History TheTwilightZone1985 / TropesAToH

* BlankWhiteVoid: In "A Matter of Minutes", Michael and Maureen Wright attempt to use their neighbor Cliff Turner's phone but when they enter his family home, they find nothing but a featureless white void. The same thing happens later when they run down an alley. The supervisor explains to them that he and his workers did not bother to construct the family home or the alley when building the minute 11:37am on April 27, 1986 as no one is supposed to see either during that time.

* CargoCult: In "The Beacon", the people of Mellweather have worshipped a lighthouse called the Beacon for 200 years. They believe that it is controlled by the spirit of their collective ancestor Seth Janes.

** In "But Can She Type?", a beleagured and overworked secretary named Karen Billings, who is verbally abused by her boss Burt Nelson at every opportunity, is accidentally sent to a parallel universe by a malfunctioning photocopier. She soon discovers that being a secretary is the most glamorous and exciting job in existence in this universe. At a party, other guests are enthralled by her stories about her job and a highly paid fashion model tells her that her dream job is to be a secretary. Karen eventually decides to move to this universe permanently after Burt once again berates her. She accepts Edward Rehnquist's offer to organize his company's UsefulNotes/{{Paris}} office and is driven to the airport in a limousine.

* AffablyEvil: In "A Small Talent for War", the alien ambassador calmly tells the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations Security Council that his people intend to destroy all life on Earth in 24 hours as they are disappointed with the small talent for war that humanity displays. The next day, he returns to find that the United Nations has negotiating a lasting global peace and unilateral disarmanent [[spoiler:and promptly begins laughing hysterically. The ambassador explains that his people [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy breed warriors]] and that humans have proven to be insufficient for their requirements since they desire peace above all else. He thanks the Security Council for "a most amusing day" and their "delightful sense of the absurd." Before Earth is destroyed by his people's armada, his parting comment refers to the last words of Creator/EdmundGwenn: "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."]]

* ExcitedShowTitle: "Monsters!".

* CuteGhostGirl: In "If She Dies", Paul Marano sees a young girl on the roof of St. Amelia's Orphanage but she disappears as soon as he turns his head. When he tells a nun named St. Agnes, he learns that the orphanage is having a rummage sale as it is closing down and buys an antique wooden bed. As he leaves, Paul sees the strange girl again. That night, the girl visits him in his bedroom, telling him that she is looking for Toby. The next morning, he pays a visit to the convent and St. Agnes tells him that there was a girl named Sarah who died of tuberculois in the bed many years earlier. Her teddy bear Toby was her prize possession. Paul realizes that Sarah was trying to tell him to place his comatose daughter Cathy in the bed with Toby so that she could restored to health. He does so and Cathy recovers almost instantly.

** In "The Call", Norman Blane leads a very lonely, secluded life. The opening narration states hat his greatest fear is that if he vanished tomorrow, no one would notice and his greatest sadness is the realization that he is probably right. However, Norman receives a new lease on life when he dials a wrong number and it is answered by a woman named Mary Ann, who is just as lonely as he is. They form an instant bond and talk for hours every night but she declines his offer of a date. After tracing the number to the Civic Art Gallery, Norman discovers that Mary Ann, whose surname is Lindeby, is the ghost of an artist who is inhabiting her last work, a bronze sculpture of herself. Norman is initially shocked and disturbed, cutting off all contact with Mary Ann. He later changes his mind and confesses to Mary Ann that he has fallen in love with her. That night, he breaks into the gallery after closing and turns into a [[TakenForGranite bronze sculpture himself]] so that he and Mary Ann can be together forever.

** In "A Game of Pool", Jesse Cardiff challenges the ghost of Fats Brown to a pool game to determine which of them is the best and [[spoiler:and loses. Fats tells him that he will die forgotten as all second raters do. After Fats disappears, Jesse begins to practice furiously.]] In the [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E70AGameOfPool original episode]], Jesse [[spoiler:wins the game. After his death, he has to spend his entire afterlife defending his title as the best pool player ever and winds up miserable]]. Although TheRemake used the originally intended ending of the 1961 version, the production team did not tell the writer George Clayton Johnson, which angered him.

* AlliterativeTitle: "Many, Many Monkeys".

* DeathFromAbove: In "The Cold Equations", Group One's base on Woden was damaged by a meteor storm and its supply of the serum for kala fever was destroyed. Captain Thomas Barton's Emergency Dispatch Ship is on a mission to replenish their supply when Marilyn Lee Cross stows away.

* DisabilitySuperpower: In "The Toys of Caliban", Toby Ross was born with a severe intellectual impairment which also allows him to [[YourMindMakesItReal manifest objects that he sees in pictures]].

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet Shatterday]]", Peter Jay Novins took the Cumberland account at his PR firm in full knowledge of the company's intention to strip mine an entire county.

* ForScience: In "Room 2426", the theoretical biochemist Dr. Martin Decker has developed a new strain of bacteria which he had hoped to use to eliminate famine. However, the State intends to use it as a bioweapon to totally destroy its enemies, potentially wiping out millions of lives, but they cannot do so without the notebooks that Martin has hidden. Martin tells his torturer Dr. Ostroff that he believes that new discoveries are innately valuable and it had never occurred to him that his discovery could be used against humans.

** In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", the young Gus Rosenthal is chased by a gang of bullies led by Jack Wheeldon but he literally runs into his future self and the bullies immediately leave as they think that the older Gus might be a G-man. Later, the bullies attack the young Gus when he is on the swings and begin to beat him up until the present day Gus intervenes.

** In "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", Melinda calls David Wong "Brown Eyes" after she regains her sense of humor. He never actually tells her his name on screen.

* AlienInvasion: In "A Day in Beaumont", Dr. Kevin Carlson and Faith see a FlyingSaucer crash in the desert and immediately assume that its [[InsectoidAliens insectoid crew]] are planning to invade Earth. [[spoiler:It turns out that they are correct but not in the way that they think. It is actually all part of a commando training simulation on Altair IV to prepare troops for a future invasion. Kevin and Faith are themselves aliens who suffered memory loss and came to believe that they were humans.]]

* CrankyLandlord: In "The Mind of Simon Foster", the title character's landlord threatens to throw him out of his apartment if he does not pay his overdue rent by the next day. This forces Simon to accept the pawnbroker Mr. Quint's offer to [[TransferableMemory buy his memory of his high school graduation]]. When Simon pays the $625 that he owes, the landlord proves himself to be corrupt as he illegally demands the next month's rent in advance. He tells Simon that if he goes to the Housing Commission to complain, he could find that his apartment has been given to someone else due to a "clerical error" when he returns.

* EmbarrassingNickname: In "20/20 Vision", the uptight, highly committed loan officer Warren Cribbens is embarrassed when he overhears Sandy refer to him as "the human calculator."

* CrapsackWorld: In "Memories", society in the AlternateUniverse has grown stagnant and is breaking down because it has become increasingly difficult for people to cope with [[PastLifeMemories memories of their past lives]]. Jim Sinclair explains to Mary [=McNeal=] that many people are traumatized by past tragedies or consumed by a need for revenge for something that happened in another lifetime. Sinclair belongs to a group that believes that the only way for their society to survive is for everyone to forget their past life experiences and focus on building better lives in the present. As she is a regression therapist, Mary is able to facilitate this through hypnosis.

** "Paladin of the Lost Hour", "Act Break" and "Take My Life...Please!" do not feature any speaking roles for women.

** "Room 2426" is strongly implied to be this.

* {{Commune}}: In "Quarantine", after being revived from [[HumanPopsicle cryo-stasis]], Matthew Foreman finds himself in what appears to be a small, primitive farming community in 2347. He later learns that although they have abandoned all forms of machinery, they are far from primitive as they use BioAugmentation to improve both themselves and the world around them.

* HumanAliens: "A Small Talent for War" features a race who sowed humanity on Earth in the distant past, and so humans look like punier versions of them.

* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: In "Button, Button", Arthur and Norma Lewis are sent a button unit by Mr. Steward who tells them that if they press the button, they will receive $200,000 but someone whom they don't know will die. Norma presses the button over Arthur's objections. Mr. Steward returns the next day and tells them that [[spoiler:the unit will be reprogrammed and given to someone whom they don't know, with the implication being that one of them will die]]. In the short story by Creator/RichardMatheson, [[spoiler:it was Arthur who died when Norma pressed the button. When she challenged Mr. Steward on the matter, he said "Do you really think you knew your husband?"]] The change was made at the insistence of [[ExecutiveMeddling CBS executives]], leading Matheson to [[AlanSmithee take his name off the episode]].

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: In "Appointment on Route 17", Tom Bennett is a ruthless businessman whose sole ambition in life is to make money at any cost until he [[LiteralChangeOfHeart receives Jamie Adler's heart in a transplant and becomes a better man]].

** In "Cold Reading", Nelson Westbrook is more focused on how the sound effects coming to life will boost ratings rather than how it's inconveniencing the actors. When he discovers that the events later in the story, such as a gun firing in the studio could actually endanger the actors, he rushes to change the script.
* EvilDetectingDog: In "Teacher's Aide", Miss Peters' dog Muffin barks at her after she is possessed by the spirit of a gargoyle because he can sense that there is something very wrong with her.

* HumanPopsicle: "Quarantine" concerns Matthew Foreman, who was frozen in 2023, revived into a seemingly idyllic but stagnant future in 2347. [[spoiler:It's eventually revealed to be... not so stagnant...]]

** In "The Convict's Piano", Ricky Frost becomes concerned that he only imagined being transported back in time to 1899 and 1917 by the old prison piano. However, he realizes that it all really happens when he finds the matchbox that he got in the Shamrock Club in 1917 in his pocket.

* EveryoneHasStandards: In "The Shadow Man", Eric enjoys bullying Danny Hayes and has every intention of beating him to a pulp after Danny challenges him to a fight in [=MacGyver=] Park. However, when he sees the Shadow Man, who has already put several people in hospital, he tells Danny to run before he runs away himself.
** In "Cold Reading" Nelson Westbrook is more focused on how the sound effects coming to life will boost ratings rather than how it's inconveniencing the actors. When he discovers that the events later in the story, such as a gun firing in the studio could actually endanger the actors, he rushes to change the script.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: "Acts of Terror" ends with Louise Simonson putting her abusive husband Jack in his place and leaving him.

* FalseFriend: In "The Shadow Man", Danny Hayes knows that the Shadow Man will never hurt him as the person under whose bed he sleeps. His apparent bravery in going over to Lianna Ames' house at night earns him many false friends, including Lianna and various popular students who used to either ignore him or make fun of him. In the process, Danny ignores Peter, [[OnlyFriend his one true friend]], and takes no action to prevent the Shadow Man from hurting anyone else.

* BookEnds: In the first scene of "Memories", Mary [=McNeal=] is using hypnosis to regress Lorraine Gustin to one of her past lives where she was a dressmaker whose shop was raided and burned by British soldiers during UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution. In the final scene, Mary uses hypnosis to help Ruth Gordon forget all of her memories of her past lives so that she can lead a happier life.