“It’s just a napkin holder in a little cafe in Ridgeville Ohio.”
Title: “Nick of Time”
Original transmission date: November 18 1960
Written by: Richard Matheson
Directed by: Richard L. Bare
Starring: William Shatner
Patricia Breslin
Stafford Repp
Guy Wilkerson
Walter Reed
Setting: Earth
Timeframe: Present (at the time)
Theme(s): Obsession, Fear, Control, Precognition, Gambling
Parodied? Not to my knowledge, no
Rating: A+
Serling's opening monologue
The hand belongs to Mr. Don S. Carter, male member of a honeymoon team on route across the Ohio countryside to New York City. In one moment, they will be subjected to a gift most humans never receive in a lifetime. For one penny, they will be able to look into the future. The time is now, the place is a little diner in Ridgeview, Ohio, and what this young couple doesn't realize is that this town happens to lie on the outskirts of the Twilight Zone.
A newlywed couple’s car has broken down and had to be towed to the garage, and while they wait for a part the mechanic says he needs to order, and for word of the man’s promotion at the office to come through, they head for some lunch in a nearby cafe. While there they see a fortune-telling machine and the man, Don Carter, decides to try it out, asking if he has got the promotion. When the answer is in the affirmative, he calls his office and this is confirmed: he has been promoted. Happily, he and his new wife return to the table, where he asks more questions of the “mystic seer”, the answers to which seem to indicate that he and his wife may be in danger.
Getting a little obsessed with it now, he asks more pertinent questions, while his wife begins to wonder if he is taking the whole thing too seriously, then as it goes on begins to get a little scared. Don stays till almost the allotted time he believes the seer warned him of, then they leave. The wife gently berates Don about his belief in superstition, then a truck nearly runs them over. Glancing at the clock, Don sees it’s three o’clock, the time the seer warned him to remain in the cafe until.
Convinced the thing can tell the future, Don brings his wife back to the cafe, where he asks the seer about his car, and when it seems to tell him that is has already been repaired, his wife is sceptical, even scornful, telling her husband he’s assigning meaning to random answers printed on cards that could refer to anything. But then the mechanic arrives at the cafe to confirm the part was available, and so the car is now ready. With, as he sees it, vindication of his belief, Don starts asking the machine more and more questions, till his wife goes to walk out, telling him he is letting the machine control his life, letting his faith in superstition and luck rule him, making him the seer’s slave.
Don realises she’s right. He is his own man, and no machine is going to predict, or indeed, forge his future for him and his wife. He will make his own path in life, and he turns his back on the machine, repressing a little shudder as the couple leave. As they do, another couple enter, looking haggard, and approach the machine almost submissively, asking if they can leave the town. Receiving an answer that does not give them hope, they ask is there any way out, and it’s clear they have gone down the path Don was in danger of treading, allowing superstition and doubt and belief in fate to direct, control and eventually dictate their lives.
Serling's closing monologue
Counterbalance in the little town of Ridgeview, Ohio. Two people permanently enslaved by the tyranny of fear and superstition, facing the future with a kind of helpless dread. Two others facing the future with confidence — having escaped one of the darker places of the Twilight Zone.
The Resolution
Right up to the end, nah, pretty weak. But then the last minute turns it around, and you can see how Don might have ended up. Pretty masterful really.
The Moral
You make your own luck, and life isn’t decided by the roll of the dice.
Themes
You probably couldn’t say gambling, as this is only pennies, but still, in another very real way it is: Don is gambling, or about to gamble, his future, his marriage, his very life on the responses he gets from the tin box with the devil’s head on top. If you carry the gambling theme further, then the couple at the end are like people who have bet it all, and lost, and are now trapped in an endless cycle as they try to break even again. Superstition of course plays the major role here, as Don believes the machine can tell the future. It’s not made clear whether or not it can, but the replies he gets are pretty generic, and without the questions he asks to frame them they could mean anything. Don’s superstitious nature is shown early in the episode, as he avoids walking either side of a lamppost with his wife (never heard that one but I imagine it’s a variant of “step on a crack, break your mother’s back”).
Control would be a theme too - is the machine controlling Don’s reactions to the answers he gets? Is his wife trying to control him, all but forbidding him to use the seer? Fear is here too, as she worries he’s taking it all too seriously, and a sense of being trapped, more literal for the other couple. Fortune-telling and the future, a well-used trope in fantasy and science fiction, is of course at the heart of this as well. And then there's that old chestnut, obsession. Don is in very real danger of becoming so obsessed with the machine that he will allow it to dictate his actions, and we can see at the end how this has become very much a reality for the other couple, who are basically living in their own self-created hell of doubt, dread and despair.
And isn't that...?
William Shatner (1931 - )
Oh I’m not even going to bother. If you don’t know Captain Kirk, then what the hell are you doing reading this? Shatner appears in later episodes too, as well as in the movie, when he reprises his role in “Terror at 30,000 ft”
Stafford Repp (1918 - 1974)
Best known for playing the role of Police Chief Clancy Wiggum, sorry O’Hara, on the
Batman TV series of the sixties,
Questions, and sometimes, Answers
A ton of them, but I ain’t got that many pennies!
Those clever little touches
Not really clever as such, but I like the sentiment expressed by the sign in the garage: “
I have not been told is no excuse - know by observing, thinking, studying, doing.” Words of wisdom that hold true even today.
Sussed?
No. I had no idea what way this was going to go.
The WTF Factor
Was going to be very low, but with the last scene I’ve upped this to a 7.
Personal Notes
It’s interesting how Shatner’s character notes that his wife is lucky he is addicted to superstition instead of alcohol, given his later problems with the latter, and the tragic death of one of his wives.
This is the first episode of season two written by Richard Matheson, so now he’s caught up with Charles Beaumont and they’re level again. Go on ya good thing ya!
The fact that the “mystic seer” has a devil’s grinning head on a spring does I think add some menace to it, as otherwise it’s just a tin box. Had it been a clown’s head then maybe… no, clowns are much worse than devils, aren’t they? Well, a pig’s head maybe. The way it bounces up and down (Shatner taps it each time he asks a question) as if nodding, perhaps giving permission for a question to be asked, is quite effective too. I wonder that - were these things real, and even in the episode, given the feared reaction of religious groups in “The Howling Man” which led to the change - people in a cafe (or watching this) would allow such a devilish icon to be on their table while they ate? Anyone know if these things were real?