In Star Trek: Voyager episode, Coda, Janeway and Chakotay find themselves in a "Groundhog Day Loop", at the end of which they get killed and reset back to the earlier point.
As it turns out this was all an illusion created by an alien being to convince Janeway she had actually died (during the first iteration of the loop) and was now a ghost who just had to cross over to the other side...
The second half of the alien's plan makes sense. He posed as her father's ghost and had her hallucinate a memorial service, a coffin being launched into space, and all that, having her crew agreeing to get on with things, etc. all designed to convince her to let go of the mortal world and step into his lair.
But what was the point of the first half? i.e. the whole time-loop situation? It seems this would achieve the opposite of the alien's goal. It introduced a mystery element - the idea that something wasn't right, as well as giving Janeway hope that the situation could be resolved. e.g. why have Chakotay appear to revive her if the alien-father wanted to make her accept she was dead? And then when she was finally killed again (within the illusion), revive her again and again at the start of a time loop?
Surely it would have been better and more convincing just to go straight to the "You're dead, accept it" bit.
