Nick of Time (The Twilight Zone)

"Nick of Time"

The Twilight Zone episode

Don, Pat, and the 'mystic seer' fortune-telling device.

Episode no.

Season 2
Episode 43

Directed by

Richard L. Bare

Written by

Richard Matheson

Featured music

Uncredited

Production code

173-3643

Original air date

November 18, 1960

Guest stars

William Shatner: Don Carter
Patricia Breslin: Pat Carter
Guy Wilkerson: Counter Man
Stafford Repp: Mechanic Lars
Walter Reed: Man

Episode chronology

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"The Eye of the Beholder"

Next →
"The Lateness of the Hour"

List of Twilight Zone episodes

"Nick of Time" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

1 Synopsis
2 Production
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

Synopsis

When Don and Pat Carter's automobile breaks down in Ridgeview, Ohio, they decide to have lunch at the Busy Bee Cafe. The booth they sit in has a fortune telling machine on the table. Don asks the "mystic seer" if he is going to get a promotion at work. The card says that it has been decided in his favor. When Don calls the office, he discovers that the seer was right. Because of this initial success, Don asks the seer more and more questions.

Pat begins to realize Don is taking the seer too seriously. Due to the seer's predictions, Don feels it is not safe to leave the diner until after 3 p.m. Pat gets him to leave earlier, but at 3 p.m. the couple is almost struck by a car while crossing the street. After they calm down, they go back to the cafe. However, another couple is sitting at their booth, so Don and Pat must wait at the front counter.

Pat wants proof that the seer is legitimate, pointing out that it was Don who had brought up the issue of 3 p.m. After reclaiming their booth, Don immediately asks the seer more questions. One of the things he wants to know is whether their car will be fixed by the end of the day. The seer says the car has been repaired, and a few moments later the mechanic arrives with that very news.

The breaking point comes when Don asks where they're going to live in the future. She tries to break the spell the seer has over Don. After a persuasive speech from Pat, Don apologizes to Pat and then announces directly to the mystic seer that they're leaving to go do what they please. Right after they leave, another couple, noticeably distraught, sits down at the booth with several pennies and starts asking questions, including, "Is today the day we will leave Ridgeview?" (implying that they had a previous encounter with the seer and were now "enslaved" by it).

Production

Richard Matheson writing in The Twilight Zone Magazine said that he wished that Pat Breslin, who played Pat Carter (the wife of Don Carter, Shatner's character in this episode) had been available to play Shatner's wife again for the famous 5th season episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet".

The street and building seen in this episode is the same one seen in the episode "I Sing the Body Electric". Coincidentally, both episodes have scenes where people are almost run over by vehicles on the same street.

References

Zicree, Marc Scott. The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition).
DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090

External links

Twilight Zone (1959) episodes

Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgement Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"

Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "The Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble With Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"

Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"

Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"

Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander With Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"

Richard Matheson

Novels	I Am Legend (1954) • The Shrinking Man (1956) • A Stir of Echoes (1958) • The Beardless Warriors (1960) • Hell House (1971) • Bid Time Return (1975) • What Dreams May Come (1978)

Short stories	"Born of Man and Woman" (1950) • "Blood Son" (1951) • "Button, Button" (1970)

Screenplays	The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) • House of Usher (1960) • "The Last Flight" (1960) • "Nick of Time" (1960) • "A World of Difference" (1960) • "A World of His Own" (1960) • Master of the World (1961) • The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) • "The Invaders" (1961) • "Once Upon a Time" (1961) • Night of the Eagle (1962) • Tales of Terror (1962) • "Little Girl Lost" (1962) • "Young Man's Fancy" (1962) • The Raven (1963) • "Death Ship" (1963) • "Mute" (1963) • "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (1963) • "Steel" (1963) • The Comedy of Terrors (1964) • The Last Man on Earth (1964) • "Night Call" (1964) • "Spur of the Moment" (1964) • Fanatic (1965) • The Young Warriors (1966) • "The Enemy Within" (1966) • The Devil Rides Out (1968) • De Sade (1969) • Duel (1971) • The Night Stalker (1972) • The Night Strangler (1973) • The Legend of Hell House (1973) • Dracula (1973) • The Morning After (1974) • Trilogy of Terror (1975) • The Martian Chronicles Mini-Series (1980) • Somewhere in Time (1980) • Jaws 3-D (1983) • Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) • "Button, Button" (1986) • Loose Cannons (1990) • The Dreamer of Oz (1990) • Rod Serling's Lost Classics (1994) • Trilogy of Terror II (1996)

Adaptations by others	"And When the Sky Was Opened" (1959) • "Third from the Sun" (1960) • Cold Sweat (1970) • The Omega Man (1971) • The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981) • What Dreams May Come (1998) • Stir of Echoes (1999) • "Dance of the Dead" (2005) • "My Ambition" (2006) • I Am Legend (2007) • I Am Omega (2007) • The Box (2009) • "The Splendid Source" (2010) • Real Steel (2011)

Nick of Time (The Twilight Zone)

Contents

Synopsis

Production

See also

References

External links