Retroactive Continuity - References in Popular Culture

References in Popular Culture

The revived series of British science fiction television program Doctor Who, and its television spin-offs, heavily and playfully uses retroactive continuity plot devices. For example, in Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood, created by Russell T Davies, a drug used to erase the memory of characters is called "retcon"; the use of the drug is often referred to by characters as "retconning". The nod to retroactive continuity is a joke meant to be shared between the writers and the viewers as a way of pointing out that anything done throughout the course of the series can easily be undone with a simple plot device; it also points to parent show Doctor Who's frequent use of the device in its several-decade run. For example, Davies introduced the Time War in the backstory to Doctor Who's 2005 revival to account for discrepancies between the classic series and the revamp. When Steven Moffat took over in 2010, he introduced cracks in the universe which erase events and individuals from history; using this device, he 'undid' the events of "Journey's End" and "The Next Doctor" so that in the series' narrative, the people of Earth would be (once again) unaware of alien life. Moffat's fifth series finale provided a similar device when the Doctor "rebooted" the universe. In answer to a fan's question, Moffat tweeted: "The whole universe came exactly as it was. Except for any continuity errors I need to explain away." And in the sixth series, Moffat introduces new aliens the Silence, who erase your memory of them the moment you look away. Creative use of the device is mined for new kinds of television suspense. In the episode "Day of the Moon", characters were shown to have had dozens of (unseen) encounters with the creatures in the space of a few seconds in viewer's time. Commenting on this device, writer MaryAnn Johanson writes, "That could be happening throughout this story... indeed, through the entire history of Doctor Who. Moffat has just created a pretty much unassailable narratively sound reason for inserting retcons anywhere throughout the half-century history of the show."

The Daleks are another example of retconning in the Doctor Who series. Several times throughout the history of the show the Daleks have become extinct only to be 'reborn' at a later time due to their huge fan base and iconic placement as the Doctor's greatest foes.

In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Year of Hell", Voyager encounters a Krenim Temporal Weaponship made by the antagonist, Annorax. When the temporal weapon fires on an object, it moves that object outside the space-time continuum, eliminating the object from causality not only in the present and the future, but also the past, changing history to a state where the object never existed. Thus, by firing the weapon, Annorax makes a retcon to the history of the universe.

In Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, the Hobgoblin of the year 2211 carries a weapon known as a 'Retcon Bomb'; upon impact, it erases its target and all memories of the target from existence, though not erasing the consequences of their existence (which is how the cracks in the skin of the universe work as well). This weapon has not been used since, because its inventor had fallen victim to one.

In Champions Online, a MMORPG for the PC, a character may use a "retcon" item to reset the statistics and powers of their superhero character.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the its three successors; The Film Crew, Cinematic Titanic, and Rifftrax, all shows which mock incredibly bad films; regularly use the word retcon.

The term retcon is used several times in the 2010 novel, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by American writer Charles Yu.