Co-creator Justin Roiland was adamant that episode one of season two pick up where its predecessor left off; co-creator Dan Harmon also remembered he toyed around with the idea of freezing time for the entire length of the season.[2] There was talk of the frozen-time conceit being just a joke for a cold open, but the writers decided to expand it to the entire episode, with Roiland saying, "Okay, let’s try to actually do that and try to tell a whole story that shows why time is sort of problematic."[3] It was difficult because instead of parodying/subverting a trope—a common path for many episodes—the writers essentially had to invent their own rules for fractured time.[4]