Earlier this month, we had Groundhog Day. Which naturally reminded me of the brilliant movie Groundhog Day. As well as being a fantastic comedy, the movie is one of the best examples of the "time loop" story, where one character goes through the same day over and over again.
Surprisingly, time loop stories in Doctor Who are extremely rare. In fact, the only TV story I can think of from the show's long history is "Eve of the Daleks". Some stories have briefly featured a time loop, such as "Meglos". Others have even used a time loop as a weapon or a resolution, such as "The Claws of Axos". But "Eve of the Daleks" is the only TV episode that's a straightforward take on the classic time loop story.
Even in the expanded universe, time loop stories are far from common. Oddly enough, all the ones I could think of are Eighth Doctor stories. One of the best examples - and one of the greatest stories in Doctor Who history - is "The Chimes of Midnight", a story that combines the genre with murder mystery, period drama, and some very dark comedy. There's also "No More Lies", where someone uses the loop to spend more time with the person they love. And this leads me to "A Life in the Day", a time loop story with a similar motivation, but told in a very different way...
"A Life in the Day"
"A Life in the Day" by John Dorney has to be the most unusual take on a time loop story. Not just in Doctor Who, but in general. Released as part of the fourth volume of the Eighth Doctor audio series Dark Eyes, it focuses on Martin, a man who befriends the Doctor's companion Liv, and takes her out for the day.
However, when the Doctor and Liv find themselves hunted down by killer androids, Martin seems oddly prepared. He doesn't just help the Doctor and Liv escape from the androids, but he even helps to do this in advance, giving them exactly the right items that come in handy at exactly the right moments. Unsurprisingly, the Doctor is able to work out why: Martin is caught in a time loop.
The reason why "A Life in the Day" is such a different take on the time loop trope is that the audience isn't a part of the loop. With stories like Groundhog Day and Happy Death Day, we experience the loop with the characters and go through the same day over and over again. In the case of "A Life in the Day", however, we only go through the day once, and the character caught in the loop has already been through it many times already.
The cause of the loop is Martin sacrificing himself by absorbing a detonating time grenade, killing his physical body but sending him back in time to the start of the day. But the reason why Martin chooses to stay in the loop is a deeply romantic one - he fell in love with Liv. While he knows exactly what actions to take to help the Doctor and Liv survive that day, he always does something different during his one day with Liv. For her, the day was a nice time with someone she barely got to know that ended in tragedy. For Martin, it's spending countless days with the woman he loves.
What happens after?
One thing I sometimes wonder about time loop stories is what happens after each loop. Is time afterward canceled out, or does each loop create a new timeline, which our main characters only get to experience briefly? This is hardly ever addressed, and rightly so - after all, the loop itself is usually the most interesting part of the story.
Yet at the same time, the question of what happens after a loop is at least partly addressed. Not in "A Life in the Day", or even in Dark Eyes, but in the following Eighth Doctor series Doom Coalition. In the episode "The Red Lady", Liv briefly remembers visiting and yet not visiting the National Museum with Martin. Although the Doctor doesn't tell her, he knows it's because of the time loop, specifically the fact that Martin is always doing different things with Liv each and every loop. He never does things so differently that he causes massive changes to the Doctor's and Liv's timelines, but just enough for that day in Liv's life to be a little more fluid in terms of her history.
It's not often that we get to explore the effects of a time loop from an outside perspective, and these Eighth Doctor episodes give a great exploration of that. More than that, it feels like the kind of exploration that could only happen in Doctor Who.