Twilight Zone Take-Over #7 - Nick of Time

“Don it’s just a napkin holder in a little café in Ridgeview, Ohio.”

Director: Richard L. Bare

Writer: Richard Matheson

Composer: Uncredited

“Nick of Time” is a rather unsettling episode of The Twilight Zone in how fast, but subtle, it takes its main character and throws them over the edge. It’s also an unsettling episode in the fact that it’s just unclear where things will stop, how they will stop, and if they ever could. The ending leaves things even more ambiguous. But it’s because of this great unsettling tone and atmosphere that this episode can be so outstanding, and it’s riddled with clever performances and good writing to boot.

This episode features William Shatner’s first foray into the Twilight Zone as Don, a young man looking to get a big promotion at his job. He’s off on his honeymoon with his wife, Pat, and the two are very much in love. They have to stop at Ridgeview, Ohio to get their car checked out and while waiting happen upon a small diner with a Mystic Seer box. Don asks a few questions and the Mystic Seer seems capable of predicting his future, so Don begins relying on it to dictate how he will live while Pat desperately tries to pry him away from the thing.

The premise of the episode relies heavily on the idea of superstition and how much someone is willing to go with their superstitions. There’s the kind that people just kind of adopt into a habit, like when basketball players prep at the free-throw line or when fans wear certain jerseys and shirts depending on what environment their team is playing in, but then there’s the more dangerous kind, where people dictate their attitude and actions based solely on what they think may happen.

Our focus is mostly on Don and Pat in the café, so it’s once again another Richard Matheson story taking place in a very closed-off, small environment. This time, though, he gets a little crazy: major plot points in the episode take place outside of the main café, like out on the street, so the story moves around just a bit. While it still returns constantly to that table in the café, it’s interesting in a Matheson episode to move outside the box a little bit.

But we’ve still got the common Matheson theme of a simple premise being blown up into a very real, very scary idea. Just a simple lunch was how the episode started and by the end it was a psychological deconstruction of one man’s beliefs versus his wife’s insistence on what’s going on from a practical standpoint. The episode does a good job of making it unclear just how alive the Mystic Seer is, or if it really is all coincidence. The closing narration does make it seem like an overreliance on superstition isn’t going to help anyone, but thinking you’ve got a little luck on your side can’t hurt anyone.

There are two brilliant performances on display here. Shatner plays Don as a man who is clearly in over his head with all of this superstition stuff. From the get-go it’s obvious that he has a reliance on these things but it only becomes very obvious the more he talks to the Mystic Seer. Shatner does a convincing job of showing just how slowly Don gets settled into being with the Mystic Seer, to the point of him even moving closer and closer to the Seer as the episode goes on. But he never really loses his cool or that swagger that Shatner was known for in the 60s. It’s clear that Don is still in there, but this warped, obsessed version of him pops out every so often.

The real star of the show is probably Patricia Breslin as Pat, who has to carry a lot of the emotional weight of the episode and serve as the audience surrogate for what’s really going on. She makes a ton of good points about Don’s relationship with the Mystic Seer, as well as several good points about what influence that thing is having over their lives. Breslin plays a more nuanced female character than what The Twilight Zone is used to. This is a woman of conviction and intelligence and practicality; she knows what she knows and she does what she does. She’s not subservient to anyone.

The two also have great chemistry. The deeper Don goes down the rabbit hole, the further Pat has to go as well to try and dig him out, and the two actors keep a good balance with one another in that regard.

Richard Bare’s direction is also a little unique compared to some other directors in The Twilight Zone, particularly the way that he frames shots and positions the camera. He lingers on the Mystic Seer only a few times but the dominant force in most shots are the two people who are using it, cleverly hinting at what Pat has been getting at the entire time. And, again, the blocking with Don’s character against the Mystic Seer.

“Nick of Time” is a short, dark stint into The Twilight Zone that really makes you think, “What would I do in this situation?” It’s also got two great performances to give it that extra edge and just gives you a creepy, unsettling vibe all throughout that stays with you long after the credits are done rolling.

***SPOILER SECTION***

Not much to this one. It’s a big sigh of relief when Don finally turns toward Pat’s side and decides to live life how they want. It’s a pretty solid message, but, since this is The Twilight Zone, it’s also matched by a warped, twisted truth that some people are just incapable of letting go of their fears and inhibitions.

The couple at the end always freaked me out because it’s just so open to questions: how long have they been there? Do these people just live in Ridgeview now? When did they start interacting with the Seer? What’s going to happen if the Seer has them do something bad?

Although, I’m not sure that would happen. As Pat cleverly points out, the Mystic Seer only responds to the person’s questions, not anything of its own making. The user has to come up with the question, often a bit extreme in nature, and this gets them thinking. Don could have left the café well before three and they would have been just fine; a little bored in town, but just fine. Instead, it wasn’t the Seer that nearly got them killed, it was him, and I think it’s this realization that gets them to ultimately leave.

Thus, the real terror of the episode comes with being unsure if Don is ever going to get it together and leave. That’s why the ending is so clever: we do see Don leave, but we also see what Don and Pat could have been. It’s not a twist, but it’s definitely one of the stronger endings in The Twilight Zone.

Oh but speaking of endings do we have a good one coming up! It's the end to the first season of the show, and it's an ending that blew my mind like nobody's business! Find out why when we examine "A World of His Own." See you then! 

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