reset button

plural reset buttons

1. businessA button that resets something.
2. fictionA 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.

   2 more examples

   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.

   2016, David Bianculli, The Platinum Age of Television […] , Anchor, →ISBN, page 140

   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.

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