History TheTwilightZone1985 / TropesAToH

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet Shatterday]]", Peter Jay Novins' phone number is Klondike 5-6189.

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet Shatterday]]", Peter Jay Novins' alter ego does not have any other name to distinguish him from the original Novins. In the short story by Creator/HarlanEllison, the original Novins decides to call him "Jay."

** {{Discussed|Trope}} in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet Shatterday]]". Peter Jay Novins' alter ego claims that he is the real Novins and that the other one is a piece of him that wandered off while he was sleeping because of astral projection.

* BystanderSyndrome: Several stories warn of the dangers of not taking a more active role or interest in world affairs. In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet A Little Peace and Quiet]]", a harried housewife named Penny also refuses to take note of the fact that the Soviet Union and United States are on the brink of war, and that she – thanks to an amulet that can get people to "Shut up!" and "Start talking!" – might just be wearing the thing that can bring world peace. Instead, she uses the amulet selfishly (when her family gets to her or wants to deal with annoying visitors) ... and the United States pays a dear price in the end, thanks to her disinterest in world affairs and her not realizing that she held a gift of world peace – leaving her to finally stop time just an instant before a nuclear bomb detonates and wipes out much of central and southern California.

** 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 a county.

* {{Doppelganger}}: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet Shatterday]]", Peter Jay Novins accidentally dials his own number and ends up talking to his alter ego, [[spoiler:who gradually takes over his life]].

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet A Little Peace and Quiet]]", a live announcer, trembling through an EBS radio alert, fails in his attempts to keep calm as nuclear war breaks out between the Soviet Union and the United States.

* FantasticTimeManagement: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet A Little Peace and Quiet]]", a harried housewife named Penny finds a magic sundial pendant that allows her to stop and restart time. She uses it to literally make time for herself, enjoying a peaceful breakfast or leisurely shopping for groceries while time is stopped for everyone else. [[spoiler:Everything is perfect until nuclear war breaks out and she stops time while a missile is 10 feet above her head. She will have to choose between dying with everyone else and living her life forever trapped between two instants of time.]]

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet A Little Peace and Quiet]]", while on the phone to her friend Fran, Penny says that it is WorldWarIII in her house as her children are bickering and making a lot of noise. She later ignores the radio and television reports of the deteriorating arms talks between the United States and the Soviet Union. [[spoiler:A nuclear war breaks out shortly afterwards.]]

** 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 [[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.

* AdaptationalJerkass: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E47TheNightOfTheMeek Night of the Meek]]", Mr. Dundee is considerably more unpleasant than his officious counterpart from the original episode. In TheRemake, he berates an employee because a junior salesman accidentally sold the custom made fur coat that he intended to give his wife for Christmas and demands that both of them be in his office at 9 o'clock on Christmas Day. This version of Dundee clearly hates Christmas and sees it merely as an opportunity to make money. When another employee wishes him Merry Christmas, he pointedly says "Good night." As he leaves his store on Christmas Eve, he even kicks a tree. Most significantly, this Dundee is a racist. He comments that it would not surprise him in the least if Henderson, an African-American security guard, helped Henry Corwin to sneak the allegedly stolen merchandise out of his store. His expression and Henderson's reaction make it clear that it was intended as a racist remark.

** In "Shadow Play", Adam Grant's defense attorney Erin Jacobs is the first person who begins to suspect that he is telling the truth about their reality being his [[RecurringDreams recurring nightmare]]. In the [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E62ShadowPlay original episode]], the [[GenderFlip equivalent character]] Paul Carson is a newspaper editor.

** "Dead Woman's Shoes" is only loosely adapted from the original episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E83DeadMansShoes Dead Man's Shoes]]". In the original, the spirit of the murdered gangster Dane takes over the body of the homeless man Nate Bledsoe when he puts on his shoes in order to exact revenge on his treacherous partner Bernie Dagget. In TheRemake, the spirit of the murdered socialite Susan Montgomery takes over the body of the shy, withdrawn woman Maddie Duncan when she puts on her shoes in order to exact revenge on her husband Kyle.

** In "Shadow Play", the district attorney is Mark Ritchie, Adam Grant's fellow prisoners are Flash, Jimmy and Munoz and the priest who visits him before his execution is Father Grant (as he is his father in the real world). In the [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E62ShadowPlay original episode]], their names are Henry Ritchie, Jiggs, Coley, Phillips and Father Beaman respectively.
** In "The After Hours", the protagonist's name is Marsha Cole. In the [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E34TheAfterHours original episode]], it is Marsha White.

** In "The After Hours", Marsha Cole is a sweet, naive young woman who is frightened when the saleswoman asks her strange questions about her background. [[spoiler:After [[TomatoInTheMirror discovering that she is a mannequin]], she resists the others' attempt to force her to return and resume her "life" as a display in the department store Satler's.]] In the [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E34TheAfterHours original episode]], Marsha White appears to be somewhat older and is much more self-assured. She reacts with annoyance when the saleswoman makes personal remarks about her. [[spoiler:After she recalls that she is a mannequin, she accepts her status without any further objection and decides to return to the store of her own volition.]]

** "The After Hours" omits two supporting characters from the [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E34TheAfterHours original episode]]: the department store sales supervisor Mr. Armbruster and the store manager Mr. Sloan.

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E47TheNightOfTheMeek Night of the Meek]]", the [[MallSanta department store Santa]] Henry Corwin is a chronic alcoholic. After the store owner Mr. Dundee fires him for showing up late and falling over drunk in front of the customers, he blames him for ruining Christmas for the children who wanted to see SantaClaus. Henry angrily tells Dundee that the children in his store will get everything that they want for Christmas but there are other children who can't enjoy Christmas as their families are struggling to put food on the table. He drinks so that he can forget about how miserable the world is for a while.

* BecomingTheCostume: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E47TheNightOfTheMeek Night of the Meek]]", the MallSanta Henry Corwin becomes the [[SantaClaus real thing]], leaving for the North Pole on his sleigh to get a start on next year's Christmas.

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E47TheNightOfTheMeek Night of the Meek]]", the Dundee's security guard Henderson is Henry Corwin's OnlyFriend and helps him to distribute the presents from his magic Santa sack. He does not appear in the original episode.

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E47TheNightOfTheMeek Night of the Meek]]", an [[TheAlcoholic alcoholic]] MallSanta named Henry Corwin finds a magic sack that can produce any gift that a person asks for on Christmas Eve.

* ContinuityNod: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E47TheNightOfTheMeek Night of the Meek]]", a news report states that the ''Tim Ferret and Friends'' line of educational videos is selling extremely well at Christmas. In "The Uncle Devil Show", Joey learned how to [[FunctionalMagic perform real magic]] from one of these videos.

* DarkIsNotEvil: "Rendezvous in a Dark Place" is essentially the original series' "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E81NothingInTheDark Nothing in the Dark]]" flipped around: instead of being fearful of Death and needing to be convinced it isn't scary, Barbara [=LeMay=] actually finds beauty in Death... and wants to join him. In fact, Death himself is flipped around: instead of being compassionate from the get go, he basically needs to learn how.

* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: In "Shadow Play", Adam Grant's [[RecurringDreams recurring nightmare]] always ends with him being hanged. In both the short story "Traumerei" by Charles Beaumont and the [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E62ShadowPlay original episode]], he was killed in the electric chair.

* DreamApocalypse: In "Shadow Play", the district attorney Mark Ritchie and the defense attorney Erin Jacobs become concerned that Adam Grant is telling the truth and they will cease to exist when he is executed as their reality is nothing more than his dream. It's actually worse in TheRemake, since it's implied that [[spoiler:unlike the [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E62ShadowPlay original episode]], where Grant was simply having the same nightmare every night, this is a nightmare Grant has ''yet'' to wake up from]].

** In "Dead Woman's Shoes", Maddie Duncan is possessed by the spirit of a murdered woman named Susan Montgomery when she puts on her expensive high heels. In the original episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E83DeadMansShoes Dead Man's Shoes]]", the murdered gangster Dane's personality takes control of a homeless man named Nate Bledsoe when he puts on his two-tone black and white shoes.

** In "Shadow Play", Adam Grant's defense attorney Erin Jacobs goes to the district attorney Mark Ritchie over her concerns that Adam may be telling the truth about all of them being characters in his [[RecurringDreams recurring nightmare]] about being executed. In the [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E62ShadowPlay original episode]], the matter was first raised by the [[AdaptationalJobChange newspaper editor]] Paul Carson.

** Since "Rendezvous in a Dark Place" is the original series' "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E81NothingInTheDark Nothing in the Dark]]" but flipped, Death being one of the characters is a given.

* ExcitedShowTitle: "Monsters!" and "Take My Life...Please!".

** In "Examination Day", on his twelfth birthday, Dickie Jordan wishes that he will do well on the government's mandatory intelligence test. [[spoiler:After the test is conducted, he is found to be too intelligent and he is killed by the government.]]

* CrusadingWidower: In "Private Channel", Mr. Williams plans to blow up the plane because his wife and daughter were killed in a plane crash caused by the company's negligence.

* BalefulPolymorph: In "Cat and Mouse", Guillaume de Marchaux was [[{{Curse}} cursed]] by an angry husband to live forever in the form of a cat during the day, only being able to turn into a man again at night.

** In "Cat and Mouse", Andrea Moffatt is an extremely lonely woman who longs for TrueLove and a man who is "strong, handsome and exotic" like the heroes of the [[RomanceNovel romance novels]] that she reads. It appears that all of her dreams have come true when she meets a suave, charismatic Frenchman named Guillaume de Marchaux, who [[BalefulPolymorph is trapped in the form of a cat by day]], and they become lovers. However, after several days, it becomes clear that Guillaume is petty, cruel, self-obsessed and has no real feelings or even respect for Andrea.

* AdultFear: In "Wordplay", Bill Lowery is suffering from aphasia, and can't understand what anyone's saying -- even when the life of his son Donnie is at stake.

* ArbitrarySkepticism: Nelson Westbrook in "Cold Reading" doesn't believe a plane crash will happen as mentioned in the script since plane crashes happen outside, as his colleague points out it just rained inside the studio.

** In "Something in the Walls", Sharon Miles, who voluntarily committed herself to Crest Ridge Sanitarium, tells her new psychologist Dr. Mallory Craig that [[WallMaster there are creatures living in the walls and elsewhere that can only be seen if you look for long enough]]. She believes that the creatures are attempting to kill her and refuses to have anything with patterns in her presence as they can travel through these patterns. Dr. Craig believes that they are merely hallucinations and attempts to treat Sharon on that basis. Sharon is later absorbed into the wall and [[EquivalentExchange replaced by one of the creatures]] that has taken her form. [[SubvertedTrope However]], Dr. Craig notices a crack in Sharon's room and becomes concerned that her fears may have been justified.

** In "Something in the Walls", the [[WallMaster creatures that live in walls]] are able to enter Sharon Miles' room at the Crest Ridge Sanitarium by coming through a crack formed by a leak. They absorb Sharon into the wall and one of them assumes her form and takes over her life.

** In "Something in the Walls", Sharon Miles, who voluntarily committed herself to Crest Ridge Sanitarium, tells her new psychologist Dr. Mallory Craig that there are creatures living in the walls and elsewhere that can only be seen if you look for long enough. She believes that the creatures are attempting to kill her and refuses to have anything with patterns in her presence as they can travel through these patterns. Dr. Craig believes that they are merely hallucinations and attempts to treat Sharon on that basis. Sharon is later absorbed into the wall and [[EquivalentExchange replaced by one of the creatures]] that has taken her form. [[SubvertedTrope However]], Dr. Craig notices a crack in Sharon's room and becomes concerned that her fears may have been justified.

** In "Something in the Walls", the creatures that live in walls are able to enter Sharon Miles' room at the Crest Ridge Sanitarium by coming through a crack formed by a leak. They absorb Sharon into the wall and one of them assumes her form and takes over her life.

** {{Discussed|Trope}} in "Something in the Walls". Sharon Miles speculates that the [[WallMaster creatures that live in the walls]] are from a parallel universe which has intersected with ours and are only able to enter our universe through these intersections.

** In "Something in the Walls", Sharon Miles, who voluntarily committed herself to Crest Ridge Sanitarium, tells her new psychologist Dr. Mallory Craig that [[WallMaster there are creatures living in the walls and elsewhere that can only be seen if you look for long enough]]. She believes that the creatures are attempting to kill her and refuses to have anything with patterns in her presence as they can travel through these patterns. Dr. Craig believes that they are merely hallucinations and attempts to treat Sharon on that basis. Sharon is later absorbed into the wall and [[EquivalentExchange replaced by one of the creatures]] that has taken her form. [[SubvertedTrope However]], Dr. Craig notices a crack in Sharon's room and becomes concerned that her fears may have been justified.

** In "Something in the Walls", the [[WallMaster creatures that live in walls]] are able to enter Sharon Miles' room at the Crest Ridge Sanitarium by coming through a crack formed by a leak. They absorb Sharon into the wall and one of them assumes her form and takes over her life.

* FunctionalMagic: In "The Uncle Devil Show", the title character teaches Joey how to perform actual magic through the ''Tim Ferret and Friends'' video. Joey is able to make cockroaches come out of a vase (though he meant for flowers to appear), give his poodle Ben [[ExtraEyes four eyes]], give his [[ParentalObliviousness oblivious parents]] the heads of a lizard and a wolf, create a fantasy world and turn his toy dinosaur Binky into a real TyrannosaurusRex.

[[/folder]]

** "The Misfortune Cookie" goes into more detail about the kind of person that Harry Folger is than the short story by Charles E. Fritch. In the episode, Harry is a CausticCritic and ImmoralJournalist who loves to write terrible reviews of restaurants so that they will be closed down. Whenever this happens, he adds another matchbook to a model graveyard on his desk. In the short story, Harry is [[YourCheatingHeart cheating on his wife]] with his old flame Cynthia Peters but nothing else is revealed about his personality and his profession is not given.

* BlindSeer: In "Love is Blind", the blind musician has the ability to see the future. He is able to tell that Jack Haines has come to the Mustang bar to [[MurderIsTheBestSolution kill]] the man with whom his wife Elaine is [[YourCheatingHeart seemingly having an affair]]. After confronting Jack, the musician explains that he is drawn to a place by a strange feeling and that a prophetic song appears fully formed in his head once he is close to its subject. He can also share his vision of the future with someone if he chooses. In order to dissuade Jack from committing murder, the musician shows him exactly what would happen if he were to go through with it: [[spoiler:Elaine would be killed in the crossfire and it would turn out that she was meeting with his best friend Taylor in order to get him a surprise anniversary gift]].

* {{Hypocrite}}: In "Love is Blind", Jack Haines is furious at the thought of his wife Elaine [[YourCheatingHeart cheating on him]] but the BlindMusician reminds that he has had at least two affairs over the years. Jack claims that this is different.

** In "Acts of Terror", Jack Simonson takes every opportunity that he can to physically abuse his wife Louise and has seemingly mean doing so for a long time. He is also emotionally abusive and controlling as he refuses to let her open a package from her sister Susan until she has made his lunch, which is five minutes late. The package contains a porcelain Doberman and Louise soon discovers that [[EmotionalPowers her anger and hatred towards Jack causes a real Doberman to manifest and attack him]].

** In "Shadow Play", Adam Grant has had [[RecurringDreams the same nightmare about being executed]] many times so he knows that it is a dream but he notes the tell tale signs to the district attorney Mark Ritchie. Most notably, he was sentenced and is due to be executed on the same day (a Sunday), which would not happen in reality. Although she is a character in the dream herself, Adam's defense attorney Erin Jacobs begins to notice them too. She points out to Ritchie that there were no press or spectators present in the court room during the sentencing even though it was a big murder trial. Later, she discovers that neither Ritchie nor his wife Carol have any idea how long they have been married and don't even remember getting married.

** In "Shadow Play", the district attorney is Mark Ritchie, Adam Grant's fellow prisoners are Flask, Jimmy and Munoz and the priest who visits him before his execution is Father Grant (as he is his father in the real world). In the [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E62ShadowPlay original episode]], their names are Henry Ritchie, Jiggs, Coley, Phillips and Father Beaman respectively.

* DreamPeople: In "Shadow Play", several of the people in Adam Grant's DeathRow nightmare are drawn from his real life. For instance, the priest Father Grant who visits him before his execution is his father, who has been dead for years in the real world. In the previous iteration of the dream, he was the judge. In the next, he is the foreman of the jury. The district attorney Mark Ritchie's wife Carol, who is eager to see Adam dead, is his sister, who has always hated him. Carol is the only character in the dream whose role never changes. Outside of his own life, he got his fellow prisoner Flask from a bad movie that he once saw.

* HollywoodLaw: In "Special Service", after John Selig discovers that [[TrumanShowPlot he has been secretly filmed for five years and is the subject of a hit cable TV show]], he demands that it be taken off the air as he has rights. The JSTV executive Arthur Spence gives John a copy of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights and sarcastically asks him to point out where it says that they can't put his life on TV. John counters that this is a technicality.

* HellholePrison: In "Room 2426", Dr. Martin Decker is locked in a filty, rat-infested cell and given very little food and water between torture sessions with Dr. Ostroff.

* HippieVan: In "The Girl I Married", Ira and Valerie Richman spend most of the [[UsefulNotes/TheSixties late 1960s]] driving around the US in a van trying to change the world.

* FreakyFridayFlip: In "Street of Shadows", the [[JustifiedCriminal desperate homeless man]] Steve Cranston breaks into the millionaire Frederick Perry's house in order to rob him. When Perry discovers him, Steve tries to reason with him but Perry shoots him. The next morning, Steve wakes up in Perry's bed to find that the two of them have swapped lives and identities but have kept their physical bodies. For instance, Steve looks in the mirror and sees his own reflection and his image has replaced Perry's on photographs and his driving license. When he confronts his wife Elaine and daughter Lisa at Mercy Hospital, they recognize him only as the man who shot their husband and father and put him in a coma. Steve uses the opportunity of being Perry to save the 8th Street homeless shelter where he and his family live by buying out its mortage and to have the charges against him dropped. After he does so, he and Perry switch back.

* TheFirstCutIsTheDeepest: In "Nightsong", Andrea Fields has never gotten over her tumultous relationship with Simon Locke, who cheated on her and often disappeared for weeks at a time when inspiration for his music struck. She still loves Simon after everything that he put her through and these mixed feelings mean that it is impossible for her to pursue a new relationship. Andrea had a very short relationship with her fellow DJ Ace Campbell but she broke it off before it could get too serious. [[spoiler:Simon returns after an absence of five years and eventually reveals that he died in a motorcycle accident shortly after the last time that he saw her. He wants Andrea to be happy so he apologizes for mistreating her and tells her that she should let him go.]]

* EnergyBeing: