebris}}''': What would it have hurt to make changes to Seven - to have her grow even a little - half a dozen episodes before the end of the series, after you've been teasing it for years? Then again, this is a show about getting home that ''cut to the credits'' before they reached it. So for all we know, ''Voyager'' got hit by an asteroid before it reached Earth, and [[StarTrekNemesis Janeway was the only survivor.]]
** ''Voyager'' did manage to do it once [[CrowningMomentOfAwesomeLiveActionTV with style]], in the episode "The Year of Hell".
** Oddly enough, one time the writers actually forgot they had pushed the reset button. A time agent is sent back to the 20th century and spends three decades viewed as a crazy bum, until the ''Voyager'' crew fixes things and meets him again in younger form, and he has no memory of the former timeline. Later, the agent shows up again and we find out that now he does remember those three decades and has a grudge against ''Voyager'' due to causing them.
*** This apparently had something to do with some sort of temporal insanity caused by having the proverbial reset button pressed one too many times... [[TimeyWimeyBall or something...]]

** One egregious reset in ''Deep Space Nine'' is in the episode "To the Death," where the Defiant returns to the station to find one entire pylon has been blown up by a Jem'Hadar raid. It makes for a shocking visual, but by the next episode the station looks like new...
*** ...because they fixed it.
**** well, it was rather absurd that it was repaired in the Cardassian architectural style...it's unlikely that the Cardassians would have provided them with the materiel to do so.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' has pushed the button on occasion, but [[TropesAreTools often doing it very well]]. Episodes like "All Good Things..." and "Yesterday's Enterprise" all end with the paradoxes that caused the problem in the first place being resolved, stopping all events from happening. The difference from the later uses is in that the former case, Picard was able to remember the events that had transpired, and was a different man because of it. In the latter, the entire episode was built around the moral implications of pushing the button, and even when it was pressed, the events would have consequences later in the series.

-->'''{{Website/SFDebris}}''': What would it have hurt to make changes to Seven - to have her grow even a little - half a dozen episodes before the end of the series, after you been teasing it for years? Then again, this is a show about getting home that ''cut to the credits'' before they reached it. So for all we know, ''Voyager'' got hit by an asteroid before it reached Earth, and [[StarTrekNemesis Janeway was the only survivor.]]

-->'''{{Website/SFDebris}}''': Then again, this is a show getting home that ''cut to the credits'' before they reached it. So for all we know, ''Voyager'' got hit by an asteroid before it reached Earth, and [[StarTrekNemesis Janeway was the only survivor.]]

* In ''Manga/FairyTail'', Ultear's goal for most of her life was to find a magical ResetButton that could give her back her lost childhood. At one point she thought she found it when she discovered the DangerousForbiddenTechnique "Last Ages". Master Hades then told her ''why'' it was considered dangerous and forbidden: the spell can reverse time, but it also takes away the caster's time in the process [[spoiler:via RapidAging]]. She eventually decides to cast it anyway [[spoiler:to prevent the Dragons' invasion. Unfortunately, she is only able to turn back time by one minute. Fortunately, that one minute is enough to save many lives, including Gray's.]]

* One two parter episode of ''{{Series/The X-Files}}'' called 'Dreamland' has Mulder accidentally switch bodies with a Man In Black working at area 51. Unfortunately, they find out there is no way to switch back, but luckily at the end of the episode, everything just sort of fixes itself, with time even reversing so that no-one remembers the events that took place. It's a pretty blatant Reset Button, and doesn't even make much sense in the way it works, but the episodes are [[RuleOfFunny such]] [[RuleOfCool fun]] anyway, most fans don't seem to care.

* ''KamenRider'':
** ''KamenRiderRyuki'' has the Time Vent card, which [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin turns back time]]. The person hosting the Rider Wars, Shiro, uses this card to get the ending he wants, but when he discovers that [[spoiler: it's not what his sister wanted]], he uses it one last time to revive everyone.
** Much of ''KamenRiderDecade: [[GrandFinale Final Chapter]]'' is about Tsukasa trying to find a way to reset the ''Kamen Rider'' multiverse to how it was before the interdimensional collapse and the Rider War that ensued from it. [[spoiler:After he presses it with a HeroicSacrifice, everyone still remembers him after they have been restored --- and their memories are the only way to bring him back from the dead.]]

* ''Comicbook/AgeOfUltron'' both plays this trope straight and averts it. The series opens in the aftermath of a GreatOffscreenWar, with most of Comicbook/TheAvengers, Comicbook/XMen, and Comicbook/FantasticFour having been killed by the title villain, and ends with {{Wolverine}} and Sue Storm going back in time and preventing the whole mess from ever occurring. However, we later learn that as a result of the Reset Button being hit, Wolverine has lost his HealingFactor, violent "[[RealityBreakingParadox Time Quakes" are appearing throughout the universe]], [[ArtificialIntelligence A.I.s]] are popping up around the globe and [[AIIsACrapshoot going absolutely berserk]], and as the icing on the cake, {{Galactus}} has now been teleported to the UltimateMarvel reality.

Specific variants: AllJustADream, {{Snapback}}, and {{Filler}}. See also the ResetButtonEnding, WorldHealingWave, OpeningACanOfClones and NoOntologicalInertia.

!!Examples

[[folder:Films]]

* The ''{{Jumanji}}'' board game; it's even there in the instructions. [[spoiler: What it doesn't say is that the game can even undo time. It has at least the power to erase the years between starting and ending the game from history.]]
** Likewise, in ''{{Zathura}}'', the sort-of sequel to ''Jumanji'', when the game ends the house is restored to normal [[spoiler: and the astronaut is retconned out of existence.]]
* ''FunnyGames'' uses this in a highly literal sense.

** Necessitated because of Leonard Nimoy's sudden about-face decision (after filming on II wrapped) to continue playing Spock after all. Thus was added to II the scene of Spock's ejected coffin coming to rest on the Genesis Planet, yielding the one, tenuous, improbable link between films to explain Spock's [[strike:resurrection]] regeneration.

* In 1972, in response to the politics of the [[WesternAnimation/FritzTheCat animated film adaptation]] of his comic ''ComicBook/FritzTheCat'', RobertCrumb kills off Fritz. Two years later, Steve Krantz produces an animated sequel, ''WesternAnimation/TheNineLivesOfFritzTheCat''.
* Not used, but directly mentioned in ''WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}}''. Apparently the main character stopped trying to make one after learning the science behind it was impossible.

* Used several times in ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', though the principal characters are typically left aware of what happened: in ''Mystery Spot'' the Trickster (Gabriel) killed Dean over and over again, and then brought him back to as if nothing had happened following an excruciatingly funny GroundhogDayLoop, by Castiel in ''My Heart Will Go On'' (though it was passed off to everyone except Sam and Dean as AllJustADream) when Fate forced him to retroactively re-sink the Titanic, and by Michael at the end of ''The Song Remains The Same,'' where the only notable change to reality by the end of the episode was the destruction of Anna, which apparently had little practical effect on anything.

Any ResetButton events in a TimeTravel story are usually related to, or caused by, a TemporalParadox. For when hits the Reset Button on a video game, see BagOfSpilling. When the player hits it, a lot, over and over, see SaveScumming.

* In ''Anime/ExcelSaga'', the ResetButton is actually a ''character:'' the Great Will of the Macrocosm, a floating vortex with arms. Her major purpose is to continually resurrect cast members as needed, which is quite often. Things get complicated when she not only fails to bring back Pedro, but starts sleeping with him. [[spoiler:It turns out she and his wife are one and the same... somehow.]] The ResetButton gets pressed at ''least'' four times [[FirstEpisodeResurrection in the first episode alone...]]

* [[spoiler:''HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi'']] starts most arcs as if the previous ones had never happened; this at first seems to be NegativeContinuity but the first season's final arc implies something more is going on when Keiichi freaks out ([[spoiler:confessing to his very-much-alive friend that he can remember killing her]]) after suddenly remembering traumatic details from the very first arc. In the second season, we're introduced to the character that keeps pressing the ResetButton.
* The ResetButton ending of ''{{Mai-HiME}}'', in which Miyu shatters the pillars, restoring all the Himes' most important people to life (as well as a few of the Himes themselves), and even heals [[EyeScream Nao's eye]].

* In MiraiNikki, Yukiteru Amano's sole reason to winning the game and [[AGodAmI becoming God]] is so he can wield the ResetButton and bring all his friends back to life. [[spoiler:[[DownerEnding It won't work.]]]]

* In the original, 1969 {{Himitsu No Akko-chan}} series, after meeting [[LongLostUncleAesop a new deaf kid]], the heroine Akko-chan uses her [[LiteralGenie magic mirror]] [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor to wish herself]] [[CompressedVice deaf-mute]] and achieve a better understanding of his plight. However, when believing to have already gotten her Aesop Akko-chan tries to wish her hearing back, she finds out that, due to having wished herself ''deaf and mute'', she no longer possesses the ability to communicate verbally, and the mirror refuses her wish. The ResetButton hits itself, restoring the heroine at her original state, only after [[NightmareFuel the protagonist is scared into her right Aesop]].

* In ''Manga/TheWorldGodOnlyKnows'', [[spoiler: Keima has to conquer a cute but mysterious and suicidal young girl during the Heart of Jupiter arc. There's two catches, however : he's in his seven-year old body in the past, via MentalTimeTravel, and he has a limited number of tries, represented by bars on the orb he's been given. If the girl he's trying to conquer is overcome with despair, [[FountainOfYouth she transforms into a baby]] and the ResetButton is pressed, sending Keima back to the start of his mission with only him aware of it, much like a GroundhogDayLoop]].

* In the card game ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', numerous cards can wipe the playing field clear of any combination of permanents in play and/or cards in hand. Its typical use is in fast decks against slow decks. However, cards that better match the idea of a ResetButton are [[http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=174818 Lich's Mirror]] and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=74034 Sway of the Stars]], though neither are perfect examples; Lich's Mirror only provides a reset button for one player and Sway of the Stars sets players' life totals to 7 rather than the beginning 20 (but in every other way does in fact reset the game to the beginning).

* ''Comicbook/AgeOfUltron'' both plays this trope straight and averts it. The series opens in the aftermath of a GreatOffscreenWar, with most of Comicbook/TheAvengers, Comicbook/XMen, and Comicbook/FantasticFour having been killed by the title villain, and ends with {{Wolverine}} and Sue Storm going back in time and preventing the whole mess from ever occurring. However, we later learn that as a result of the ResetButton being hit, Wolverine has lost his HealingFactor, violent "[[RealityBreakingParadox Time Quakes" are appearing throughout the universe]], [[ArtificialIntelligence A.I.s]] are popping up around the globe and [[AIIsACrapshoot going absolutely berserk]], and as the icing on the cake, {{Galactus}} has now been teleported to the UltimateMarvel reality.

* The Michael Crichton film ''{{Sphere}}'' employed a ResetButton. The book's ending is left ambiguous enough that one can infer that the ResetButton attempt only made things worse, though TheFilmOfTheBook lacks this KarmicTwistEnding.

* ''Film/GalaxyQuest'' had a very limited ResetButton: the Omega 13 could turn time back thirteen seconds. Just ''barely'' enough time to fix a major mistake. Fortunately, it wasn't a plot reset button. The movie was way too good to try that.

** This wasn't so much a ResetButton, since Spock was highly changed after his resurrection; likewise, it was fairly obvious from Spock's mind-meld with [=McCoy=] before his death, that he was doing this for an upcoming reason-- and it wasn't just so Spock's k'atra (i.e. soul) could be transerred to Vulcan. While the Genesis Device and Kirk's son were indeed ''removed'' as original plot-devices, the Genesis device remained as a new super-weapon, and became the driving basis of he plot behind Kruge's mission; meanwhile David Marcus's death became central to the plot of Star Trek VI, when this made Kirk decide that the only good Klingon was a ''dead'' one. No reset-button.

* ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'' used the ResetButton, via Picard's travelling back through the Nexus to before the star exploded, in order to bring back Kirk to help stop it from happening.

* BBC Books' last full-length novel [[DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse based on ''Doctor Who'']] featuring the Eighth Doctor sets up a ResetButton to clear the novel continuity out of the way of the new series, but doesn't actually press it. Instead, the book ends on a cliffhanger. Lance Parkin left the door open in case the new series bombed, as the BBC thought it might have done. In which case, novel continuity would have (mostly or completely) ignored the new series continuity.

* ''Literature/AGameOfUniverse'' features both direct and indirect examples of [[ResetButton Reset Buttons]]. In the direct example, Germain goes back in time seven seconds after [[spoiler: losing a magical battle and going to hell]]. The indirect example comes when [[spoiler: an angel reveals that he's been following Germain and traveling back in time every time he dies]].

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' did push the reset button once, inexplicably, through time-travel; here, they undid events of the past by simply ''beaming'' future persons into their prior selves before the time-change, which somehow erased the future person's memory. This was a ResetButton since they conveniently claimed that by doing this, "it never happened--" when the two Air Force personnel were clearly on the Enterprise.

* The episode of ''MyFavoriteMartian'' where Martin's nephew Andromeda ("Andy") shows up, ends with Martin using a time machine as a ResetButton when Andy's success in proving his and Martin's origins starts the neighbors looking for torches and pitchforks.
* A rare example of a ResetButton without AppliedPhlebotinum: the fifth season finale of ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration'' undid nearly everything that had happened that season, in order to get things in position for next season. Character relationships that had taken over a dozen episodes to develop undid themselves in less than ten minutes, and characters revealed that they had [[RetCon never really been]] that way. It was CleaningUpRomanticLooseEnds, but also other loose ends.

** In "Unending", the ResetButton is an actual button that's pressed near the end of the episode.

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'' pressed the ResetButton and erased the events of the previous 24 hours in the episode "I Will Always Remember You" in order to save Buffy's life. However, as the events erased including Angel becoming human and having a perfect night with Buffy, and that Angel's price for getting the ResetButton pushed was that he alone remembered everything, it became an instant TearJerker.

** Season 8, ''[[ClearMyName Infamous]]'', Clark's use of a ResetButton is referenced by trope name. [[spoiler:Linda Lake writing about his secret, him telling Lois the truth about him and Chloe being ripped to shreds by Doomsday never happened. But in turn, Davis kills Linda.]]

* Despite setting out to avert this trope, the conclusion to ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}'''s New Caprica arc at the beginning of Season 3 served as a ResetButton of sorts by [[spoiler: killing off the]] ''[[spoiler: Pegasus]]'' [[spoiler: as quick as it could]] and resetting the show to as it was in Season 1, losing its momentum in many almost irrelevent standalones.

* The amusingly [[LiteralMinded literal-minded]] children's [[TheBBC BBC]] sitcom ''Hounded'' sees its protagonist [[AsHimself Rufus Hound]] sucked weekly into a [[AlternateUniverse parallel universe]] where he must face off with an incompetent BigBad who is such a [[CardCarryingVillain Card-Carrying Villain]] he's actually called [[MeaningfulName Dr Muhahahaha]], whose [[EvilPlan preposterous scheme of the week]] to [[TakeOverTheWorld take over the Earth]] is invariably foiled by the hero at the end of each episode - in [[GenreSavvy expectation of which]] Dr Mu ''has installed a literal big red ResetButton'' he can press at this point, which rewinds the whole episode's plot [[GroundhogDayLoop back to the start of the day]] ready for him to have another crack next time...

* Mengsk's Dominion empire in ''{{Starcraft}}'' was literally hit with a ResetButton at the start of ''WingsOfLiberty''. You could skip from the original ''{{Starcraft}}'' to ''WingsOfLiberty'' and not realize that there was an expansion game (''Brood War'') in-between where the Dominion got the living crap beaten out of them.

* ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheSandsOfTime'' has the both the Sands themselves and the Dagger of Time, a (very) short-time reset button that allowed a player to undo huge mistakes like falling into a death trap, or taking a major beating in a fight. As well, the events of the entire game end up being reset by the end, and in the end movie the Prince uses the Dagger one last time to undo kissing the woman he fell in love with during the erased timeline, who rejects him for doing so while having "just" met her. In a unique variation, the ResetButton mechanism itself sets off the events of the second game, as the PowersThatBe are out to punish the Prince for using it.

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'', the ResetButton is one of the central gameplay elements. Link only has three days to save Termina -- if he runs out of time, he has to play the Song of Time to go back to the first day, and everything that has happened to the world or the characters is reset.

* The second ''ArTonelico'' has a Song Magic called the ResetButton. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin It resets the battle.]] [[UselessUsefulSpell Supposedly, you use it to reset bad things that might happen in battle, but there's really no point...]] And then later on, weird things happen to the ResetButton in its so-called "upgrades".

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfSpyro'', it turns out [[spoiler: Spyro is the ResetButton for the planet. If the Destroyer is successful in triggering TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, Spyro (and likely any Purple Dragon for that matter) can use their power to stop it and restore the world to normal.]]

* In ''Videogame/BlazBlue'', [[spoiler:the whole setting is a GroundhogDayLoop, with various possibilities playing out in a TimeLoop, and then resetting itself. Several characters often die in MultipleEndings and other instances, but never canonically. In the {{Canon}} ending of ''VideoGame/BlazBlueContinuumShift'', however, the ResetButton and the GroundhogDayLoop are removed by [[BigBad Terumi]], so if anyone dies now, [[KilledOffForReal they die for good]].]]

* ''WesternAnimation/CodeLyoko'' has a ResetButton (the RTTP or "Return to the Past" program) that gets used in the majority of the episodes, though they generally can't do this until [[BigBad XANA's]] current scheme has been defeated.

* The ''WesternAnimation/CodeMonkeys'' episode "Todd Loses His Mind" has a very literal ResetButton ending: just as Dave and Jerry are about to be shot by Mr. Larrity, and Todd is about to blow up Gameavision HQ, the Code Monkeys "game" locks up, and the "player" is forced to start over.

** The DeusExMachina ending of TheMovie is also thanks to the ResetButton.

* ''Comicbook/AgeOfUltron'' both plays this trope straight and averts it. The series opens in the aftermath of a GreatOffscreenWar, with most of Comicbook/TheAvengers, Comicbook/XMen, and Comicbook/FantasticFour having been killed by the title villain, and ends with {{Wolverine}} and Sue Storm going back in time and preventing the whole mess from ever occurring. However, we later learn that as a result of the ResetButton being hit, Wolverine has now lost his HealingFactor, violent "Time Quakes" are appearing throughout time and space, and {{Galactus}} has now been teleported to the UltimateMarvel uinverse.

* Entire plot reset in ''FreddyvsJasonvsAsh: Nightmare Warriors''. [[spoiler: At the very end, Agent Wesley Carter is sent back in time and signs Freddy's search warrant. Thus eliminating the technicality that gave him freedom, preventing him from being burned and becoming a dream demon. Which makes it so all the ''Nightmare on Elm Street'' films didn't happen. In turn, Freddy was the one who resurrected Jason after he died in ''Jason Goes to Hell'', therefore Jason will stay dead at the end, preventing ''Jason X'' from taking place. And meaning that the Freddy/Jason timeline has a "split timeline" starting at FvJ, splitting into F vs J vs A and Jason X.]]

* The Imaginationland trilogy has [[SugarApocalypse terrorists invade our imagination, the evil characters taking over, and Al Gore nuking the area]]. [[TheChosenOne Butters]] restores everything to the way it was in the end.

* The ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' Imaginationland trilogy has [[SugarApocalypse terrorists invade our imagination, the evil characters taking over, and Al Gore nuking the area]]. [[TheChosenOne Butters]] restores everything to the way it was in the end.

* On the April 10, 2000 ''Wrestling/WCWMondayNitro'', which featured the returns of the previously fired Wrestling/VinceRusso and Wrestling/EricBischoff, they stripped all the Champions ([[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/wcw/wcw-h.html WCW World Heavyweight Champion]] Sid [=Vicious=], [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/wcw/wcw-us-h.html WCW United States Heavyweight Champion]] Wrestling/JeffJarrett, [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/wcw/wcw-tv.html WCW World Television Champion]] [[Wrestling/HacksawJimDuggan "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan]][[note]]This title was officially abandoned once and for all[[/note]], [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/wwe/wwe-c.html WCW World Cruiserweight Champion]] "The Artist Formerly Known As" Prince [=Iaukea=][[note]]Mike Haynor, no relation to "King" Curtis Iaukea. He originally was billed as Iaukea's "son," before being repackaged as a CaptainErsatz for Music/{{Prince}}[[/note]] and [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/wcw/wcw-t.html WCW World Tag Team Champions]] [[TagTeamTwins the Harris Brothers [Ron and Don]]]) and started fresh, as Wrestling/{{WWE}} had completely surpassed them in the ratings. Too little, too late. The company was dead less than a year later, with the final episode airing on March 26, 2001.

** But that was Eiji Aonuma's doing, not Miyamoto's.
*** Actually, Miyamoto's ExecutiveMeddling was in large part a cause of the Zelda timeline being such a mess, as him forcing the developers to simplify the games' plots and [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaFourSwordsAdventures sever many of the links and references to other games]] caused their connections and placements in the timeline to be [[ContinuitySnarl rather ambiguous, contradictory and confusing]].

** In Series 7 "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E10JourneyToTheCentreOfTheTardis Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS]]" - [[spoiler: At the beginning of the episode, when the TARDIS is powering down, Clara asks the Doctor, "Don't you have a big friendly (reset) button you can push? After it appears that they will die at the end, the Doctor manages to go back in time to that same moment and get his earlier self a device that says "BIG FRIENDLY BUTTON" on it. He presses the button and the timeline is restore to before the emergency. A wink and a nod to the audience.]]

** In Series 7 "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E10JourneyToTheCentreOfTheTardis]]" - [[spoiler: At the beginning of the episode, when the TARDIS is powering down, Clara asks the Doctor, "Don't you have a big friendly (reset) button you can push? After it appears that they will die at the end, the Doctor manages to go back in time to that same moment and get his earlier self a device that says "BIG FRIENDLY BUTTON" on it. He presses the button and the timeline is restore to before the emergency. A wink and a nod to the audience.]]

* ''SuicideSquad'' had an interesting psychological version. Late in the run of the final series, cold-blooded DeathSeeker Deadshot hunted down and shot someone who was using his costume, then walked away, effectively killing and abandoning his Deadshot persona. In issues after that you can see him becoming more emotional and engaged, though no less homicidal. But in the final arc of the book, the costume is returned to him; he puts it back on (despite the ''bullet hole in the forehead'') and promptly reverts to his old behavior.

* Used several times in ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', though the principle characters are typically left aware of what happened: in ''Mystery Spot'' the Trickster (Gabriel) killed Dean over and over again, and then brought him back to as if nothing had happened following an excruciatingly funny GroundhogDayLoop, by Castiel in ''My Heart Will Go On'' (though it was passed off to everyone except Sam and Dean as AllJustADream) when Fate forced him to retroactively re-sink the Titanic, and by Michael at the end of ''The Song Remains The Same,'' where the only notable change to reality by the end of the episode was the destruction of Anna, which apparently had little practical effect on anything.

* The series finale of ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'' was one great cosmic reset button.

* The series finale of ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated was one great cosmic reset button.