reset button

English

Noun

reset button (plural reset buttons)

1. (electronics) A button that resets something.
2. (fiction) A plot device that interrupts continuity in works of fiction, by returning characters and situations to the status quo they held before certain changes were introduced.
   • 2016, David Bianculli, The Platinum Age of Television […] , Anchor, →ISBN, page 140:

     But after a year of sagging ratings, Dallas hit the reset button, by having Pam wake up to see Bobby, very much alive, lathering up in their shower. The entire 1985–86 season, including Bobby's death, had been a bad dream of Pam's, and now that she was awake, Dallas could go on the way it should have, with the previous year's events effectively wiped away.

   • 2020, Murray Leeder, “Confessions of an Anti-Fan”, in Robert L. Lively, editor, Exploring Star Trek: Voyager: Critical Essays, McFarland, →ISBN, page 250:

     Voyager the show ambles and meanders just like Voyager the ship, hypothetically exploring new territory but actually doomed to retreads and consequence-free episodic storytelling (heavy on what fans came to call “the Reset Button” that restores the status quo), exacerbated by overuse of technobabble.

Translations

button that resets

• German: Resettaste f, Resetknopf m

plot device

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Spanish: ^{(please verify)} reajuste (es) m, ^{(please verify)} reinicio (es) m, ^{(please verify)} restablecimiento m