History Series / TheTwilightZone1985

Unlike the original and the [[Series/TheTwilightZone2002 2002]] and [[Series/TheTwilightZone2019 2019 revivals]], the show didn't have an on-camera host, having just a narrator instead. For its first two seasons, the narrator was Charles Aidman (who acted in two episodes of the original, "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E11AndWhenTheSkyWasOpened And When the Sky Was Opened]]" and "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E91LittleGirlLost Little Girl Lost]]"), and Robin Ward narrated the third season.

Unlike the original and the [[Series/TheTwilightZone2002 2002]] and [[Series/TheTwilightZone2019 2019 revivals]], the show didn't have an on-camera host, having just a narrator instead. For its first two seasons, the narrator was Charles Aidman (who acted in two episodes of the original, "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E11AndWhenTheSkyWasOpened And When the Sky Was Opened]]" and "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E91LittleGirlLost Little Girl Lost]]"), and Robin Ward narrated the third season. [[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985 the recap page could use a little love]]

Unlike the original and the [[Series/TheTwilightZone2002 2002]] and [[Series/TheTwilightZone2019 2019 revivals]], the show didn't have an on-camera host, having just a narrator instead. For its first two seasons, the narrator was Charles Aidman (who acted in two episodes of the original, "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E11AndWhenTheSkyWasOpened And When the Sky Was Opened]]" and "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E91LittleGirlLost Little Girl Lost]]"), and Robin Ward narrated the third season. [[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985 the recap page could use a little love]]

Unlike the original and the [[Series/TheTwilightZone2002 2002]] and [[Series/TheTwilightZone2019 2019 revivals]], the show didn't have an on-camera host, having just a narrator instead. For its first two seasons, the narrator was Charles Aidman (who acted in two episodes of the original, "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E11AndWhenTheSkyWasOpened And When the Sky Was Opened]]" and "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E91LittleGirlLost Little Girl Lost]]"), and Robin Ward narrated the third season.

!!Tropes:
[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:#]]
* FiveFiveFive:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet Shatterday]]", Peter Jay Novins' phone number is Klondike 5-6189.
** In "Her Pilgrim Soul", the Draytons' phone number is 555-1689.
** In "Gramma", Dr. Arlinder's number is 555-3502.
** In "Aqua Vita", the titular bottled drink company's number is [=555-AQUA=].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:A]]
* AbusiveParents:
** In "Children's Zoo", the four-year-old Debbie Cunningham's parents Sheila and Martin are frequently verbally and emotionally abusive towards her. Her mother yells at her without the slightest provocation, her father ignores her and the two of them spend most of their time arguing with each other with no regard for the effect that it is having on Debbie. This leads Debbie to trade her parents in for a new pair at the [[PeopleZoo Children's Zoo]].
** In "The Toys of Caliban", Miss Kemp investigates Ernest and Mary Ross because she believes that they are abusing their intellectually impaired son Toby. From interviewing relatives and neighbors, she learns that Toby is not allowed to go outside, play with other children or even watch television. She accuses Ernest of keeping him as a virtual prisoner. She learns the truth when Ernest shows her Toby's [[YourMindMakesItReal ability to manifest anything after seeing its picture]]: Toby is kept isolated in order to protect others from his powers. Miss Kemp apologizes, having realized that Toby's parents were the prisoners.
* ActOfTrueLove: In "Aqua Vita", Christie Copperfield begins to [[RapidAging age rapidly in appearance]] after she runs out of Aqua Vita, which she can no longer afford due to the exorbitant price of £5,000 per bottle. Although she is only 40, she appears to be in her 70s. Her boyfriend Marc assures her that he loves her no matter what but Christie is concerned that this may change when people start to give them strange looks because of their apparent age gap. In order to set Christie's mind at rest, Marc drinks some Aqua Vita and soon appears to be the same age as her.
* ActorAllusion:
** In "Personal Demons", Rockne O'Bannon wrote for ''Series/WestinghouseDesiluPlayhouse''. O'Bannon is played by Martin Balsam, who played Dr. Gillespie in the ''Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse'' episode "The Time Element". That episode served as the unofficial pilot of ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959''.
** In "A Day in Beaumont", there are three:
*** Dr. Kevin Carlson pointedly describes the FlyingSaucer that he and his girlfriend Faith saw crashing as "a thing" to Sheriff Haskin. Haskin is played by Kenneth Tobey, who is best known for playing Captain Patrick Hendry in ''Film/TheThingFromAnotherWorld''.
*** H.G. Orson sarcastically refers to "tarantulas as big as houses." Pops is played by John Agar, who played Dr. Matt Hastings in ''Film/{{Tarantula}}''.
*** Orson also refers to the planet Altair IV. Major Whitmore is played by Warren Stevens, who starred as Doc Ostrow, a member of the ''Bellerophon'' crew who visited Altair IV, in ''Film/ForbiddenPlanet''.
* 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]].
* AdaptationalBackstoryChange:
** In "Healer", Harry Faulk is Jackie Thompson's neighbor and they seemingly did not have much of a relationship until they began using the healing stone to make money. In the short story adaptation by Alan Brennert, Harry is the closest thing that Jackie has to a father. They met when they were both serving sentences in Vacaville Prison ten years earlier. Since their release, they had worked together on numerous scams and swindles and the occasional burglary but only made enough money to pay their bills until Jackie stole the stone.
** In "Nightcrawlers", nothing is revealed of the backstory of the waitress at Big Bob's diner. In the short story by Robert R. [=McCammon=], she is a former hippie named Cheryl Lovesong who lived in UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco in UsefulNotes/TheSixties and experimented with drugs while she was there.
** In "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", David Wong decides to assume management of the Lost and Found Emporium after he finds his compassion. In the short story by William F. Wu, he had already been running the emporium for several months before he regained his compassion.
** In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", Gus Rosenthal had a difficult relationship with his father Lou growing up and regretted never telling him that he loved him before he died when Gus was in his teens. In the short story by Creator/HarlanEllison, Gus' relationship with both of his parents was even more difficult. He was sent to a military school at seven years old because of his poor behavior and ran away from home when he was thirteen.
** In "Gramma", there are no details given about Georgie's relationship with his elder brother Buddy. In the short story by Creator/StephenKing, it is mentioned that Buddy [[BigBrotherBully regularly bullies Georgie, both physically and verbally]]. [[spoiler:At the end of the story, Georgie is possessed by their grandmother's spirit and plans his revenge against Buddy for the years of torment.]]
** In "Dead Run", Johnny Davis decides to help the wrongfully condemned people whom he had been transporting to {{Hell}} only one day after taking the job. In the short story by Greg Bear, he is on the job for two years before his conscience gets the best of him and he begins to help the damned escape to {{Heaven}}.
* 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.
* AdaptationalJobChange:
** In "The Misfortune Cookie", Harry Folger is a CausticCritic who loves writing scathing reviews of restaurants, whether they deserve it or not. In the short story by Charles E. Fritch, his occupation is not given.
** In "A Matter of Minutes", Michael Wright works in an office. In the short story "Yesterday Was Monday" by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon, the [[AdaptationNameChange equivalent character]] Harry Wright is a car mechanic.
** 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.
** In "Lost and Found", Jenny Templeton will become the first President of Earth, who will be known as the Great Peacemaker, in the future. In the short story by Phyllis Eisenstein, she is destined to become a famous and celebrated anthropologist.
* AdaptationDeviation:
** "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.
** "A Matter of Minutes" differs somewhat from the short story "Yesterday Was Monday" by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon in its presentation of time. In the episode, every minute exists as a separate world that must be constructed and subsequently torn down once that minute has elapsed. In the short story, the workers construct days rather than individual minutes. Each day is referred to as an act which forms part of a larger play. People are considered actors who play their roles on a stage, a reference to the "All the world's a stage" monologue from ''Theatre/AsYouLikeIt''. The entire project is overseen by a producer.
** "A Saucer of Loneliness" differs from the short story by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon in that it omits any reference to the protagonist ([[NamedByTheAdaptation who is given the name Margaret in the episode]]) being placed on trial and receiving a prison sentence for her refusal to reveal the contents of the message that she received from the FlyingSaucer.
* AdaptationExpansion:
** "Healer" tells the story of Jackie Thompson's discovery and use of the healing stone to set himself up as a FakeFaithHealer. Alan Brennert's short story adaptation of the episode features the alternating narrative of Ta'li'n, one of the priest-rulers of the City later known as Teotihuacan, who is haunted by premonitions of the City's destruction. He also receives a vision of Jackie using the stone in what is to him the distant future. Ta'li'n belongs to the ancient and never conclusively identified civilization that built Teotihuacan, which the Aztecs settled centuries later. One of Ta'li'n's contemporaries, Ch'at'l, is an elderly healer who has been entrusted with the stone for sixty years. Furthermore, the present day sections of the short story go into further detail about the stone's limitations. For instance, it cannot cure cancer permanently but it can cause it to go into remission and it is unable to heal diseases such as multiple sclerosis and AIDS.
** "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty" places greater emphasis on Gus Rosenthal's poor relationship with his father Lou than the short story by Creator/HarlanEllison. In the episode, the present day Gus meets Lou twice after he is sent back in time. On the second occasion, he reveals that he has always regretted never telling his father how much he loved him. For his part, Lou confesses that he has never been able to get through to Gus, though he loves him very much. In the short story, the older Gus and his father never come face to face and nothing is revealed of their relationship other than it being difficult.
** "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.
* AdaptationNameChange:
** 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."
** In "A Matter of Minutes", the protagonist's name is Michael Wright. In the short story "Yesterday Was Monday" by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon, his name is Harry Wright.
** In "Dead Run", the former member of the CelestialBureaucracy who has himself been condemned to {{Hell}} is named Gary Frick. In the short story by Greg Bear, his name is Charlie Frick.
** In "Devil's Alphabet", the seven members of the Devil's Alphabet Society are Andrew, Brian, Cornelius, Deaver, Eli, Frederick and Grant. In the short story "The Everlasting Club" by Arthur Gray, Alan Dermot, Charles Bellasis, Henry Davenport, Francis Witherington, James Harvey, William Catherston and one unnamed man are the seven members of the titular society. Dermot and Bellasis correspond to Grant and Frank respectively but it is not made clear with respect to the other five.
** 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.
** In "The After Hours", the protagonist's name is Marsha Cole. In the [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E34TheAfterHours original episode]], it is Marsha White.
* AdaptationPersonalityChange:
** Harry Faulk is almost as mercenary when it comes to money in the short story adaptation of "Healer" as he is in the original episode but he still has a conscience. In the episode, Harry refuses to use the stone to heal Jackie Thompson's gunshot wound since he wants all of the money that they have made for himself. In the short story, Harry makes a genuine effort to heal Jackie but he becomes scared and runs away, promising to call an ambulance as he does so.
** 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 is somewhat older and 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.]]
* AdaptedOut:
** Alan Brennert's short story adaptation of "Healer" omits Duende, the Mexican man who warns Jackie Thompson that he is misusing the healing stone.
** In "Nightcrawlers", Price mentions that he has met [[TheVietnamVet four other Vietnam vets]] with the same ability to [[YourMindMakesItReal manifest their thoughts]] but none of them appear. In the short story by Robert R. [=McCammon=], one of them, calling himself Tompkins and claiming to be from a veterans' association, visits Big Bob at his farm about two months after his diner is destroyed.
** In "A Message from Charity", the parson of Annes Town in 1700 is only mentioned briefly and is not named. In the short story by William M. Lee, Parson John Hix is a minor supporting character.
** "The Misfortune Cookie", an adaptation of the short story by Charles E. Fritch, omits Harry Folger's lover Cynthia Peters, his wife and Cynthia's husband.
** "A Matter of Minutes" omits Gurrah, the supervisor of [[PurgatoryAndLimbo Limbo]], a major supporting character in the short story "Yesterday Was Monday" by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon.
** "Dead Run" omits two supporting characters from the short story by Greg Bear: a young hitchhiker named Bill and his recently deceased girlfriend Sherill, whom Bill manages to [[RescuedFromTheUnderworld rescue from Hell]].
** "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.
* 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.
* 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."]]
* AffectionateNickname:
** In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", Billy Kinetta refers to Gaspar as "Dad" before he learns his name. He continues to call him that as a sign of affection after they get to know each other.
** 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.
** In "The Shadow Man", Danny Hayes' friend Peter frequently refers to him as "[[Literature/SherlockHolmes Sherlock]]."
** In "Monsters!", Toby Michaels' father regularly calls him "Ace."
** In "Nightsong", Ace Campbell refers to his fellow DJ Andrea Fields as "the Midnight Queen" because she hosts a show from 12 to 4 am.
** In "The Road Less Traveled", Jeff [=McDowell=] called his future wife Denise "Denny" when they were in high school together. The AlternateUniverse Jeff still does as his Denise [[DeadAlternateCounterpart died in a motorcycle accident]]. This version of Jeff was called "Spaceman" by his fellow soldiers during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar.
* AffectionateParody:
** "Cold Reading" is an affectionate parody of Old-time Radio, which was popular in the United States from the 1930s to the 1950s.
** "A Day in Beaumont" is an affectionate parody of AlienInvasion films of UsefulNotes/TheFifties.
* AfterlifeExpress: In "Dead Run", truckers such as Johnny Davis and Pete drive the condemned to {{Hell}} in semi-trailer trucks, though seemingly only condemned Americans. According to Pete, trains are used in UsefulNotes/{{India}} and UsefulNotes/{{China}}, tramlines in UsefulNotes/{{Russia}} and old buses in UsefulNotes/{{Mexico}}.
* AfterTheEnd: In "Quarantine", Matthew Foreman is awakened from [[HumanPopsicle suspended animation]] in 2347, 304 years after a [[WorldWarIII devastating nuclear war]] wiped out 80% of the world's population.
* TheAgeless: In "Welcome to Winfield", the people of Winfield stopped aging in the late 19th Century after TheGrimReaper Chin Du Long grew to like them and arranged to spare them from death.
* AgeLift:
** In the 1967 short story "A Message from Charity" by William M. Lee, Charity Payne is 11 years old in 1700 when she begins communicating with the 16-year-old Peter Wood in the present. In the adaptation, she is several years older. Although her age is not stated, she is seemingly closer to Peter's age. This change was made because the episode places more emphasis on Charity and Peter being each other's first love than the original story. There is also the scene in which Squire Jonas Hacker [[AttemptedRape attempts to rape]] Charity after claiming that she needed to disrobe so that he could check her for the [[MarkOfTheBeast mark of a witch]], which is toned down in the episode compared to the short story. She manages to fight him off in both versions.
** In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", the younger Gus Rosenthal is ten or eleven when [[MyFutureSelfAndMe he meets his future self]]. In the short story by Creator/HarlanEllison, he is seven years old.
** In "A Saucer of Loneliness", Margaret is middle-aged when she receives the message from the FlyingSaucer. In the short story by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon, she was "perhaps seventeen" at the time.
* AlchemyIsMagic: In "The Little People of Killany Woods", it is MagicByAnyOtherName. The LittleGreenMen give Liam O'Shaughnessy triangular gold pieces to buy supplies with which they can repair their damaged ship. He tells O'Dell that the gold will not last in the hands of a sinner, which he passes along to Mike Mulvaney. The gold piece that Mulvaney later forces Liam to give him turns to lead soon afterwards.
* TheAlcoholic:
** 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.
** In "Cold Reading", Milo Trent replaces Earl Sedgewick, who usually plays the title character's younger brother Timmy in ''Dick Noble, African Explorer'', as he has reportedly taken ill. The writer Nelson Westbrook's assistant Carla makes a drinking gesture at Milo, indicating that Sedgewick is too drunk to record his part.
* AlcoholicParent:
** In "Her Pilgrim Soul", Dr. Kevin Drayton tells Nola Granville that his wife Carol's mother was an alcoholic and that she wants to have children so that she can be the kind of mother that she never had herself. Hearing about Nola's difficult childhood with her FantasyForbiddingFather allows Kevin to understand how Carol feels for the first time.
** In "A Saucer of Loneliness", the middle-aged Margaret lives with her alcoholic, emotionally abusive mother who constantly belittles her because she doesn't have a man in her life. She tells Margaret that she should be respectable but her own behavior is anything but. She eventually throws Margaret out of her apartment because of all the negative publicity generated by her refusal to reveal the contents of the message from the FlyingSaucer.
* 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.]]
* AliensAreBastards: In "A Small Talent for War", [[spoiler:all life on Earth is destroyed by the alien race that [[{{Panspermia}} seeded life on the planet]] two million years ago as humanity's talent for war is too small for their needs]].
* AlliterativeName:
** In "Tooth and Consequences", the protagonist's name is Dr. Myron Mandel.
** In "Aqua Vita", the protagonist's name is Christie Copperfield.
* AlliterativeTitle: "Many, Many Monkeys".
* AllMythsAreTrue:
** In "Ye Gods", Todd Ettinger discovers that Cupid, Megaera, Bacchus, Jupiter and all of the other gods and demigods of Myth/ClassicalMythology really exist.
** In "Tooth and Consequences", Dr. Myron Mandel learns that the ToothFairy really exists when he appears in his office and grants his wish to be respected and loved by his patients.
** In "The Leprechaun-Artist", three teenage boys named Buddy, Richie and J.P. discover that {{Leprechaun}}s are real when they capture one named Shawn [=McGool=] and he is forced to grant them ThreeWishes.
** In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Tom learns that Myth/{{Merlin}} and [[Myth/KingArthur the rest of the figures from Arthurian legend]] really existed when he is hired by Morgan le Fay to bring Lancelot to her.
* AllThereInTheManual: In "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", Melinda and Mrs. Whitford's names are never mentioned. They come from the script and, in the latter case, the short story by William F. Wu.
* AlternateHistory:
** In "I of Newton", the demon tells Sam that he can show him UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} if UsefulNotes/NaziGermany had won UsefulNotes/WorldWarII or a 21st Century UsefulNotes/{{Rome}} if UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat had lived to a ripe old age.
** In "Extra Innings", an up-and-coming baseball player named Monty Hanks died in 1909, two years into his career, after getting hit in the face with a pitch. However, thanks to a magic baseball card, Ed Hamner (who ''also'' played baseball, until he got injured) actually winds up preventing his death. What's more, after [[spoiler:the card is torn up at the end, keeping Ed in Monty's body]], he went on to have a long and successful career.
* AlternateTimeline: In "Profile in Silver", a time traveling historian from 2172 named Professor Joseph Fitzgerald [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong prevents]] the [[WhoShotJFK assassination]] of his FamousAncestor UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy on November 22, 1963. The resulting change to the timeline leads to the creation of significant time distortions and a temporal rift of unprecedented proportions. Tornadoes appear without warning in Texas as part of the initial attempt to counterbalance the temporal damage. The assassination of UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev results in the new Soviet premier sending in troops to capture West Berlin in an attempt to force the Western powers out of the rest of West Germany. Fitzgerald's wrist computer determines that there is a 77% probability that a [[WorldWarIII nuclear war]] will break out between the United States and the Soviet Union, resulting in the [[PollutedWasteland total annihilation of the biosphere]]. At 12%, the best case scenario is that Western Europe will surrender within six years. Military costs will cause the Soviet economy to collapse, leading the USSR to blackmail the West for food. The subsequent agro-bacterial war will completely destroy the biosphere within a century. The remaining 11% accounts for all other probabilities in which the biosphere is destroyed. From this, Fitzgerald learns that Kennedy's death is a NecessaryFail and that history must be restored to its proper course if humanity is to survive.
* AlternateUniverse:
** 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.
** In "The World Next Door", Barney Schlessinger discovers a parallel universe where his AlternateSelf is a famous inventor after going through a [[DownTheRabbitHole doorway in his basement]].
** In "The Road Less Traveled", a version of Jeff [=McDowell=] from an alternate universe who [[AnArmAndALeg lost his legs]] in UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar crosses over to ours after spending years wondering how his life would have turned out had he not gone to UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}}. The Jeff of our universe [[DraftDodging dodged the draft]] in 1971 and went to UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} with his girlfriend Denise in 1971. They eventually married and had a daughter named Megan. In the alternate universe, Denise was [[DeadAlternateCounterpart killed in a motorcycle accident]]. The alternate Jeff is not angry or resentful as our Jeff fears but glad to have gotten the chance to see the life that he could have had.
* AnimatedArmor: In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Myth/{{Merlin}} animated a suit of armor to protect him during the 1,000 years that he slept in the cave in Cornwall. After he awakens, Merlin has the Hollow Knight fight Lancelot so that he can [[HumanSacrifice sacrifice]] Tom. Lancelot handily defeats it.
* AnimateInanimateObject: In "The After Hours", the department store mannequins have the ability to come alive. Every month, one of them leaves the store and goes to live as a human.
* {{Animorphism}}:
** In "Ye Gods", Megaera turned Cupid's lover Drusilla into a tree frog as she was angry that Cupid had cheated on her. She later threatens to turn Todd Ettinger into a snail darter.
** In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Myth/{{Merlin}} threatens to turn Tom into a goose as he finds him disrespectful but Lancelot stays his hand.
* ApatheticTeacher: In "Teacher's Aide", Miss Peters is the only teacher at her tough InnerCitySchool who cares about the students and treats them with respect. Other teachers consider them to be animals and degenerates.
* TheArk: In "Quarantine", after [[WorldWarIII nuclear war]] broke out in 2043, the United States launched a spacecraft containing 1,000 politicans and military figures into space. It returns to Earth in 2347. Due to the effects of TimeDilation, only five to ten years have passed for the crew. Sarah and the other members of the {{Commune}} used [[HumansArePsychicInTheFuture their psychic powers]] to fool Matthew Foreman into thinking that the ship was a meteor that was going to destroy Earth's entire ecosystem. They tried to get him to destroy it using the [[KillSat remaining particle beam satellites]] that he created prior to [[HumanPopsicle being frozen]] in 2023 as they did not want the cycle of war to start all over again. When Matthew discovers the truth, he attempts to stop the satellite from firing but Sarah stops him by sabotaging the computer and the ship is destroyed.
* AnArmAndALeg: In "The Road Less Traveled", the AlternateUniverse Jeff [=McDowell=] lost both of his legs when he stepped on a landmine during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar.
* ArtisticLicenseHistory:
** In "A Message from Charity", Squire Jonas Hacker tells Charity Payne that he [[BurnTheWitch will have her burned at the stake for witchcraft]]. In reality, the most common method of execution for convicted witches in UsefulNotes/TheThirteenAmericanColonies was hanging.
** In "The Once and Future King", the front page of ''The Commercial Appeal'' gives the date as Monday July 3, 1954. In reality, July 3, 1954 was a Saturday.
* ArtisticLicenseLaw: {{Lampshaded|Trope}} in "Shadow Play". In trying to prove that it is all part of his dream, Adam Grant points out to the district attorney Mark Ritchie that he was convicted and sentenced to death on the same day, which doesn't happen in reality. He is also executed very shortly after his conviction, which is highly unusual in the United States.
* AstralProjection:
** {{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.
** In "Quarantine", Sarah and the other members of the {{Commune}} have the ability to astrally project themselves to anywhere in the universe that they choose, including inhospitable planets which ships could have never visited. Irene uses her [[HumansArePsychicInTheFuture psychic powers]] on Matthew Foreman and takes his mind on a trip around UsefulNotes/TheSolarSystem.
* AttackOnTheHeart: In "The Toys of Caliban", Toby Ross accidentally kills his mother Mary when he removes her heart from her chest [[YourMindMakesItReal using his ability to manifest anything from a picture]]. He had seen a diagram of a heart in a magazine and wanted to know how it worked.
* AttemptedRape: In "A Message from Charity", Squire Jonas Hacker attempts to rape Charity Payne, claiming that he needs to look for [[MarkOfTheBeast the Devil's mark]], after she is [[WitchHunt accused of witchcraft]]. After attacking Hacker, she manages to escape unharmed.
* AuthorAvatar:
** Gus Rosenthal, the lead character of "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", was directly based on Creator/HarlanEllison, who wrote the original story - to such an extent that (according to his audio commentary on the DVD) he actually wept while watching the filming of one scene.
** "Personal Demons" tells the story of a writer named Rockne S. O'Bannon, dealing with a severe case of writer's block. It was written by... Rockne S. O'Bannon. While the fictional O'Bannon was in his 60s and had been writing for 30 years, the real O'Bannon was only 31 when the episode was made.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:B]]
* BadassTeacher: In "Teacher's Aide", Miss Peters is possessed by the spirit of the gargoyle that sits on the roof of the tough InnerCitySchool where she teaches English. She goes from being a dedicated teacher whom the students don't respect to one who responds to any act of insubordination with violence. Miss Peters begins to worry that there is something seriously wrong with her because she can't control this behavior. When a gang member named Wizard plans to attack her, she [[SpiderSense senses the approaching assault]] and is able to defeat him. Miss Peter is about to kill him when she sees her reflection and realizes that she has now become a gargoyle herself. She is disgusted by her use of violence as she is not that kind of person. Lightning strikes the gargoyle and she returns to normal. Grateful to Miss Peters for not finishing him off when she had the chance, Wizard thanks her from the bottom of his heart and helps her up.
* BadBadActing: In "Cold Reading", Jack Holland, who plays the title character in ''Dick Noble, African Explorer'', constantly struggles with his lines and the other actors have to cover for him as the series is broadcast live. He mispronounces words such as "azure" and "tut" on air. When his co-star Marilyn Cavendish, who plays Dick's GirlFriday Millicent, helps him with the pronunciation of the former, he breaks character and thanks her. Unlike both Marilyn and the novice actor Milo Trent, he is completely unable to improvise when the things mentioned in the script begin appearing in the studio.
* BalancingDeathsBooks: In "Welcome to Winfield", Matt Winnaker wakes up after being near-death from a coma. His new wife Lori Bodell takes him to the titular town of Winfield, where the occupants struck a deal with Chin Du Long, an agent of death, to not die about 100 years earlier. But when St. George, the current agent of death, finds Matt, the situation becomes this: either Matt is spared in exchange for Winfield, or ''Winfield'' is spared in exchange for ''Matt''. [[spoiler:After calling Chin, St. George decides to spare both parties.]]
* BaseballEpisode: "Extra Innings" is this to a T. The main character is an ex-baseball player whose career ended because of an injury, thanks to a magic baseball card that he got from his baseball-loving friend, he can possess a baseball player who died in 1909 as to continue playing baseball, [[spoiler:and because of the card being torn up, gets to have a long, fruitful baseball career]]. ...baseball.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor:
** "The Leprechaun-Artist": Three young boys get a wish apiece from the leprechaun they capture. It goes badly, and the boys end up [[spoiler: under arrest by the police before the leprechaun takes pity on them and re-sets everything to normal.]]
** "The Library": A woman gets a job in a magical library, the books of which can re-write people's lives. She can't resist the temptation to meddle, again things go badly before [[spoiler: again (hopefully) being re-set to normal.]]
** "Cold Reading": An egotistical old-time radio director named Nelson Westbrook rhetorically wishes that all the sound effects from his current jungle-adventure program ''Dick Noble, African Explorer'' came from something real. Unfortunately, he is indeed holding a real voodoo relic as he does so. HilarityEnsues as a vulture, monkeys and African tribesmen appear in the studio as the actors perform the script. A thunderstorm even breaks out indoors. Through some very quick rewrites, Westbrook manages to avoid a plane crash, an elephant stampede and an earthquake but a FlyingSaucer crashes in the studio when the promo for the following week's episode is read by the announcer.
** "Act Break": An unsuccessful playwright wishes for a better writing partner than the one he currently has. He finds himself sent back in time, where he meets Creator/WilliamShakespeare. He ends up with every line that Shakespeare ever wrote stuck in his memory, and is forced to become Shakespeare's ghost writer, without getting any of the credit or accolades.
** "Examination Day": Dickie Jordan wishes on his birthday to do well on the government exam. He does [[spoiler:and it turns out people who do too well are killed.]]
** In "Tooth and Consequences", Dr. Myron Mandel is a severely depressed dentist who hates his job. He wishes that an attractive patient named Lydia Bixby will fall madly in love with him and that his other patients will respect him and look forward to their appointments. The ToothFairy grants his wish but Myron is soon just as miserable as he was before, if not more so. He doesn't have a moment's peace as his patients hound him at every turn and Lydia's love for him is suffocating. Myron eventually runs away and hops a freight train.
* BecomeARealBoy: A variation in "The After Hours". [[spoiler:After [[TomatoInTheMirror finding out that she is a mannequin]] and spending a month living in the outside world, Marsha Cole doesn't want to give up her new life as a human. However, she is ultimately forced to do so by the other mannequins so that one of them can have a turn.]]
* 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.
* BigEntrance: In "Cold Reading", the LargeHam radio writer and director Nelson Westbrook arrives at the UBS Radio Center in an ambulance with the sirens blaring. As soon as the ambulance stops, he jumps out of the back of it without a moment's hesitation.
* BiggerOnTheInside: In "The Library", as soon as she sees all of the books in the titular building, Ellie Pendleton suspects that it must be some kind of trick as the building that she saw from the outside was nowhere near big enough. It soon becomes clear to her that the library is bigger on the inside and that it needs to be in order to house a book corresponding to every living person on Earth.
* BinarySuns: In "The Uncle Devil Show", Joey creates a fantasy world with two suns by following Uncle Devil's instructions on the ''Tim Ferret and Friends'' video. When his mother tells him to come inside before the sun goes down, he asks her which one.
* BioAugmentation: In "Quarantine", the survivors of the [[WorldWarIII nuclear war]] of 2043 began using genetic engineering to [[HumansArePsychicInTheFuture give themselves psychic powers]] as [[{{Technophobia}} they no longer trusted technology]]. By 2347, all life on Earth exists in harmony as part of a biological gestalt. Their computers are a form of OrganicTechnology created by genetically engineering chimpanzees and orangutans through increasing their intelligence by a factor of 20. Each augmented ape performs a specific function. All available knowledge is stored in their brains and accessible to anyone who requires it. Telepathic humans make contact with the apes at an early age and give them the choice of either living a normal life or becoming part of the collective computer brain.
* BirthdayHater: In "Aqua Vita", Christie Copperfield is depressed at the thought of turning 40 because she believes that she will soon be replaced by a younger woman as television anchor. She laments to her boyfriend Marc that birthdays are fun when you are 10 but not when you are worried about crow's feet and keeping your job. However, Christie is not angry at him for throwing her a surprise party as she appreciates the sentiment.
* ABirthdayNotABreak:
** In "If She Dies", Paul Marano gets into a car accident on his birthday. He is uninjured but his young daughter Cathy ends up in a coma.
** 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.]]
** In "Grace Note", Rosemarie Miletti's beloved younger sister Mary dies of leukemia several days before Rosemarie's birthday. The last thing that she does before she dies is give Rosemarie her birthday present: a locket with Mary's picture.
* BitByBitTransformation: In "The After Hours", [[spoiler:Marsha Cole begins to become plastic again [[TomatoInTheMirror after learning that she is a mannequin]]. Her right leg is the first part of her to transform and she has to drag it in her fruitless attempt to escape from her fellow mannequins. It is followed by her right arm and then her left leg. Refusing to accept her fate, she still tries to escape but soon her head is the only part of her that is still human. In the final scene, she has become fully plastic and is on display in the department store Satler's with all of the other mannequins.]]
* BittersweetEnding: In "Healer", [[spoiler: Jackie's partner has [[KarmaHoudini gotten away with stealing the money they were going to split and leaving Jackie for dead]]. But not only has Jackie used the stone one more time to heal a boy's deafness, the boy used the stone to heal Jackie's bullet wound, and the stone has been returned to its rightful owner. Best of all, Jackie has changed for the better.]]
* BlackMagic: In "Cold Reading", Sol acquired a real voodoo artifact for the radio writer and director Nelson Westbrook, who always insists on his dramas being as realistic as possible. Westbrook dismisses it as nothing but a dime store novelty. He then says that if he had one wish, it would be that every sound effect in his latest script for ''Dick Noble, African Explorer'' would come from something real. His wish comes true and [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor proves to be more than he bargained for]].
* BlandNameProduct:
** In "Cold Reading", ''Dick Noble, African Explorer'' is sponsored by the cereal Krisp-O-Meal, which is based on Corn Flakes.
** In "The After Hours", Marsha Cole buys a Cornfield Kids doll for her landlord's daughter Jennifer, a reference to the Toys/CabbagePatchKids. The doll itself is a repurposed Cabbage Patch Kid in a corn ear.
* TheBlank: In "A Matter of Minutes", every minute is built by faceless blue construction workers who are seemingly incapable of speech.
* 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.
* BlindAndTheBeast: In "To See the Invisible Man", the only person to be kind to Mitchell Chaplin during his punishment is a blind man named Bennett Gershe who cannot see the implant telling others to ignore him. Subverted when Gershe is then told of Mitchell's status, after which he angrily curses Mitchell and leaves him.
* BothSidesHaveAPoint: In "Little Boy Lost", Carol Shelton and her boyfriend Greg both bring up valid points about Carol's career prospects and having kids. Carol points out if she takes the job and has kids they'll hardly see her and she won't get to see them grow. Greg points out that given his age, if they waited to have kids he'll be too old to do parent/child activities with his child.
* BottleEpisode:
** "Nightcrawlers" takes place entirely in and around Big Bob's diner. (Although there are so many special effects, it probably wasn't exactly cheap to produce.)
** "Dealer's Choice" takes place entirely in Pete's living room and kitchen.
** "The Uncle Devil Show" takes place entirely in Joey's living room and kitchen.
** "I of Newton" takes place entirely in Sam's classroom.
** "A Small Talent for War" takes place entirely in a meeting room in the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations Headquarters.
** "The Elevator" takes place in and around Roger and Will's father's factory.
** All of "Gramma" takes place in Georgie's house.
** Except for the first scene, "Button, Button" takes place entirely in Arthur and Norma Lewis' apartment.
** All of "Lost and Found" takes place in Jenny Templeton and Kathy's dorm room.
* BreatherEpisode:
** "Wish Bank" is a light-hearted, comedic episode which immediately preceded the violent, horror-themed "Nightcrawlers".
** "The Leprechaun-Artist" is a comedic episode about three teenage boys who find a {{Leprechaun}}. It immediately preceded "Dead Run", a very dark episode about souls who have been wrongfully sent to {{Hell}}.
* BroadcastLive: InUniverse in "Cold Reading". The UBS radio series ''Dick Noble, African Explorer'' is broadcast live. Milo Trent is horrified that Nelson Westbrook has completely rewritten the script and that he and the other actors won't have any time to rehearse it before it goes to air.
* BrownNote: "Need to Know" features an AwfulTruth that causes insanity in anyone who hears it.
* BurnTheWitch: In "A Message from Charity", Squire Jonas Hacker tells Charity Payne that he will have her burned as a witch after she manages to fight off [[AttemptedRape his attempt to rape her]].
* 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.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:C]]
* CanisMajor: In "The Elevator", Roger and Will find a dead dog that ate their father's super food and became a giant. It was killed by something larger which they later discover was a GiantSpider.
* CanonForeigner:
** In "A Message from Charity", Peter Wood has a younger brother named Bobby. In the short story by William M. Lee, he is an only child.
** In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", Gus Rosenthal sleeps with a fan of his whom he met after he delivered a lecture on writing. She does not appear in the short story by Creator/HarlanEllison.
** 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 "The Star", the commanding officer of the survey ship ''Magellan'' is Captain Durant. She does not appear in the short story by Creator/ArthurCClarke.
** "The Misfortune Cookie" features the supporting characters of Harry Folger's editor Max, the eponymous owner of Mr. Lee's Chinese Cuisine and April Hamilton, whom Harry briefly dates. None of them appear in the short story by Charles E. Fritch.
** In "A Matter of Minutes", both Michael Wright and his wife Maureen become trapped in a minute that is still under construction. In the short story "Yesterday Was Monday" by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon, it is only [[AdaptationNameChange Harry Wright]].
** In "Dead Run", Johnny Davis learns of the job transporting condemned souls to {{Hell}} from his fellow trucker Pete, who shows him the ropes. Pete does not appear in the short story by Greg Bear as Johnny has already been doing the job for two years.
** In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Tom is one of three punks hired by Morgan le Fay to bring Lancelot to her. Lancelot later takes Tom as his squire and brings him to the cave in Cornwall to meet the newly awakened Myth/{{Merlin}}. Tom does not appear in the short story by Creator/RogerZelazny. He was added at the insistence of [[ExecutiveMeddling CBS executives]] who thought that ''Twilight Zone'' stories should always feature ordinary people in extraordinary situations.
* CaptivityHarmonica: In "Shadow Play", Adam Grant's fellow prisoner Munoz plays the harmonica while Adam is waiting to be hanged.
* 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.
* TheCaseOf: "The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon".
* CassandraTruth:
** In "The Burning Man", Doug and Aunt Neva pick up a dirty, disheveled man while driving through Kansas. He immediately begins ranting and raving about people who are born evil, telling Doug and Aunt Neva that they should be wary of genetic evil. He compares such people to seventeen year locusts and warns that they [[ImAHumanitarian eat people]] "fried, cooked, boiled and parboiled." Aunt Neva has finally had enough of his wild stories and throws him out of her car. That night, the two of them pick up a [[CreepyChild strange boy in a white suit]] who claims to have been left behind after a town picnic. After making the car stop, the boy asks Doug and Aunt Neva, "Have you ever wondered if there was such a thing as genetic evil in the world?" The headlights of the car then go out, implying that he is going to kill Doug and Aunt Neva.
** In "The Little People of Killany Woods", no one in Kelly's pub believes Liam O'Shaughnessy when he says that he has seen {{Leprechaun}}s under a giant toadstool in Killany Woods. When he follows Liam to the woods in the hope of getting more gold, Mike Mulvaney discovers that the little people are actually aliens and that the toadstool is their spaceship. He returns to Kelly's to tell the townspeople what he saw but none of them believe him.
** In "The Once and Future King", Gary Pitkin is an ElvisImpersonator from 1986 who [[DeadPersonImpersonation assumed the identity]] of Music/ElvisPresley after accidentally killing him on July 4, 1954. In the 1970s, he tries to convince Sandra, who will be his manager by 1986, that he is simply pretending to be the real King. However, Sandra doesn't believe him. She later comes to think that it was merely another example of Elvis' often strange and eccentric behavior towards the end of his life.
** In "The Convict's Piano", Ricky Frost tells the prison doctor Puckett that he was transported back in time to 1899 and 1917 after playing songs from those years on the old piano in the reception hall. Puckett clearly does not believe a word that he is saying. The next day, Ricky tells Eddie O'Hara that he can come with him to 1928 and get his revenge on his old nemesis Mickey Shaughnessy if he touches the piano while he is playing "Someone to Watch Over Me". Eddie retorts that he has been in prison too long to believe in magic. [[SubvertedTrope However]], he realizes that Ricky is telling the truth when he disappears in front of his eyes. He receives further proof when Shaughnessy is sent forward in time after playing the piano himself.
** In "The Card", Linda Wolfe is unable to convince her husband Brian that the family had a cat named Boris and a dog named Scooby [[RetGone who have disappeared]] and [[RippleEffectProofMemory whom only she can remember]]. Brian thinks that she should see a psychiatrist because of these delusions about non-existent pets. The situation becomes even more serious when their children Matt, Evan and B.J. disappear, having been acquired by the card company. Brian explains to Linda that they never had any children and tries in vain to calm her down. He is even more convinced than before that she is having a breakdown.
* CausticCritic: In "The Misfortune Cookie", Harry Folger is a cruel and obnoxious food critic who takes delight in writing bad reviews about restaurants. When his editor Max accuses him of trashing these restaurants, he [[InsistentTerminology claims that he is exposing them]]. He collects matchbooks from restaurants which have been closed because of his reviews, of which he has about 20, and places them in a model graveyard.
* CelebrityParadox: In "The Road Less Traveled", Jeff and Denise [=McDowell=] watch ''Film/TheThingFromAnotherWorld'' on television. Its star Kenneth Tobey, who previously played Sheriff Haskin in "A Day in Beaumont", is seen in the featured clip.
* CelebrityResemblance: In "The Once and Future King", Gary Pitkin is an ElvisImpersonator who bears an uncanny resemblance to the King of RockAndRoll. After he is sent back in time to July 3, 1954, the real Music/ElvisPresley mistakes him for his identical twin brother Jesse, who died at birth and has [[BackFromTheDead seemingly been brought back to life]]. After Elvis is [[InertialImpalement impaled on the neck of his guitar]], Gary [[DeadPersonImpersonation assumes his identity]] and manages to fool everyone except [[ParentsKnowTheirChildren Elvis' mother Gladys]].
* CelestialBureaucracy: In "Dead Run", Johnny Davis begins working as a truck driver transporting condemned souls to {{Hell}}. Within hours, he discovers that many of the damned don't deserve to be there. For instance, one woman was too self-centered in life, one man only saw the dirt in life and not the beauty and another was an atheist. After the souls riot, Johnny is brought to meet the Dispatcher, who has the final say on who is sent to Hell because [[{{God}} the Boss]] abdicated responsibility long ago. The Dispatcher explains to Johnny and he is instituting "time honored [[Literature/TheBible Biblical]] standards" in holding the departed souls to a high standard. He sees it as his duty to combat the "secular, intellectual propaganda" of the modern age and ensure that pornographers, heathens, atheists, humanists and others receive the punishment that they deserve. Johnny is disgusted and helps a [[DraftDodging draft dodger]], a junkie, a librarian who fought against [[CulturePolice banned books being removed from the shelves]] and a young gay man escape to {{Heaven}}.
* ChekhovsGun: In "Need to Know", everybody in Loma Valley listens to the same local radio station all the time. Professor Jeffrey Potts later goes on the radio to share the meaning of life with his fellow townspeople, causing [[MindVirus everyone who hears the broadcast to go insane]].
* ChessWithDeath: In "Dealer's Choice", Pete, Jake and Tony correctly deduce that Nick, who has taken Norman's place at their regular poker game, is the Devil and that he is here for one of them. Nick suggests that they make a game of it: whoever picks the highest card "wins" and gets to go with him. Tony picks an eight, Jake picks a seven and the unfortunate Pete picks a jack. Tony suggests that Pete and Nick play a game of one-on-one, all or nothing. Nick agrees and tries to put up $18 ([[NumberOfTheBeast three sixes]]) but instead puts up $19 at Pete's insistence. As it is dealer's choice, Pete chooses a game of lowball, where the lower hand wins and players don't want matching cards. Being the Devil, Nick has been getting three sixes in every hand. Pete gets four fives and Nick gets three sixes, meaning that Pete loses. However, Marty, who is too innocent for the Devil to trick, reveals that Nick's Tarot death card is in fact a fourth six. After been caught out, Nick leaves empty handed, though not before filling Pete's empty kitchen with food and beer.
* ChristmasEpisode:
** 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.
** In "But Can She Type?", an underappreciated secretary named Karen Billings is transported to an AlternateUniverse in which being a secretary is considered highly glamorous shortly before Christmas.
** In "The Star", the survey ship ''Magellan'' discovers the records of a long dead civilization on Christmas Day. Father Matthew Costigan points out that, because of relativity, the ship is the only place in the universe where it is Christmas.
* ChromosomeCasting:
** "Paladin of the Lost Hour", "Act Break" and "Take My Life...Please!" do not feature any speaking roles for women.
** No women appear in "Dealer's Choice", "I of Newton", "The Elevator", "Devil's Alphabet" and "A Game of Pool".
* CirclesOfHell: In "Dead Run", newly condemned souls arrive in the Outer Circles of {{Hell}} and are eventually brought to its center where they are to spend all eternity. The CelestialBureaucracy doesn't particularly care whether the damned suffer as long as they are kept somewhere they can't hurt others.
* CloseEnoughTimeline: In "Profile in Silver", Professor Joseph Fitzgerald creates an AlternateTimeline when he prevents UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy's assassination. When it becomes clear that the new timeline isn't viable as the world will be destroyed within a century at most, he [[TimeTravelEscape sends JFK forward to 2172]] and allows himself to be killed in the President's place. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, JFK was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
* ClothesMakeTheManiac: In "Dead Woman's Shoes", a shy woman named Maddie Duncan tries on a pair of haunted high heels at a thrift store that make her assertive, self-confident—and send her on a murderous mission to kill Kyle Montgomery.
* ColorblindCasting: A variation in "Paladin of the Lost Hour". Gaspar is played by the white Creator/DannyKaye while Billy Kinetta is played by the black Glynn Turman. In the short story by Creator/HarlanEllison, it is mentioned that one of the two men is white and the other is black but does not specify which one so it could have been Gaspar who was black and Billy who was white.
* ComicallyMissingThePoint: In "Dealer's Choice", the extremely innocent and not very bright Marty describes ''Theatre/AStreetcarNamedDesire'' (which he incorrectly calls ''Streetcar Called Desire'') as a great movie all about poker.
* {{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.
* CompositeCharacter:
** In "Nightcrawlers", the Big Bob's diner patrons Ray and Lindy have a son named Ricky. In the short story by Robert [=McCammon=], they have two unnamed children, a boy and a girl.
** In "A Matter of Minutes", the unnamed supervisor is a composite of the supervisor Iridel and the producer from the short story "Yesterday Was Monday" by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon.
* TheConstant: In "A Message from Charity", there is a rock near Harmon Brook in Annes Town (later Anniston) called Bear Rock, which is so named because it resembles a bear bending down to drink from the stream. In 1700, Charity Payne carves a message of love for Peter Wood, their initials in a heart, under the bear's jaw on the left side. He finds it in 1985.
* 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.
* CoolBigSis: In "Grace Note", Rosemarie Miletti is the eldest of five children and enjoys strong relationships with all of her siblings, especially Mary who is [[LittlestCancerPatient dying of leukemia]].
* CreatorCameo:
** Robert Downey, Sr., who directed "Children's Zoo", "Teacher's Aide" and "Tooth and Consequences", played Mr. Miller in "Wordplay".
** Creator/WesCraven, who directed seven episodes, played Edgar, one of the imprisoned parents, in "Children's Zoo".
** In "Opening Day", the director Creator/JohnMilius plays a party guest who tries to sexually harass Sally Wilkerson.
* CreditCardPlot: In "The Card", a compulsive spender named Linda Wolfe is given a strangely accessible credit card only to find out the consequences of not covering her purchases when the company first repossesses her pets Boris and Scooby and then her children Matt, Evan and B.J., who don't even remember who she is. She desperately tries to buy them back using her joint checking account, but her husband Briana cancels the payment thinking she's lost her mind because he doesn't remember their kids. With the checks bounced, the episode ends with Linda unable to do anything but watch helplessly as Brian, her home, her entire life and eventually she herself are repossessed from the face of the Earth, leaving not a trace save for the credit card.
* CreepyChild: In "The Burning Man", Doug and Aunt Neva pick up a strange boy in a white suit while driving through Kansas. They soon discover that he is the genetic evil whom their earlier passenger, a seemingly crazed, disheveled man, warned them about. It is implied that the boy kills them.
* CrossCastRole: In "Gramma", Georgie's grandmother is played by Frederick Long.
* CruelToBeKind: In "What Are Friends For?", Jeff Mattingly's NotSoImaginaryFriend Mike tells him that he was only pretending to be his friend and that he hates him after realizing that his presence is preventing Jeff from becoming friends with real children. Mike did this as he knew that it was the only way to convince Jeff to stop playing with him. The closing narration describes Mike, who previously appeared to Jeff's father Alex in his youth, as "one special friend, one who loved them both enough to vanish when the time was right."
* CulturedBadass: In "The Convict's Piano", the infamous gangster Mickey Shaughnessy is an extremely talented piano player.
* CupidsArrow: In "Ye Gods", Cupid sprinkles Todd Ettinger and a woman whom he has just bumped into with magic dust so that they fall instantly in love with each other. He later strikes Todd with his arrow three times so that his feelings for the woman will intensify.
* CurseOfBabel: In "Wordplay", Bill Lowery develops aphasia and gradually loses the ability to communicate with other people. The first indication of his condition is his wife Kathy telling him about a doctor named Bumper. He comments on his unusual name but thinks nothing more about it. When his neighbor Mr. Miller refers to his dog as an encyclopedia, Bill thinks that it is a practical joke. However, he becomes agitated when the mailroom attendant Robbie asks his advice on where to take Barbie for "dinosaur." Bill assumes that it is some sort of New Wave slang until he goes home and Kathy uses the same word. By the time that he goes to work the next morning, he cannot understand anyone and he is equally incomprehensible to everyone else. This presents problems when his young son Donnie has to be rushed to the emergency room. After Donnie is successfully treated, Bill has to learn the new language. He picks up one of his son's ABC books and sees that the new word for dog is "Wednesday." Other new words include "mayonnaise" for "experience," "trumpets" for "tricks," "throwrug" for "anniversary," "stepdad" for "seatbelt" and "elephant" for "emergency." Bill's own name is Hinge Thunder.
* 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.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:D]]
* DarkerAndEdgier: While somewhat tame compared to other 80s anthologies like ''Series/TalesFromTheDarkside'' or ''Series/FreddysNightmares'', the show still had several segments which were purely horror in nature, unlike the original series.
* 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.
* DaywalkingVampire: In "Monsters!", the vampire Emile Francis Benedictson can spend as much time in the sunlight as any human. He tells Toby Michaels that, [[YourVampiresSuck contrary to how they are depicted in monster movies]], vampires are immune to the effects of UsefulNotes/TheSun.
* DeadAllAlong:
** In an extremely disturbing way, [[spoiler:"Kentucky Rye"]] ends on this note. After managing to walk away from a car crash, Bob Spindler (drunk at the time) wanders into a bar and, after befriending the patrons and the owner, winds up ''buying'' it (after getting a little help from a somber looking man). The next morning, Bob wakes up in the bar... which is dusty and abandoned. The somber man is with him. And as they look outside, they see [[spoiler:police and ambulance workers clean up a car crash outside the "Kentucky Rye". The victims? The somber man... and [[DiscoveringYourOwnDeadBody Bob (who hit him, then crashed)]]]].
** In "Nightsong", [[spoiler:Andrea Fields is visited by her ex-boyfriend Simon Locke, whom she has not seen for five years. She later discovers that he is a ghost when he shows her his skeletal remains and crashed motorcycle at the bottom of a cliff. Simon tells her that he has returned in order to convince her to let go of her feelings for him and get on with her life.]]
* DeadAlternateCounterpart: In "The Road Less Traveled", the AlternateUniverse version of Denise was killed in a motorcycle accident in the 1970s while her boyfriend Jeff [=McDowell=] was fighting in UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar. The alternate Jeff is delighted to see her alive and married to his counterpart in our universe in 1986.
* DeadlyClosingCredits:
** {{Implied|Trope}} in "The Burning Man". In the final scene, the lights of Doug and Aunt Neva's car go out after the [[CreepyChild strange boy in the white suit]] asks them if they had ever wondered if there was such a thing as genetic evil.
** At the end of "The Beacon", Dr. Dennis Barrows is swarmed by the people of Mellweather so that he can be the HumanSacrifice that the Beacon demands.
** In "A Small Talent for War", this is seen on a large scale. [[spoiler:In the final scene, the alien ambassador summons his people's armada to destroy all life on Earth as it is apparent that humanity's small talent for war will be of no use to them in their wars across the galaxy.]]
** In the final scene of "The Elevator", a GiantSpider grabs Roger and Will with its pedipalps as the elevator rises to the top. After several seconds, the brothers' screams stop. A flashlight drops to the floor and its lens breaks as blood drips down.
* DeadlyEuphemism: In "Welcome to Winfield", TheGrimReaper Griffin St. George tells the people of Winfield that he is in the reclamation business. After a while, they realize that he means the reclamation of souls. He later says that he has come for Matt Winnaker because his number is up and it is his time.
* DeadPersonImpersonation: In "The Once and Future King", Gary Pitkin, an ElvisImpersonator from 1986, gets into a fight with the real Music/ElvisPresley on July 4, 1954 as Elvis believes that he is a demon who has been sent to tempt him with evil music. In the struggle, Elvis is [[InertialImpalement killed when he is accidentally impaled on the neck of his broken guitar]]. After burying his body, Gary [[YouWillBeBeethoven assumes Elvis' identity]] and becomes the King of RockAndRoll.
* DeadToBeginWith: "Take My Life...Please!" depicts a callous stand-up comedian's unpleasant experiences in the afterlife.
* DealWithTheDevil: "Dealer's Choice", "I of Newton", "Time and Teresa Golowitz", and "Crazy As a Soup Sandwich" all feature humans making deals with literal devils, though in the case of "I of Newton", it happens involuntarily. Surprisingly, they all end fairly happily for the wish-makers.
* DeathByAdaptation: In "Healer", the mob boss Joseph Rubello has a bad heart which Jackie Thompson is unable to heal as he has begun using the healing stone for selfish purposes. In spite of this, Rubello is still alive when he is last seen. In the short story adaptation by Alan Brennert, Jackie is able to heal Rubello in the short term but his heart problems return and he dies two weeks later.
* DeathByChildbirth:
** In "A Message from Charity", Charity Payne's mother died while giving birth to her.
** In "Her Pilgrim Soul", [[spoiler:Nola Granville died in childbirth in March 1943 after she had a miscarriage caused by the malformation in her uterus]].
* DeathOfAChild: In "Examination Day", [[spoiler:the totalitarian government gives tests that identify [[ChildProdigy child prodigies]]--who are then killed before they can grow up to question or threaten the power structure.]]
* DeathOfTheOldGods: In "Ye Gods", Cupid tells Todd Ettinger that the gods and demigods of Myth/ClassicalMythology did not go away after the fall of UsefulNotes/AncientGreece and UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire. They continue to exist but take little interest in the affairs of mortals, considering that they no longer believe in them. However, some such as Bacchus live on Earth. Under the name Ed Bacchus, he owns a wine label called Olympus Wines.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance:
** In "The Once and Future King", Mr. Harris, Music/ElvisPresley's boss at the Crown Electric Company in Memphis, Tennessee, is disgusted that the ElvisImpersonator Gary Pitkin has a picture of a "nigger" on his undershirt. Gary, a time traveler from 1986, is wearing a Music/ChuckBerry T-shirt.
** In "The Junction", Ray Dobson, a miner trapped in a cave-in in 1912, is initially reluctant to let John Parker, a similarly trapped African-American miner from 1986, touch him. He later notes that he didn't know that there were any "colored" working on his shift. When John suggests that Ray talk to his union rep as he only makes $50 per month, Ray angrily tells him that the only union men in the mine are dead ones.
* DepopulationBomb: In "Quarantine", a nuclear holocaust occurred in 2043 when each side fired six missiles at the other. 80% of the world's population were wiped out and all of the major cities were destroyed. By 2347, Earth has a population of only 200,000.
* DestinationDefenestration: {{Discussed|Trope}} in "Act Break". Maury Winkler and Harry are writing a play in which an English aristocrat named Roger kills a woman named Ethel but they can't decide how he should do it. Harry suggests throwing her out the window. When Maury says that people don't die from being thrown out of first story windows, Harry thinks that she should fall into a swimming pool that is being renovated. They eventually agree that Roger should strangle Ethel.
* {{Determinator}}: In "Dead Woman's Shoes", Susan Montgomery is determined to seek revenge on her husband Kyle for murdering her. Her spirit survives in her shoes, which allows her to take over the body of whoever puts them on. [[spoiler:Although Susan fails to kill Kyle while in control of Maddie Duncan, she later succeeds in doing so after a maid finds them in the trash and puts them on.]]
* 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.
* DirtyCommunists: In "Red Snow", the vampires in the [[TheGulag Siberian gulag]] hate the Soviet Union and everything that it stands for. They believe that Communism has brought nothing but pain, suffering and death to the Russian people and seek to destroy the USSR for the sake of humans and vampires alike.
* 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]].
* DistinguishingMark:
** In "The Storyteller", Micah Frost falls from a tree and cuts his right cheek on a rock in 1933, leaving him with a prominent scar. In 1986, his former teacher Dorothy Livingston is able to recognize him as an adult because of this scar.
** In "The Convict's Piano", the gangster Mickey Shaughnessy has a large scar on the right side of his face which makes his mouth look bigger when he smiles. He seemingly obtained it in a knife fight.
* DomesticAbuse: In "Dead Woman's Shoes", Kyle Montgomery physically abused his wife Susan on a regular basis and eventually pushed her off the balcony to her death. He later claimed that [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident it was an accident]]. When Susan's spirit takes over Maddie Duncan's body and returns to confront Kyle, he hits her once again.
* {{Dominatrix}}: {{Implied|Trope}} in "Ye Gods". Todd Ettinger's friend Peter offers to set him up with a woman that he knows who is into some strange things. Todd turns down the offer as he wants a more substantial relationship with a woman.
* DontFearTheReaper:
** In "Welcome to Winfield", TheGrimReaper Chin Du Long decided to spare the people of Winfield from death as he took a liking to them. His successor Griffin St. George is an impatient, officious and often rude bureaucrat but far from evil. He eventually decides to let Matt Winnaker go but tells the townspeople that no one lives forever and that he will be back for them...in a century or so.
** "Rendezvous in a Dark Place" plays with this in that Barbara [=LeMay=] ''doesn't'' fear Death, she actually finds beauty in it. But Death isn't interested in her...
* DontMakeMeTakeMyBeltOff: In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", Gus Rosenthal's father Lou hits him with his belt to punish him for [[FiveFingerDiscount shoplifting]] a comic book, which he has done several times before. However, Lou hates himself for doing it and breaks down in tears as soon as Gus leaves the room. His wife Sarita tries to console him by saying that it is the only way that Gus will learn.
* {{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]].
* DoubleDoubleTitle: "Button, Button".
* DownerEnding: Happens fairly regularly. Examples mentioned elsewhere on this page:
** [[spoiler: "The Beacon": The lighthouse gets its sacrifice.]]
** [[spoiler: "Burning Man": Doug and his aunt are trapped in a car with a genetically evil child.]]
** [[spoiler: "The Elevator": The two boys are killed by a giant spider.]]
** [[spoiler: "Examination Day": Do too well on the government test, get killed.]]
** [[spoiler: "Gramma": She takes over her own grandson's body.]]
** [[spoiler: "Need to Know": The insanity spreads throughout the entire town, and will probably end up going world-wide.]]
** [[spoiler: "Shadow Man": Take your pick: either there's more than one Shadow Man going around killing people, or Danny's turned on him.]]
** [[spoiler: "A Small Talent For War": Humanity's alien creators wanted warriors, we're a bunch of useless second-raters and all get exterminated.]]
** [[spoiler: "Something In The Walls": The main character is replaced with a doppleganger, who leaves her [[AndIMustScream trapped inside the wall]].]]
* DownTheRabbitHole: In "The World Next Door", Barney Schlessinger finds a doorway to an AlternateUniverse [[RetroUniverse with an early 20th Century level of technology]]. In this universe, he is an extremely wealthy and world famous inventor whose creations can be found in every home. The alternate Barney uses the same doorway to travel to our universe, which he likes because of the peace and quiet that it affords him. The two Barneys [[EquivalentExchange switch places]] as each is envious of the other's life.
* DraftDodging:
** In "Dead Run", a man who dodged the draft and crossed the border to UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar is sent to {{Hell}} by the fundamentalist Dispatcher who has recently taken over the CelestialBureaucracy.
** In "The Road Less Traveled", Jeff [=McDowell=] was drafted in 1971 but went to college in Canada instead of going to UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}}. His high school girlfriend and future wife Denise went with him. In an AlternateUniverse, however, Jeff went to Vietnam and [[AnArmAndALeg lost both of his legs]].
* 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]].
* 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.
* DrivenToSuicide: In "Devil's Alphabet", Deaver commits suicide by shooting himself after losing everything that he owns in a card game in October 1896. On November 2, his ghost attends the meeting of the Devil's Alphabet Society with the six surviving members because of [[DutyThatTranscendsDeath a bargain that they made at their last meeting before graduation in 1876]]. One year later, Andrew hangs himself from a high ceiling but [[PsychicAssistedSuicide it is unclear how he did so as no chair was found near his body]]. That night, Andrew's ghost appears to Grant at the meeting and Grant likewise hangs himself. On November 2, 1898, Cornelius and Frederick are the last two surviving members of the society as Brian and Eli were killed the previous year. Unable to face what awaits him at that night's meeting, Cornelius shoots himself.
* DrivesLikeCrazy:
** In "Dead Run", the trucker Johnny Davis is a reckless driver who has gotten into four accidents in two years and can no longer get any insurance company to take a risk on him. His fellow trucker Pete gets him a job as one of the truckers who drive the condemned to {{Hell}}.
** In "Nightsong", [[spoiler:Simon Locke's tendency to drive recklessly resulted in him being killed in 1981 when he drove his motorcycle over a cliff. He had been going much too fast because he needed to clear his head as he was afraid of success and his relationship with Andrea Fields becoming serious.]]
* DrunkDriver:
** In "Kentucky Rye", an alcoholic named Bob Spindler and his co-workers celebrate closing a big deal. As ever, Bob has too much to drink and becomes angry when several of his co-workers suggest driving him home or calling him a cab. Instead, he drives drunk, seemingly not for the first time, and runs another car off the road. Bob is injured in the process and seeks refuge in a tavern called the Kentucky Rye. The owner sells him the tavern for $1,600, the last $100 of which is contributed by a strange man. The next morning, Bob wakes up to find the tavern covered in cobwebs and dust. There is no one there except for the strange man. [[spoiler:It turns out that the man is the driver of the other car, who was killed when Bob ran him off the road. Bob himself was killed in the accident and is trapped in the IronicHell of a deserted bar for all eternity.]]
** In "The Once and Future King", Gary Pitkin is driven off the road by a drunk driver and crashes his own car as a result. When he wakes up, he finds that he has been transported back in time to Memphis, Tennessee on July 3, 1954.
* DumbBlonde: In "Tooth and Consequences", Dr. Myron Mandel tells the blonde and beautiful Lydia Bixby that he is going to kill himself and to have a nice day. Her only reaction is to wish him a nice day too.
* DutchAngle:
** In "The Shadow Man", several are used when Eric confronts Danny Hayes in [=MacGyver=] Park and [[spoiler:when the Shadow Man attacks Danny shortly afterwards]].
** In "A Day in Beaumont", one is used whenever Dr. Kevin Carlson and Faith discover that someone is an InsectoidAlien wearing a HumanDisguise.
* DutyThatTranscendsDeath: In "Devil's Alphabet", Grant suggests that he and the other six members of the Devil's Alphabet Society meet every year on November 2 whether they are alive or dead. Although he is entirely serious, the others agree to it without much thought as they don't take it seriously. In 1896, the society discovers that they are being held to the occult bargain that they made 20 years earlier. Shortly after [[DrivenToSuicide committing suicide]], the unseen ghost of Deaver makes his presence at the meeting known by signing his name on the register and drinking the wine poured for him. Over the next two years, five of the other members die from various causes until Frederick is the SoleSurvivor. Frederick proposes to dissolve the society so that the dead may rest. Although Grant initially objects, the motion is passed unanimously.
* {{Dystopia}}:
** In "Examination Day", [[spoiler:[[ChildProdigy child prodigies]] such as Dickie Jordan are killed for scoring too well on government tests.]]
** "To See the Invisible Man", possibly; Mitchell Chaplin undergoes a lengthy government-mandated CoolAndUnusualPunishment aimed at correcting his morality rather than due to a specific crime, and there are enforcement drones buzzing around everywhere, but the society as a whole seems peaceful and prosperous.
** "Room 2426" is strongly implied to be this.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:E]]
* EarnYourHappyEnding: "Acts of Terror" ends with Louise putting her abusive husband in his place and leaving him.
* ElderAbuse: In "Take My Life...Please!", Billy Diamond, a wealthy stand-up comedian, threw his mother out of his house as he found her annoying. She was forced to move back to her old and poorly maintained house in UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} where she died of hypothermia because of the lack of heating.
* ElixirOfLife: In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Myth/{{Merlin}} has Lancelot give him an elixir of life after he awakens from his 1,000 years of sleep so that he can regain his strength. After Merlin removes the enchantment granting Lancelot immortality, Lancelot drinks the rest of the elixir as he has learned caution in his extremely long life and suspected that Merlin might betray him.
* ElvisImpersonator: In "The Once and Future King", Gary Pitkin is a very talented Elvis impersonator who is trying to make it as a musician in his own right. He mostly performs for disinterested audiences in seedy hotel lounges and is extremely reluctant to take his act to UsefulNotes/LasVegas as it killed the real Music/ElvisPresley. [[spoiler:He is eventually sent back in time to July 3, 1954 and [[YouWillBeBeethoven takes Elvis' place]] after accidentally killing him.]]
* EmergencyBroadcast: 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.
* {{EMP}}: In "A Day in Beaumont", Dr. Kevin Carlson's watch stops functioning as soon as the FlyingSaucer crashes in the vicinity. He immediately attributes it to magnetic interference.
* EmpathicHealer: In "Quarantine", John uses his ability to absorb another person's pain on Matthew Foreman during the surgery to remove his cancerous tissues.
* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", the entire universe will be engulfed in darkness if Gaspar's watch strikes 12 o'clock.
* EnergyBeing:
** In "Chameleon", an energy being hitches a ride on the space shuttle ''Discovery'' and is unknowingly brought back to Earth. It has the ability to absorb any object or person into itself and transform itself into either them or anything from their memories. For instance, after absorbing Crew Chief Brady Simmons, it imitates both him and his wife Kate. Later, it absorbs the weapons expert Dr. Vaughn Heilman and changes into a nuclear bomb in order to coerce the UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} scientists studying it into releasing it.
** In "What Are Friends For?", Mike is a being of light who appeared to Alex Mattingly and later his son Jeff as a young boy with whom they could play when they were lonely. Before he leaves, Mike tells Alex that he has "always existed in this place" and will always do so.
* EnslavedTongue: The deity Delos speaks through Leonard Randall's mouth in "The Trance".
* EquivalentExchange:
** In "The World Next Door", Barney Schlessinger and his counterpart from the RetroUniverse switch places as each wants what the other has in life. The Barney of our universe has longed to be a famous and successful inventor for years. He is delighted when he meets the alternate version of his wife Katie, who admires "his" inventions greatly as opposed to his own Katie who belittles him for them. The alternate Barney has grown tired of the pressure that comes with fame and people's expectations for the next great invention so he settles in our universe, where he can live in blissful anonymity and doesn't have to invent anything else if he doesn't want to.
** In "The Convict's Piano", Ricky Frost is able to escape his [[MiscarriageOfJustice unjust prison sentence]] in 1986 when he plays "Someone to Watch Over Me" on the old piano and is transported back in time to 1928. He realizes that he has picked the right song and the right time because he remains in the past after he stops playing the piano, in contrast to his previous trips to 1899 and 1917. The gangster Mickey Shaughnessy is transported forward in time to 1986 when he plays "S' Wonderful". [[PointOfNoReturn He is trapped 58 years in his future]] as the piano is subsequently destroyed.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment:
** In "Dead Woman's Shoes", Maddie Duncan's first scene involves her walking down the street and immediately stepping out of the way of everyone in her path without saying a word, indicating that she is very shy, mousy and withdrawn.
** In the first scene of "Red Snow", KGB Colonel Ilyanov arrests a young dissident named Ivanovich for [[CulturePolice possessing banned books]] and orders the guards to send him to TheGulag. It turns out that Ivanovich is well known for his contact with Western agents and this is not his first offense. As such, his crimes warranted the death penalty. A high-ranking minister overrules Ilyanov's order and has Ivanovich put to death. Ilyanov is upset when he hears this but does not say anything.
** "The Last Defender of Camelot" opens with Lancelot being approached by Tom and two other punks who intend to take him to Morgan le Fay. As Lancelot appears to be in his early 60s, they don't think that he will put up much of a fight. However, he proves to be extremely agile and, using his cane as a weapon, effortlessly defeats all three of them in less than a minute.
* 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.
* 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.
* EvilOldFolks: In "Gramma", a young boy named Georgie has to spend a night watching over his monstrous bed-ridden witch-grandmother.
* ExactWords:
** In "I of Newton", a math professor named Sam accidentally summons the (or possibly just ''a'') Devil, and the two [[ChessWithDeath play a game for his soul]]--Sam gets to ask three questions about the Devil's powers, then pose a final question or task that he must perform; if the demon can't answer the question or do the task, Sam retains ownership. The trope first shows up when, after hearing the rules, Sam asks "Really?"; the Devil counts that as one of the three questions, as the conditions had already been placed. After thinking over the next questions carefully and learning that the Devil can quite literally go anywhere (including alternate realities) and always make it back to where he started from, Sam invokes the trope by using what would ordinarily be a metaphor as the task:
--->'''Sam''': ...''get lost.''
** In "A Small Talent for War", aliens show up before the United Nations and announce that humanity is just one of many races they've seeded across the galaxy. They've come to judge Earth and are extremely disappointed with the level of belligerence they find, remarking that the human race has [[TitleDrop a small talent for war]]. If they can't improve in twenty-four hours, the aliens will blow up the whole planet. Every nation in the world immediately drops its conflicts, and representatives work around the clock, coming up with a comprehensive blueprint for total nuclear disarmament and world peace just before the deadline. The alien in charge of the experiment reads the plan [[spoiler:and starts laughing. He specifically said that his race was unhappy with humanity's level of belligerence and small talent for war--but he didn't specify ''why'' they were unhappy. Turns out that they're a [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy species of incredibly proud warriors]], and the human race isn't warlike ''enough'' for them. Cue the EarthShatteringKaboom.]]
* ExcitedShowTitle: "Monsters!".
* {{Expy}}: In "Cold Reading", the UBS radio adventure series ''Dick Noble, African Explorer'' is based on ''Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy'', which ran on Creator/{{CBS}} and later Creator/{{NBC}} and Creator/{{ABC}} [[LongRunners from 1933 to 1951]]. In the final scene, it is mentioned that next week's episode will pit Dick Noble against [[AlienInvasion invaders]] from UsefulNotes/{{Mars}}, a reference to Creator/OrsonWelles' 1938 [[Radio/TheWarOfTheWorlds radio adaptation]] of ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds''.
* ExtraEyes: In "The Uncle Devil Show", Joey uses the magic that he learns from the ''Tim Ferret and Friends'' video to give his pet poodle Ben four eyes.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:F]]
* 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.
* FamilyVersusCareer: In "Little Boy Lost", the photojournalist Carol Shelton must decide whether to accept her dream assignment abroad or marry her long-time boyfriend Greg and have children. The day after the job offer, she meets a strange boy named Kenny at the zoo and she assumes that he was sent by a modeling agency to work with her. The two of them spend the day together and quickly form a bond. The next day, Carol breaks it to Greg that she has decided to take the assignment. Immediately afterwards, she finds Kenny at her apartment and he pleads with her to remain in the US. Confused, she asks him how he knew about her conversation with Greg and where she lived but Kenny runs away. He mysteriously vanishes before Carol can catch up with him. The following morning, Carol sees Kenny in the park and questions him once again. [[spoiler:She discovers that Kenny is the son that she would have had if she had chosen to turn down the assignment and marry Greg. Carol explains that she does want children but there are other things that she wants to do first. Kenny says that she might have a son one day but it won't be him. He then fades away, calling Carol "Mom" just before he disappears forever.]]
* FamousAncestor: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E20 Profile in Silver]]", Professor Joseph Fitzgerald, a time traveling historian from 2172, is a descendant of UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy.
* FamousFamousFictional: In "The Convict's Piano", the notorious 1920s UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} gangster Mickey Shaughnessy is compared to Dutch Schultz and UsefulNotes/AlCapone.
* FantasyForbiddingFather: In "Her Pilgrim Soul", Nola Granville's father actively discouraged her from reading literature and discussing or even thinking about politics. Whenever she tried to discuss these topics with him, he merely looked at her and told her that she was beautiful, implying that she should not bother with such things as she is a woman. He disowned and disinherited her when she decided to pursue poetry as a career and married a Jewish lawyer named Robert Goldstone.
* 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.]]
* FantasyKeepsake:
** In "A Matter of Minutes", Michael and Maureen Wright find the blue wrench thrown at them in a phone booth. It belongs to one of the [[TheBlank faceless laborers]] who construct every minute as a separate world.
** 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.
* FateWorseThanDeath: In "Welcome to Winfield", TheGrimReaper Griffin St. George tells the people of Winfield that [[{{God}} his boss]] is not the easiest guy in the world to work for and that things can still hurt you after you're dead.
* FeetFirstIntroduction: In "Dead Woman's Shoes", the first that the audience sees of Maddie Duncan is her feet as she walks to the thrift store where she works. She continually steps out of people's way as she does so. The camera pans to reveal her face when she arrives in the store.
* FictionalCounterpart:
** In "Wish Bank", the Department of Magical Venues, an infuriating VastBureaucracy, is a {{Parody}} of the Department of Motor Vehicles.
** In "Cold Reading", ''Dick Noble, African Explorer'' is broadcast on the radio network Unified Broadcasting System (UBS), a reference to [[Creator/{{CBS}} Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)]] which broadcast ''The Twilight Zone''.
* FingerSnapLighter: In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Morgan le Fay snaps her fingers to light her cigarette after Lancelot refuses to do so, telling her that chivalry is dead.
* 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.]]
* FirstFriend: In "A Message from Charity", Peter Wood skipped two grades when he was younger and therefore found it very difficult to make friends. When Charity breaks off their telepathic contact, he tearfully tells her that she was the first real friend that he ever had. The closing narration makes it clear that they were also each other's FirstLove.
* FiveFingerDiscount: In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", the young Gus Rosenthal often stole comic books and toy soldiers, leading his father Lou to [[AbusiveParents hit him with his belt]] to teach him a lesson. Even so, he was going to steal another toy soldier the next day but stopped when he noticed his older self looking at him.
* TheFlapper: In "The Convict's Piano", the gangster Mickey Shaughnessy's girlfriend Ellen is a flapper who is seen on his arm at a party in 1928.
* FlashSideways:
** In "The World Next Door", Barney Schlessinger has been having what he thinks are dreams in which he is a famous inventor who lives in a more technologically primitive age. After [[DownTheRabbitHole finding a doorway in his basement]], he arrives in a RetroUniverse which resembles the early 1900s. While there, he learns that he had in fact been seeing the life of his AlternateSelf and vice versa.
** In "The Road Less Traveled", Jeff [=McDowell=] begins experiencing what he thinks are hallucinations about being attacked by the Viet Cong during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar. He attributes them to SurvivorsGuilt as a result of [[DraftDodging dodging the draft]] in 1971 but he later discovers that they are the memories of his counterpart from an AlternateUniverse who fought in the war. The two Jeffs hold hands, allowing the alternate Jeff to experience the happy moments from his counterpart's life that he missed out on such as his wedding to Denise, their honeymoon and the birth of their daughter Megan. The Jeff of our universe is willing to receive further memories of UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}} so that the alternate Jeff can see the life that could have been his.
* FlingALightIntoTheFuture: In "The Star", the survey ship ''Magellan'' discovers a vault on the outermost planet of a solar system which was destroyed by its sun going nova in 3120 BCE. It was created by a civilization that lived on one of the other planets in order to preserve their history, scientific knowledge, art, literature and music. They did this so that their legacy could survive even if they themselves could not.
* FlyingCar: At the end of "Welcome to Winfield", TheGrimReaper Griffin St. George's car rises above the ground and he flies back to HeavenAbove.
* FlyingSaucer:
** In the final scene of "Cold Reading", Nelson Westbrook and the cast of ''Dick Noble, African Explorer'' believe nothing else will materialize in their radio studio as they have reached the end of the script. However, the announcer reads out a promo for the following week's episode in which Dick Noble fights [[AlienInvasion invaders from Mars]]. A flying saucer immediately crashes into the studio.
** In "A Day in Beaumont", Dr. Kevin Carlson and Faith witness a flying saucer crash in Willoughby, five miles outside of Beaumont. Upon investigating, they discover that it belongs to a race of InsectoidAliens.
** In "A Saucer of Loneliness", a small flying saucer comes to Earth in order to deliver a message to an extremely lonely human. The recipient of the message is a middle-aged woman named Margaret.
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** 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 "The Once and Future King", the ElvisImpersonator Gary Pitkin tells his manager Sandra that he may look like Music/ElvisPresley but that doesn't mean that he has to make all of the same mistakes that Elvis did. She says that Elvis once pulled her up on stage and invited her to his dressing room, where he told her that he wasn't the King. [[spoiler:Gary is later sent back in time and [[DeadPersonImpersonation assumes Elvis' identity after accidentally killing him]]. [[YouWillBeBeethoven He proceeds to live out Elvis' life]] and does everything the same way as he remembers. Gary reveals that he isn't the real Elvis to a younger Sandra in the 1970s but [[CassandraTruth she does not believe him]].]]
** In "Nightsong", Andrea Fields reminds her ex-boyfriend Simon Locke that he planned to sell his van for more studio recording time but that he crashed it because of his [[DrivesLikeCrazy reckless driving]]. [[spoiler:It turns out that Simon is a ghost and that he died five years earlier when he was driving his motorcycle too fast on a dirt road and drove over the edge of a cliff.]]
** In "The After Hours", Marsha Cole is dressed very similarly to the mannequins in the department store Satler's. She later describes her landlord as "a real doll." [[spoiler:It turns out that Marsha is an [[AnimateInanimateObject animate mannequin]] who had forgotten her true nature after spending a month in the real world.]]
* FountainOfYouth: In "Aqua Vita", Christie Copperfield learns of the bottled water company Aqua Vita from her friend and co-worker Shauna Allen. By drinking it on a daily basis, a person can look years younger than their actual age. At first, Christie feels wonderful as she has gotten her confidence back and the ratings for her news show are up. However, she soon discovers that missing even one daily glass of Aqua Vita causes her to [[RapidAging age rapidly]] and the only way to reverse it is to drink some more. This becomes increasingly difficult as time goes on because each bottle costs $5,000. After the Aqua Vita runs out, Christie looks as if she is in her 70s. Shauna, who is seven years older and has been taking Aqua Vita for longer, appears to be over 80 when her own supply runs out.
* FrameUp: In "The Convict's Piano", Mickey Shaughnessy framed Eddie O'Hara for murder in 1928 because he was [[LoveTriangle his rival for Ellen's love]].
* FreudianExcuse: In "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", [[spoiler:the reason the titular David Wong lacks compassion is because it's just that: he's literally lost his compassion. Mostly it had to do with racist incidents, but the one that set off his bitterness was when he read about the murder of Vincent Chin.]]
* FromBadToWorse: The situation in the radio studio in "Cold Reading" as all the jungle-themed adventure-show perils come to actual life; Nelson Westbrook has to desperately re-write the show while in progress to head off even worse disasters, including an elephant stampede, an earthquake and a plane crash.
* 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.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: Not quite the background, but a lot of the humor in "I of Newton" comes from the demon's ever-changing FunTShirt: "Hell is a Summer Festival," "Hell is a City Much Like Newark," "Over 2,000,000,000 Served," "Gehenna: More Than a Place, a Way of Life" and "Let's Do Damnation."
* TheFutureIsShocking: In "The Junction", Ray Dobson, a miner from 1912, is amazed by the 1986 miner John Parker's digital watch, the flashlight on his helmet and his lighter. Ray's reaction to these items helps John to realize that he has been sent back in time.
* TheFutureWillBeBetter: In "Profile in Silver", after admitting that he is a time traveler from 2172, Professor Joseph Fitzgerald tells UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy that his greatest dreams have been fulfilled. By the 22nd Century, humanity has eliminated tyranny, war and poverty and has gone to the stars.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:G]]
* GangBangers:
** In "Teacher's Aide", the InnerCitySchool where Miss Peters teaches English has at least two gangs, one of which is the Furies, who frequently get into knife fights with each other at the slightest provocation.
** In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", two members of a youth gang mug Gaspar while he is visiting his wife Minna's grave but Billy Kinetta manages to fight them off before Gaspar is badly hurt.
* GangOfBullies:
** In "The Shadow Man", several boys, led by Eric, ambush Danny Hayes on his way home. They frighten him by wearing monster costumes and carrying plastic chainsaw toys as he has the reputation of being the biggest chicken in Willow Creek.
** 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.
* GenderFlip:
** 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 "To See the Invisible Man", Mitchell Chaplin meets an invisible woman who refuses to talk to him during his own sentence of invisibility. He later acknowledges her presence once he has completed his sentence. In the short story by Creator/RobertSilverberg, the other invisible person was a man.
** 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.
* GiantSpider: In "The Elevator", a spider ate the super food developed by Roger and Will's father in order to solve world hunger. It then killed the smaller but still giant [[MegaNeko cat]] and [[CanisMajor dog]] and possibly the [[RodentsOfUnusualSize giant rats]]. When Roger and Will call the elevator in their father's factory, the giant spider grabs them with its pedipalps and kills them.
* GlamourFailure: In "A Day in Beaumont", Dr. Kevin Carlson determines that Sheriff Haskin and Major Whitmore are InsectoidAliens when someone takes their photograph with a flash camera and their true appearance is briefly superimposed over their [[HumanDisguise human disguises]]. He speculates that it has something to do with the light frequency. The aliens are also unable to bend their little fingers when they are in human form.
* AGlitchInTheMatrix:
** In "Dreams for Sale", Jenny is having a lovely picnic in the country with her husband Paul and their twin daughters when she starts to notice unusual things happening. Paul opens the same bottle of champagne twice. After she takes a chicken out of the picnic basket, it suddenly reappears inside of it. Other events begin to repeat themselves such as Paul asking her if she is okay three times in the space of a few seconds. Jenny then wakes up to find herself connected to a Dreamatron, a fully interactive dream machine which had been running the "Country Picnic" simulation for her.
** 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.
* GodCouple: In "Ye Gods", Cupid and Megaera were a couple in the late 19th or early 20th century until he cheated on her with a mortal woman named Drusilla. After Cupid convinced Jupiter to turn Drusilla into a demigod, Megaera [[{{Animorphism}} turned her into a tree frog]]. Todd Ettinger realizes that the only way that he can either meet the woman with whom Cupid has made him fall in love or have his intense love for her lifted is to help Cupid and Megaera patch up their differences. When he lures the two of them into his office and traps them there with a smell given to him by Baachus, Cupid apologizes and they resume their relationship. As a reward, Cupid arranges for Todd to run into the woman once again.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: In "Need to Know", whenever someone in Loma Valley, Washington is told the meaning of life by another resident, they instantly go insane.
* GradeSkipper: In "A Message from Charity", Peter Wood tells Charity Payne that he skipped two grades when he was younger.
* GrandTheftMe: In "Gramma", a young boy named Georgie has his body stolen by his monstrous bed-ridden witch-grandmother.
* TheGrimReaper:
** "Welcome to Winfield" has "agents of death", in particular Griffin St. George (dressed in all white) and Chin Du Long (the previous agent who St. George succeeded).
** 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.
* GripingAboutGremlins: In "Personal Demons", Rockne O'Bannon sees strange, hooded creatures all around him but can't convince his agent Brian, his friend Herman Gold or anyone else of their existence because they're InvisibleToNormals.
* TheGulag: In "Red Snow", KGB Colonel Ilyanov is sent to a gulag in Siberia to investigate the mysterious deaths of the local Communist Party secretary Vladimir Borisov and the first KGB investigator Major Yuri Andreev. As soon as Ilyanov arrives, he finds the conditions to be even worse than he imagined as it is wintertime and there is no sunlight from October to April. He later discovers that the townspeople have an arrangement with a group of vampires to protect them from danger and that it was the vampires who killed Borisov and Andreev.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:H]]
* HatesBeingAlone: In "A Saucer of Loneliness", Margaret is an extremely lonely middle-aged waitress who spent years dreaming about what it would like to be with a man. After so much time, however, she has given up hope that it will ever happen. She lives with her [[AlcoholicParent alcoholic mother]], who cruelly reminds her at every opportunity that she doesn't have a husband and probably never will. Margaret is so unhappy in her life that she often cries herself to sleep. One day while walking near the beach, a FlyingSaucer appears and communicates a message to her telepathically. She is harassed by the media and members of the public to reveal the contents of the message but she refuses to do so as it was private. Margaret eventually [[MessageInABottle places copies of the message in various bottles and throws them into the ocean]]. A man finds one of these bottles and, [[InterruptedSuicide after preventing her from committing suicide]], reveals that he knows that the message was from an alien being who was even lonelier than Margaret.
* HauntedTechnology:
** In "Her Pilgrim Soul", Nola Granville's (benevolent) spirit briefly possesses a hologram-projection system.
** In "Still Life", Daniel Arnold discovers a Kodak 100 camera in an antique trunk that he bought at an auction. After he develops the photos, he finds that they are of a ''Magazine/NationalGeographic'' expedition to the Amazon River basin in January 1913. Daniel's friend Professor Alex Stottel, the last surviving member of the expedition, tells him that they barely escaped with their lives as the Curacai tribe believed that creating an image of them stole their souls. It turns out that the Curacai were correct and that Daniel developing the photos released them. The Curacai attack Daniel and his wife Becky but he manages to trap their souls again by taking photos of them.
* HealingHands:
** In "Healer", this trope overlaps with HealingFactor. A small-time crook named Jackie Thompson steals a rare stone from a museum and is shot in the process. He soon discovers that it can heal any injury when his wound disappears. The next day, his neighbor Harry Faulk has a heart attack and dies but Jackie manages to heal him using the stone. Realizing that they can make a great deal of money, Jackie (calling himself "Brother John") becomes a FakeFaithHealer and televangelist with Harry as his manager. Jackie enjoys the experience of healing people, including a wheelchair bound girl named Amanda, but Harry is simply in it for the money. A Mexican man named Duende visits after a taping and warns Jackie that the stone, which his people loaned to the museum, is in the wrong hands. When a mob boss named Joseph Rubello for whom Jackie used to work asks Jackie to heal his rapidly spreading lung cancer, Jackie charges him $2 million. Rubello agrees but the stone fails to heal him. Jackie's attempt to heal a deaf boy is similarly unsuccessful. Duende then reveals that the stone only works when it is used selflessly. Immediately afterwards, Jackie's gunshot wound reappears. Harry refuses to use the stone to heal him as he wants all of the money for himself. The deaf boy finds Jackie dying in the alley and heals him. Having learned his lesson, Jackie returns the favor and heals the boy.
** In "A Saucer of Loneliness", Margaret is approached by a devoutly religious woman who believes that the FlyingSaucer that communicated a telepathic message to Margaret was sent by {{God}}. The woman is convinced that Margaret received the power to heal and begs her to heal her paralyzed son. Margaret barely manages to get away from her.
* HeatWave: In "The Burning Man", Kansas is experiencing its hottest July in 16 or 17 years in 1936.
* HenpeckedHusband:
** In "Button, Button", Norma Lewis constantly belittles her downtrodden husband Arthur at the simplest provocation and shows him no affection of any kind.
** In "The World Next Door", Barney Schlessinger's wife Katie is unsupportive of his love of making HomeMadeInventions in their basement. She continually criticizes him for wasting his time at something that is of no use to anyone.
%%* HereWeGoAgain: "A Day in Beaumont", "The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon", "The Hellgrammite Method", "Paladin of the Lost Hour"
* HeroicSacrifice:
** In "Profile in Silver", Professor Joseph Fitzgerald, a time traveler from 2172, allows himself to be assassinated on November 22, 1963 in place of his FamousAncestor UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy, whom he [[TimeTravelEscape sent to his own time to save his life]].
** In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Morgan le Fay engages in a magical battle with Myth/{{Merlin}}, knowing that he is far more powerful than her and that she has little prospect of victory. She does so in order to save Lancelot and Tom's lives and to prevent Merlin from taking over the world. Merlin manages to defeat her and she dies shortly afterwards.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter:
** Creator/WilliamShakespeare shows up in "Act Break".
** UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy plays an important role in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E20 Profile in Silver]]". UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jacqueline Kennedy and John Connally appear briefly. UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev does not appear on screen but he plays a significant off screen role.
** Music/ElvisPresley is used as a character in "The Once and Future King". The Sun Records producer Sam Phillips, his receptionist Marion Keisker and Elvis' backing musicians Scotty Moore and Bill Black also make brief appearances.
* HollywoodAtheist: {{Averted}} in "The Star", based on the story by Creator/ArthurCClarke, which has an atheist named Chandler who's friendly with a Jesuit priest, Matthew Costigan, and they seem to have frequent polite debates on God's existence. Both are scientists on a space ship which picks up a signal from an ancient civilization whose star had gone supernova thousands of years ago. Chandler questions how God could do this to an entire species. When Costigan discovers that the light of the supernova is what was seen as the StarOfBethlehem, Costigan has a {{crisis of faith}} at the idea these kind, peaceful aliens were sacrificed to herald Christ's birth. Chandler, however, apologizes for his prior criticism, seeing him distraught. He then shows Costigan a last message that the aliens left, saying not to mourn for them because they had lived full, rich, happy lives, a sentiment they both find uplifting. This is a kinder ending than the original story, in which the priest despairs at what he's learned, with no message from the aliens to save his faith.
* HollywoodOld: In "The Convict's Piano", the 62-year-old Norman Fell plays Eddie O'Hara, [[TheOldConvict an old convict]] who has been in prison for 58 years because he was [[FrameUp framed]] for murder when he was at least in his 20s.
* {{Hologram}}:
** In "Her Pilgrim Soul", Dr. Kevin Drayton and his assistant Daniel Gaddis have developed a holographic projector for Holotechnics, Inc. It has the ability to create objects such as a ball and a chessboard as well as a projection of UsefulNotes/TheSolarSystem. Nola Granville's soul enters the projector and creates a holographic image of her from a fetus to old age over the course of five days.
** In "Profile in Silver", Professor Joseph Fitzgerald intends to record the [[WhoShotJFK assassination]] of UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy on his holographic recorder, which is disguised as an ordinary 1963 movie camera. After seeing Lee Harvey Oswald taking aim in the Texas School Book Depository, however, he [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong shouts for JFK and his entourage to take cover and averts the assassination]]. The Secret Service agent Ray Livingston grows suspicious of Fitzgerald, believing him to be a Soviet sleeper agent, and has the camera analyzed by Department of Defense metallurgists. They discover that it is made from an unknown alloy which is harder than steel and impervious to X-Rays. When confronted, Fitzgerald admits that he is a time traveler from the future and shows JFK and Livingston a holographic recording of the Dallas motorcade to prove his story.
* HomemadeInventions: In "The World Next Door", Barney Schlessinger spends all of his free time in his basement building impractical inventions such as a wind-up mechanical orchid and a missile used to kill mice. The mouse missile worked as it should but it left small mouse parts everywhere.
* HopeSpot: In "Need to Know", Edward Sayers manages to [[spoiler: smash Amanda Strickland's radio so that she at least doesn't hear the AwfulTruth that's just been broadcast all over town, but then it turns out she's already had a couple of visitors drop by..]].
* 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.
* 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...]]
* HumanSacrifice:
** In "The Beacon", the people of Mellweather believe that a lighthouse called the Beacon chooses one of them to be sacrificed every year. If the chosen one does not die, [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident an "accident"]] is arranged to ensure that the Beacon is satisfied.
** In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Myth/{{Merlin}} compelled Lancelot to bring Tom to the cave in Cornwall so that he could restore his full powers by sacrificing Tom in the true Stonehenge, which exists in the land between the worlds.
* HumansArePsychicInTheFuture: "Quarantine" is set in a future where survivors of WorldWarIII have reverted to living in {{Arcadia}}, eschewing all mechanical technology, but having developed a wide range of psychic powers and OrganicTechnology.
* HuntingAccident: In "Opening Day", Joe Farrell reluctantly goes along with his lover Sally Wilkerson's plan to kill her husband Carl by making it look as he was killed while duck hunting. After Carl is killed, the police believe that it was simply an accident. Joe returns to what used to be the Wilkerson house to find that it is the previous day and that he is now Sally's husband. When Carl takes him on the same hunting trip, Joe becomes concerned that he is going to be killed and falls into the water. He refuses Carl's attempts to help him and dies.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:I]]
* IGaveMyWord: In "Dealer's Choice", Nick - who's actually the Devil - explains that he's come to claim one of the men's souls during their poker night. After they draw cards to determine who he'll take, he offers Pete, the loser, a chance to [[ChessWithDeath win back his soul]] with one last hand of poker. When Pete wins with some help from his friend Marty, the Devil, rather than lamenting or pulling some kind of trick, [[GracefulLoser accepts the loss]], leaves without a fight, and even rewards the men by conjuring up a massive feast (complete with a fridge packed with all kinds of beer) for them.
* IHaveManyNames: In "Ye Gods", Todd Ettinger does not recognize the name Bacchus until he looks it up in a book on Myth/ClassicalMythology and learns that he was the Roman god of wine, known to the Greeks as Dionysus. Todd soon discovers that he runs Olympus Wines in downtown UsefulNotes/LosAngeles.
* ImmoralJournalist: In "The Misfortune Cookie", the CausticCritic Harry Folger enjoys having restaurants shut down with his scathing reviews. He is shown to be an extremely unethical journalist when he begins writing a negative review of Mr. Lee's Chinese Cuisine before he visits it. He gives it the title "If you love your Pekingese, don't ask for a doggie bag." When he does later visit it, he orders a great deal of food but demands to be brought his check without touching any of it. His bad review of the restaurant is published in the next day's paper, causing Mr. Lee to lose many of his customers.
* InbredAndEvil: In "The Beacon", the inhabitants of the small town of Mellweather are all descended from a prominent citizen named Seth Janes who lived in the 18th Century. They believe that his spirit guides the Beacon, a lighthouse that seemingly chooses a HumanSacrifice every year, and that they must keep their bloodlines strong in order to serve him. After Dr. Dennis Barrows saves the intended victim, a little girl named Katie, he is killed by the townspeople in order to placate Seth.
* IncorruptiblePurePureness: How Nick is ultimately defeated in "Dealer's Choice": Marty, the NiceGuy of the friend group, touches the Tarot "Death" card that the Devil pulled during the fatal poker hand with Pete. Turns out that Marty's innocence and faith are [[GoodHurtsEvil anathema to evil]], and the spell on the card is broken, making Pete the winner.
* InertialImpalement: In "The Once and Future King", Gary Pitkin, an ElvisImpersonator, gets transported to July 3, 1954, where he meets the real Music/ElvisPresley. At first, Elvis thinks Gary is his stillborn brother Jesse, BackFromTheDead. However, when Gary begins coaching Elvis about his music, Elvis is reviled. The two men begin to fight, breaking a guitar at the neck. Then Elvis lunges at Gary; [[spoiler:Gary rolls aside, and Elvis impales himself fatally on the jagged guitar neck]].
* INeverToldYouMyName: In "The After Hours", Marsha Cole is surprised and confused when she is approached by a strange young boy in the toy shop Play's the Thing who knows her name and asks her to come back. His mother says that Marsha must have misheard him and that he actually said "ma'am." Marsha doesn't buy it. [[spoiler:She later learns that she, the boy and his mother are all mannequins from the department store Satler's.]]
* InnerCitySchool: In "Teacher's Aide", Miss Peters teaches English at an extremely tough inner city school where none of the students make even the slightest bit of effort and knife fights between rival gangs are common.
* InnerMonologue: In "Gramma", Georgie's inner monologue is heard throughout the episode.
* InsaneEqualsViolent: In "Need to Know", Mrs. Hotchkiss has gone insane after learning the meaning of life from her husband. When the government agent Edward Sayers is questioning her, she tries to attack him with the knife that she had been calmly using to cut a cake a moment earlier. Edward is stunned but manages to fight her off.
* InsectoidAliens: In "A Day in Beaumont", Dr. Kevin Carlson and Faith frantically try to warn the authorities that a race of insectoid aliens, whose FlyingSaucer they saw crash, are [[AlienInvasion planning to invade Earth]] in 1955. [[spoiler:Kevin and Faith later discover that [[TomatoInTheMirror they are members of this race themselves]] and that what they think is Earth is really Altair IV. H.G. Orson explains to them that they are taking part in a commando training simulation for their race's planned invasion of Earth and that they are experiencing memory loss]].
* {{Intangibility}}: In "Quarantine", Sarah has the ability to phase her hand through any solid object. She uses this power to remove Matthew Foreman's cancerous tissues after he is revived from [[HumanPopsicle cryo-stasis]].
* IntergenerationalFriendship: In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", there is a more than thirty year age gap between Gaspar and Billy Kinetta but they quickly become very close friends.
* InternalReformist: In "Red Snow", KGB Colonel Ilyanov has spent his entire adult life working within the Soviet system to try and save lives where he can. However, for every person that he saves from execution, two more are killed. Ilyanov eventually agrees to be [[VampireVannabe made a vampire]] so that he can create more and they can destroy the Soviet Union from the inside.
* InterruptedSuicide:
** In "Tooth and Consequences", the severely depressed dentist Dr. Myron Mandel is about to hang himself from the light fixture in his office when an attractive patient named Lydia Bixby enters looking for her lost hairbrush. Feeling as if he has nothing to lose, Myron asks Lydia out but she turns him down as she usually dates lawyers and pilots. After she leaves, Myron tries to hang himself again but the light fixture breaks. He falls into the arms of the ToothFairy.
** In "A Saucer of Loneliness", Margaret is extremely depressed as she is being continually harassed to reveal the contents of the message given to her by the FlyingSaucer so she tries to drown herself in the sea. However, she is stopped by a man who had been looking for her as he had found the [[MessageInABottle copy of the message that she placed in a bottle]].
* InvisibleJerkass: In "To See the Invisible Man", Mitchell Chaplin is punished by being given a mark on his forehead that means others have to ignore him and act as if he was not there. He initially does things like walking into a women's jacuzzi room, but then... see Irony below.
* InvisibleToNormals: In "Personal Demons", Rockne O'Bannon is the only person who can see the strange, hooded creatures that have been following him everywhere that he goes and destroyed his car and apartment.
* InvisibleWall: In "I of Newton", the demon creates an invisible wall so that Sam can't escape his classroom.
* IronicEcho:
** In "Dead Run", the Dispatcher tells Johnny Davis that he is applying "time honored [[Literature/TheBible Biblical]] standards" in condemning people to {{Hell}} for minor transgessions. After helping four such people escape to {{Heaven}}, Johnny recalls the story of UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} journeying to Hell between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection to give the damned another chance and explains that he is using his own time honored Biblical standards.
** In "Button, Button", Norma and Arthur Lewis, the couple offered the titular button, are told that if they press it, they'll receive a large sum of money, but someone they don't know will die. At the end of the episode, [[spoiler: they've pressed the button and gotten the money, and are told that the button will now be offered to someone else. They're assured that it will be "someone you don't know"]].
* IronicHell:
** In "Kentucky Rye", [[spoiler:a DrunkDriver named Bob Spindler, who was killed in an accident that he caused, is doomed to spend all eternity in the titular deserted bar as punishment for having killed another driver.]]
** In "The Misfortune Cookie", a [[CausticCritic cruel food critic]] named Harry Folger frequents a Chinese restaurant, Mr. Lee's Chinese Cuisine, whose fortunes turn out to come true. After receiving the fortune "You're Going To Die", he storms out and finds himself surrounded by Chinese restaurants, but perpetually hungry. Eventually, he receives another fortune: "You're Dead".
** In "Take My Life... Please!", a self-centered comedian named Billy Diamond who [[WouldHitAGirl beat a prostitute]], threw his mother out into the cold, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking knowingly stole material from a young, starving colleague]] winds up in a hell where he is forced to recount all the most horrible things he has ever done, to an audience that will only laugh at his flaws and crimes, not his act.
* {{Irony}}: In "To See The Invisible Man", Mitchell Chaplin is sentenced to a year of invisibility (where others are to shun him or face being shunned themselves) for the crime of 'coldness', yet he and others are forced to be 'cold' towards the 'invisibles'. [[spoiler: In the end he defies this and [[CryIntoChest comforts]] an 'invisible' woman with whom he had attempted to interact while under punishment.]]
* ItsAllAboutMe: In "To See The Invisible Man", Mitchell Chaplin sentenced to one year of invisibility. He manages to chat with a blind man named Bennett Gershe for a while, before Gershe is told that the stranger talking to him is 'invisible' and he shouldn't be talking to him or even acknowledging his presence. When alerted to this, Gershe mutters "Damn you!"
* ItWillNeverCatchOn: In "The World Next Door", the Barney Schlessinger of the RetroUniverse has invented a super fuel called Trimbeline 3 that allows the automobile to obtain speeds of 60 miles per hour with a fuel efficiency rating of 100 miles per gallon. A newspaper article is skeptical of Barney's claims that his Trimbeline powered automobiles will replace horse-drawn carriages within a few years.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:J]]
* {{Jerkass}}: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet Shatterday]]", Peter Jay Novins is a very unpleasant person. While visiting his extremely ill mother in Miami, he told her that he had to return to New York City earlier than he actually had to because he could not stand being around her any longer. He convinced a woman named Patty to leave her husband, set her and her son up in an apartment and abandoned her as soon as he became bored with her. Novins also mistreated his current girlfriend Jamie but it is not specified how. He works for a PR firm and took the Cumberland account, knowing full well that the company would destroy a small town with its unsafe environmental practises. His alter ego, who describes him as having the ethics of a weasel, [[TookALevelInKindness is a far better person]] and sets about making amends for everything that the original Novins has done.
* JerkassHasAPoint: "Cat and Mouse" has Elaine who may take advantage of Adrea's [[ShrinkingViolet timid]] personality at times, but even she makes a point early in the episode that Andrea shouldn't duck out on dating decent men like her co-worker Carl, just because they may not meet up to her romantic standards.
* JerkToNiceGuyPlot: In "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", the title character David Wong is rude, obnoxious, self-centered and condescending. He is completely disinterested when Mrs. Whitford tells that she is in search of lost time. When the mice that she believes represent this lost time scatter, she breaks down in tears on the floor. David is entirely unsympathetic and makes no effort to help her. He similarly mistreats an elderly man who wants to regain his children's respect. When Melinda confronts him about his callous behavior, he admits that he is looking for his compassion, which he gradually lost because of the racism that he and other Asian-Americans have to suffer on a daily basis. After David helps her to find her sense of humor, Melinda is able to locate his compassion as well as his integrity and the details of his happiest childhood memory, a family picnic. David [[JerkassRealization realizes all of the mistakes that he has made]] and decides to take over the management of the Lost and Found Emporium with Melinda's help. The two of them then help Mrs. Whitford and the elderly man find what they are looking over.
* JungleJapes: "Cold Reading" features these coming to life inside a radio broadcast studio, including a native [[JungleDrums beating on a drum]].
* JustOneSecondOutOfSync: A variation in "A Matter of Minutes". On April 27, 1986, Michael and Maureen Wright are awakened by the sounds of construction. Their alarm clock says that it is 11:37am but Michael's watch reads 7:05am. They hear what they assume to be burglers downstairs but find that [[TheBlank faceless workers]] are replacing all of the furniture and belongings with identical copies. Shortly afterwards, they are discovered by these workers' supervisor. He explains to them that every minute is its own separate world that must be constructed and then demolished once it has passed. Michael and Maureen have accidentally stumbled into 11:37am, which is still under construction.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:K-L]]
* KarmicJackpot: In "But Can She Type?", the underappreciated and overworked secretary Karen Billings is accidentally transported to an AlternateUniverse in which being a secretary is considered incredibly glamorous.
* KillSat: In "Quarantine", Matthew Foreman designed a series of particle beam satellites for the American government before he entered [[HumanPopsicle suspended animation]] in 2023. Sarah and the other members of the {{Commune}} ask him to use one of the surviving satellites to destroy a meteor that is rapidly approaching Earth. However, it turns out that they are deceiving him using their [[HumansArePsychicInTheFuture psychic powers]]. They actually want him to destroy [[TheArk an American spacecraft containing 1,000 politicians and military figures]] for whom only five or ten years have passed since the [[WorldWarIII nuclear war]] of 2043 because of TimeDilation.
* KlaatuBaradaNikto: In "Chameleon", Gerald Tyson quotes the line during a discussion about ''Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951'' with Crew Chief Brady Simmons.
* LadyOfBlackMagic: {{Subverted|Trope}} in "The Last Defender of Camelot". Lancelot believes that Morgan le Fay is a wicked sorceress but she tells him that her evil reputation has been greatly exaggerated. She claims that, between Myth/{{Merlin}} and [[Literature/LeMorteDarthur Thomas Malory]], she got some very bad press. Morgan proves herself to be honorable when she fights Merlin in order to protect Lancelot and Tom from his magic. She is mortally wounded in the process and, shortly before she dies, jokes that she hopes to finally get some good press out of it.
* LanguageBarrier: In "Wordplay", Bill Lowery discovers that the English language has changed overnight when he starts hearing wrong words in other people's speech. The number of wrong words increases until all the man can hear is them. The episode ends with him starting to learn the "wrong word" version of English so he can understand everyone else.
* LaserGuidedKarma:
** In "The Shadow Man", Danny Hayes does nothing to stop the Shadow Man from attacking innocent people as he is reveling in the popularity that his supposed bravery has earned him. [[spoiler:When he challenges Eric to a fight in [=MacGyver=] Park, he is attacked by the Shadow Man from under someone else's bed.]]
** In "Opening Day", Joe Farrell arranges for Carl Wilkerson to die in a HuntingAccident so that he and Carl's wife Sally can be together. He then finds that he and Carl have changed places and fears that Carl now plans to kill him in the same way. When they go duck hunting, Joe falls into the water and dies after refusing Carl's genuine efforts to save him.
* TheLastTitle: "The Last Defender of Camelot".
* LatexPerfection: {{Parodied|Trope}} in "A Day in Beaumont". The InsectoidAliens are able to [[HumanDisguise perfectly disguise themselves as humans]] using rubber face masks.
* LaughingMad: In "Need to Know", Jack Henries begins to laugh hysterically when Wiley Whitlow tells him the meaning of life, which causes insanity in anyone who hears it. Jack then breaks into tears just as quickly as he started to laugh.
* LegacyCharacter: In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", Gaspar tells Billy Kinetta that when Pope Gregory XIII adopted the Gregorian calendar and advanced time by eleven days in 1582, he miscalculated by one hour. The lost hour slipped free and bounced through eternity. Gaspar is the latest paladin of the lost hour in a line going back 400 years. If he dies without passing on his watch, [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the entire universe will be engulfed in darkness]]. In order to prevent this from happening, Gaspar passes on the watch to Billy, whom he has come to trust implicitly in the time that they have known each other.
* {{Leprechaun}}:
** In "The Little People of Killany Woods", Liam O'Shaughnessy initially mistakes the LittleGreenMen who have landed in Killany Woods to repair their ship for the Little People.
** In "The Leprechaun-Artist", a Leprechaun named Shawn [=McGool=] is taking a vacation in the United States when he is spotted by Buddy, J.P. and Richie. After they capture him, he has to grant them ThreeWishes.
* ALessonLearnedTooWell: In "To See the Invisible Man", the state sentences Mitchell Chaplin to a year of invisibility for the crime of coldness because he is not emotionally open with his family or co-workers. Mitchell initially relishes the opportunity to do anything that he wants with no repercussions as [[SilentTreatment everyone must ignore him or face the same punishment themselves]]. However, the incredible loneliness eventually gets to him and he longs for ordinary human interaction. Six months into his sentence, he begs an invisible woman to talk to him but she refuses as she does not want her own sentence to be increased. Four months after his punishment has ended, the same woman approaches Mitchell and pleads with him to acknowledge her existence and ease her suffering. While Mitchell is initially reluctant, he soon hugs the woman and assures her that she is not invisible and that he cares about her. His own experience of invisibility taught him how difficult it is and led him to comfort another person in pain instead of ignoring her.
* LieToTheBeholder: In "What Are Friends For?", an EnergyBeing appears to Alex Mattingly and his son Jeff, thirty or so years apart, in the form of a young boy named Mike. Alex always thought that Mike was simply his ImaginaryFriend but learns that he was [[NotSoImaginaryFriend not so imaginary]] after all when he sees him again as an adult. Mike tells Alex that he got the image that he is using from Alex's mind when he was a child.
* LighterAndSofter: "The Star", an adaptation of the short story of the same title by Creator/ArthurCClarke. The ending in the original had a priest in despair after finding out how an advanced and peaceful civilization perished, but the adaptation reverses the originally nihilist ending when Dr. Chandler shows [[NamedByTheAdaptation Father Matthew Costigan]] a poem that this civilization should not be grieved for, as they were peaceful and joyful, but to grieve for those still in the dark.
* LighthousePoint: The titular object in "The Beacon". Another episode concerned a lighthouse that was sort of a waypoint on the afterlife, where the newly dead arrived before being sent on their way.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle:
** "Her Pilgrim Soul" is a reference to a line from the poem "When You Are Old" by Creator/WilliamButlerYeats. Dr. Kevin Drayton reads the relevant passage from the poem to Nola Granville as they are both fans of Yeats' work. Another quotation from "When You Are Old" is included in the closing narration.
** "The Once and Future King" is a reference to the [[Literature/TheOnceAndFutureKing Arthurian novel]] by Creator/THWhite.
** "The Road Less Traveled" refers to a line from the poem "The Road Not Taken" by Creator/RobertFrost.
* LittleGreenMen:
** In "The Little People of Killany Woods", Liam O'Shaughnessy sees several three foot tall green aliens in Killany Woods. Their size and color, as well as their toadstool-shaped ship, causes him to [[TotallyNotAWerewolf mistake them]] for {{Leprechaun}}s but he eventually learns the truth.
** {{Discussed|Trope}} in "A Saucer of Loneliness". Margaret's mother tells her that their neighbors have been looking at them strangely since Margaret's contact with the FlyingSaucer and that they probably think that she is a traitor who is conspiring with little green men.
* TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday: In "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", the titular shop is magical and the entrance changes location. Some people stumble on it while others have to commit years of diligent effort to track it down. David Wong finds it in the backroom of a porn shop in UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco after three years of searching, Mrs. Whitford finds it in Fort Lauderdale and an elderly man simply found himself there after a doctor's appointment. The emporium contains lost hopes, dreams, chances and attributes that people seek to regain. David Wong is searching for his compassion, Melinda for her sense of humor, Mrs. Whitford for lost time and the elderly man for the respect of his children. Each lost attribute appears in a glowing ball, which everyone except the intended recipient can see, and takes the form of a physical object or animal. The recipients must follow the instructions on the label to benefit from it.
* LittlestCancerPatient: In "Grace Note", Mary Miletti, who is in her early teens, is dying of leukemia but she is resigned to her fate. She is more concerned about her elder sister Rosemarie achieving her dream of becoming an opera star than her own impending death. When she sees a shooting star, she [[WishUponAShootingStar selflessly wishes]] for Rosemarie to see the success that she will become in the future.
* LivingShadow: In "The Shadow Man", the titular entity is a living shadow that lives under Danny Hayes' bed. It has no features of any kind and resembles the silhouette of a man in a hat and trenchcoat.
* LockedInARoom: In "Ye Gods", Todd Ettinger uses a spell provided by Bacchus to trap Cupid and Megaera in his office so that they can reconcile. They eventually manage to do so and get back together.
* LongLived:
** In "A Small Talent for War", the alien ambassador's race live for at least several hundred years.
** In "The Storyteller", Micah Frost admits to his teacher Dorothy Livingston that his family have managed to keep his 141-year-old great-great-great-grandfather alive for so long by reading him part of a story every night but not finishing it until the next night. For generations, the Frosts have believed that the only thing keeping him alive is the anticipation. Dorothy is extremely skeptical and questions whether it is right to keep someone alive past their natural time. After Micah falls from a tree and breaks his arm, he has to spend the night with the local doctor and his wife. He is concerned that the old man will die without his nightly story. Although Dorothy is not convinced, she reads him the rest of the previous night's story and begins another one as she does not want to risk the old man dying. [[spoiler:In the final scene, the elderly Dorothy is telling her mother the story of an apparent sighting of the adult Micah in 1986 but she does not finish it in order to keep her mother alive for one more night.]]
* LotusEaterMachine: In "Dreams for Sale", the workers in a future world are connected to a Dreamatron which creates a fully interactive dream for them, depicting idyllic or exciting worlds, when they are not on shift. Options include Country Picnic (experienced by Jenny), Jail Break and Caribbean Cruise.
* LouisCypher: In "Dealer's Choice" a group of friends find themselves playing poker with a stranger named "Nick", who keeps getting three sixes in every hand he is dealt...
* LoveTriangle:
** In "The Shadow Man", Danny Hayes has a crush on Lianna Ames, the most popular girl at Willow Creek Junior High School. However, she is dating Eric, a member of the swim team who frequently bullies Danny.
** In "Opening Day", Sally Wilkerson, who is married to Carl, is having an affair with their golf instructor Joe Farrell. During a duck hunt, she has Joe arrange for Carl to be killed in a HuntingAccident so that the two of them can be together. When Joe does so, he finds that he and Carl have swapped places. He is now Sally's husband while Carl is her lover, whom he thinks is trying to kill him.
** In "Her Pilgrim Soul", Dr. Kevin Drayton, whose marriage to Carol is failing, falls in love with Nola Granville, whose soul occupies the holographic projector that he created. [[spoiler:It turns out that Kevin is the {{Reincarnation}} of Nola's husband Robert Goldstone and that Nola appeared to Kevin in order to provide closure for the grief that Robert suffered when she [[DeathByChildbirth died in childbirth]].]]
** In "The Convict's Piano", Mickey Shaughnessy and Eddie O'Hara were both in love with Ellen in 1928. In order to remove his romantic rival, Mickey had Eddie [[FrameUp framed]] for murder and he received a life sentence.
* LuddWasRight: In "Quarantine", 80% of Earth's population were killed in the [[WorldWarIII nuclear war]] of 2043 and the survivors made the decision to rid themselves of all forms of advanced machinery out of fear that it would happen again. However, they still use genetic engineering in order to achieve BioAugmentation.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:M]]
* TheMafia: In "Healer", Jackie Thompson worked for a mob boss named Joseph Rubello in the 1970s. After he botched a delivery, two of Rubello's thugs beat Jackie so severely that he ended up in hospital.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: In "Dead Woman's Shoes", Kyle Montgomery murdered his wife Susan by pushing her off a balcony. He later told the police that it was an accident and she fell to her death because she was drunk.
* MarkOfTheBeast: In "A Message from Charity", Squire Jonas Hacker tells Charity Payne to strip so that he can search her body for the Devil's mark. She immediately realizes that Hacker [[AttemptedRape intends to rape her]] as Faith Tanner was extremely upset when he subjected her to the same search the previous year.
* MasterOfIllusion: In "What Are Friends For?", Jeff Mattingly's NotSoImaginaryFriend Mike is able to conjure up images of horses and race cars for them to play with. Jeff wonders how this is possible but Mike tells him that he can't tell anyone about it or they won't be able to play together anymore.
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: In "The Beacon", it is never made clear whether the Beacon is truly controlled by the spirit of Seth Janes as the people of Mellweather believe or whether it is simply an old lighthouse with a faulty mechanism as suggested by Dr. Dennis Barrows.
* MeaningfulName:
** {{Lampshaded|Trope}} in "Paladin of the Lost Hour". Gaspar tells Billy Kinetta that he shares his name with one of TheThreeWiseMen, the magi who saw the StarOfBethlehem and visited the newborn UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}}. He adds that Gaspar means master of the treasure, keeper of the secrets, paladin of the palace. Gaspar later explains that he is the latest in a long line of guardians of the lost hour going back to Pope Gregory XIII's adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1582.
** In "Dealer's Choice", the Devil [[LouisCypher uses the name "Nick"]] when he plays poker with Pete, Jake, Tony and Marty. Old Nick is a common nickname for the Devil.
** InUniverse in "Cold Reading". The brave, stalwart and honorable title character of the UBS radio series ''Dick Noble, African Explorer''.
* MeaningfulRename: In "Healer", the small-time crook Jackie Thompson begins calling himself "Brother John" after setting himself up as a FakeFaithHealer using the healing stone that he stole from a museum. After he realizes that it is wrong to use the stone for a selfish purpose, he begins calling himself simply John.
* MechaMooks: In "To See the Invisible Man", floating security bots monitor Mitchell Chaplin and other invisible people to ensure that no one violates Citizen's Law 24824 and interacts with them.
* MeetCute: In "Ye Gods", Todd Ettinger and the woman with whom Cupid makes him fall in love first meet when they bump into each other at the reception of an outdoor café. At the end of the episode, they meet again when the woman crashes her car into Todd's. Having realized that they are meant to be together, they kiss in the middle of the street.
* MegaNeko: In "The Elevator", Roger and Will find a dead house cat that grew as large as a lion or tiger after eating the super food created by their father to solve world hunger. They are concerned because it was clearly killed by something larger, which turns out to be a GiantSpider.
* MessageInABottle: In "A Saucer of Loneliness", the small eponymous saucer arrives on Earth and passes on its message to an extremely lonely woman named Margaret, who refuses to divulge its contents to anyone. However, she does make several copies of the message and puts them in bottles that she throws into the ocean. A man finds one of them and [[InterruptedSuicide stops her from killing herself]]. He then reveals that he knows what the message said:
--->"There is, in certain living souls, a loneliness unspeakable, so great it must be shared as company is shared by lesser beings. Such a loneliness is mine. And know by this that an immensity is one lonelier than you."
* MindVirus: In "Need to Know", the government agent Edward Sayers is sent to the small town of Loma Valley, Washington to investigate a mysterious outbreak of insanity. With the help of a local woman named Amanda Strickland, he determines that the insanity is spread from person to person like a contagion. He manages to track the contagion to its source: Professor Jeffrey Potts, who has recently returned from UsefulNotes/{{Asia}}. While there, Potts learned the meaning of life. He told his brother Andrew, who was unable to keep it to himself. The meaning of life is seemingly an AwfulTruth which causes anyone who learns it to immediately go insane.
* MinimalistCast:
** Sherman Hemsley and Ron Glass are the only actors to appear in "I of Newton".
** Stephen Geoffreys, Robert Prescott, Brandon Bluhm and Douglas Emerson are the only actors to appear in "The Elevator". The latter two only appear very briefly in one scene.
** Barret Oliver, Darlanne Fluegel and Frederick Long are the only actors to appear on screen in "Gramma". For the majority of the running time, Oliver is by himself.
** Mare Winningham, Brad Davis and Basil Hoffman are the only actors to appear in "Button, Button".
** Lisa Eilbacher, Antony Hamilton and Kip Gilman are the only credited actors to appear in "Nightsong".
** Akosua Busia, Cindy Harrell, Leslie Ackerman and Raye Birk are the only actors to appear in "Lost and Found".
* TheMirrorShowsYourTrueSelf: In "Dead Man's Shoes", while possessing Maddie Duncan's body, Susan Montgomery sees her own reflection in the mirror instead of Maddie's.
* MirrorUniverse: "The World Next Door" is a rare example where the universe in question is not particularly evil, just different. The protagonist [[spoiler:ends up permanently switching places with his alternate, to their mutual happiness]].
* MiscarriageOfJustice: In "The Convict's Piano", Ricky Frost was wrongfully convicted of the murder of his ex-girlfriend because her body was found in a car that had been stolen from him.
* MisfortuneCookie: In "The Misfortune Cookie", the CausticCritic Harry Folger begins receiving [[PropheciesAreAlwaysRight fortune cookies with extremely accurate predictions]] when he visits Mr. Lee's Chinese Cuisine. They are initially favorable but turn darker as time goes on. The first says "A grand reward awaits you just around the corner." As he is leaving the restaurant, a bank robber who has just stolen $100,000 in diamonds runs into him, allowing the police to catch him. The bank manager gives him $1,000 as a reward. The second fortune cookie says "April arrives today bringing romance." Harry dismisses its prediction as it is September. He later meets a woman who asks him for directions. When they arrange a date, she tells him that her name is April Hamilton. On his third visit to the restaurant, Harry's fortune cookie says "You're going to die." He is furious and storms out but immediately experiences severe hunger. He eats at restaurant after restaurant but his hunger is insatiable. He then receives a fourth and final cookie which says "You're dead," revealing that he is trapped in an IronicHell.
* MisterSandmanSequence: In "The Convict's Piano", there is one whenever Ricky Frost travels back in time after playing a song from that era on the piano that he found in prison:
** When he plays "Maple Leaf Rag" by Scott Joplin, he finds himself at a bandstand in a park during the middle of a celebration in 1899. The men are wearing flat straw boaters and three-piece suits with matching waistcoats while the women have the Gibson Girl-style bouffant hairdoes and [[GorgeousPeriodDress gorgeous dresses]] typical of TheGayNineties.
** When he plays "Over There" by George M. Cohan, he arrives in the Shamrock Club in 1917. The clientele largely consists of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI-era doughboys who are getting ready to ship out to fight in Europe. Most of the women present having bob cuts or their hair in ringlet curls.
** When he plays "Something to Watch Over Me" by Music/GeorgeGershwin, he arrives at a private party in UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} in 1928. It is being held by the gangster Mickey Shaughnessy and the guests are all drinking illegal alcohol. Like every other women at the party, Shaughnessy's girlfriend Ellen is a [[TheFlapper flapper]]. Shaughnessy asks Ricky to play "S' Wonderful", the most popular song of 1928 which was also by Gershwin.
* MonochromeApparition: In "Devil's Alphabet", the ghosts of the deceased members of the Devil's Alphabet Society are entirely green.
* MortonsFork: At the end of "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet A Little Peace and Quiet]]", Penny freezes time just before a massive nuclear missile can hit her hometown. She's faced with a horrible choice that we never get to see her make: keep everyone, including her own family, frozen forever, preventing their deaths but leaving herself the only conscious, active person in an unmoving world, or unfreeze time, killing herself, everyone around her, and, by implication, the entire planet via mutually assured destruction.
* MundaneAfterlife: In "Dead Run", the center of {{Hell}} is a dark, violent industrial complex. It is surrounded by the Outer Circles, which are indistinguishable from ordinary countryside.
* MurderousMannequin: In "The After Hours", Marsha Cole is stalked by mannequins in an after-hours department store.
* MyFutureSelfAndMe:
** In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", Gus Rosenthal is transported back in time to the 1940s and befriends his past self. The young Gus never finds out that Harry Rosenthal, a writer from UsefulNotes/LosAngeles conducting research for a new story, is himself from the future. However, he comes to view him as a surrogate father who, unlike his actual father Lou, plays with him and reads him stories. The young Gus is very upset when "Mr. Rosenthal" tells him that he has to leave as it makes him feel unloved and abandoned. He tells his future self that he will be successful one day and will spit in his face and beat him up. [[spoiler:When the boy runs away, the older Gus remembers that he made his vow to become successful after [[StableTimeLoop Mr. Rosenthal left and never came back]].]]
** In "Grace Note", Rosemarie Miletti, who is from March 1966, is sent 20 years into the future and learns that her dream of becoming an opera star will come true as her future self is performing ''La Traviata'' in the Lincoln Center. Rosemarie does not interact with her older self and [[InvisibleToNormals can't be seen by either her or her younger sister Dorothy]] when she enters her dressing room. However, the older Rosemarie seems to be able to sense her younger self's presence, [[StableTimeLoop possibly because she remembers being her]].
* MyGrandsonMyself: In "Red Snow", the Communist Party secretary Ivan Povin tries to convince KGB Colonel Ilyanov that Valentina Orlova, who appears to be in her 30s, is the daughter of the woman of the same name who was exiled to the [[TheGulag Siberian gulag]] in 1936. However, Ilyanov does not believe him as they are absolutely identical. He discovers that she is a vampire when he finds her feeding on a wolf in the forest that night.
* MythologyGag:
** In "Wish Bank", Mr. Brent's superior at the Department of Magical Venues is [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E30AStopAtWilloughby Mr. Willoughby]]. He wants to talk to Brent about the [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E24LongLiveWalterJameson Jameson account]].
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E20 Profile in Silver]]", the time traveler Professor Joseph Fitzgerald prevents the assassination of UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy. Several hours later, the announcement "We will now return to our regular programming" is heard on Creator/{{CBS}}, followed by the theme of ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959''. "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E139NightCall Night Call]]" was originally intended to air on November 22, 1963 but the coverage of the assassination resulted in it being rescheduled. It eventually aired on February 7, 1964.
** In "A Day in Beaumont", Dr. Kevin Carlson reports that the FlyingSaucer crashed near [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E30AStopAtWilloughby Willoughby]]. There is also a sign in Pop's diner that reads "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E89ToServeMan It's been a pleasure...serving you]]."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:N]]
* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: In "The Star", the survey ship ''Magellan'' is named after the 16th Century explorer Ferdinand Magellan.
* NamedByTheAdaptation:
** In "Examination Day", Dickie Jordan's parents are named Richard, Sr. and Ruth. In the short story by Henry Slesar, their first names are not given.
** In "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", the young woman whom David Wong meets in the emporium is named Melinda, [[AllThereInTheManual at least in the script]]. In the short story by William F. Wu, she is not named.
** In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", Gus Rosenthal's parents' names are Lou and Sarita. In the short story by Creator/HarlanEllison, their first names are not revealed.
** In "The Star", the protagonist's name is Father Matthew Costigan. He is unnamed in the short story by Creator/ArthurCClarke.
** In "To See the Invisible Man", the names of the man sentenced to a year of invisibility and the blind man who briefly talks to him are Mitchell Chaplin and Bennett Gershe respectively. In the short story by Creator/RobertSilverberg, their names are not given.
** In "Dead Run", the protagonist is named Johnny Davis. His surname is not given in the short story by Greg Bear.
** In "A Saucer of Loneliness", the protagonist's name is Margaret. She is not named in the short story by Creator/TheodoreSturgeon.
* NapoleonDelusion: In "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", David Wong tells Mrs. Whitford that he met twelve people who claimed to be the Second Coming of UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} and one who claimed to the reincarnation of the High Priest of Lemuria during his three year search for the Lost and Found Emporium.
* NestedStory: In "The Storyteller", the elderly Dorothy Livingston sees a man with a [[DistinguishingMark prominent scar on his right cheek]] while visiting her niece Heather in 1986. She tells Heather that she believes this man to be Micah Frost, whom she taught at the beginning of her long career in 1933. Micah claimed that he was able to keep his 141-year-old great-great-great-grandfather alive by telling him serialized stories every night. After following the adult Micah to a hotel room, Dorothy opens the door to see if the old man is still alive at almost 200. [[spoiler:It turns out that this is a story that Dorothy is recounting for her mother, whom she has managed to keep alive in the same way. As such, it is not clear whether Dorothy's encounter with the adult Micah really happened or whether is something that she made up for her mother's benefit.]]
* NeverSuicide: In "Red Snow", KGB Colonel Ilyanov does not believe that Major Yuri Andreev, the previous investigator sent to the [[TheGulag Siberian gulag]], cut his own throat as is generally believed. When he examines Andreev's frozen body, he immediately notices that there is no blood on the wound, indicating that the cut was made after his death. He later learns that Andreev was killed by vampires.
* NeverTheSelvesShallMeet: {{Discussed|Trope}} in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet Shatterday]]". When Peter Jay Novins threatens to go to his apartment and fight his alter ego, the alter ego speculates that this would be a very bad idea as each of them could be destroyed in the process. He cites the theory that only one of each thing can exist in the same place at the same time. This proves not to be the case when the two of them come face to face in the final scene. [[spoiler:It is implied that the alter ego knew this already.]]
* NewspaperDating:
** In "Grace Note", after being transported through time, Rosemarie Miletti picks up a copy of ''The New York Herald'' and learns that it is March 22, 1986, 20 years in her future.
** In "The Once and Future King", Gary Pitkin realizes that he has gone back in time and is talking to the real Music/ElvisPresley when he finds a copy of ''The Commercial Appeal'' dated Monday July 3, 1954 with a prominent photo of UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower on the front page.
* NiceCharacterMeanActor: In "Take My Life... Please!", Billy Diamond presents himself as "America's hottest comic" and has audiences "all over the world" going gaga over his acts. In reality, he is an abusive drunk who knowingly and willfully steals the material of struggling comedians (one of whom actually had him at gunpoint)... which becomes the core of his IronicHell.
* NiceShoes: In "Dead Woman's Shoes", Susan Montgomery wore an expensive pair of black high heels before she was murdered by her husband Kyle. When Maddie Duncan puts them on, Susan's personality takes control of her body. [[spoiler:At the end of the episode, the same thing happens to a maid who finds the discarded shoes in the trash. Picking up the gun that Maddie had also discarded, Susan (in the maid's body) enters the Montgomery house and shoots Kyle.]]
* NoEnding: In "The Storyteller", Dorothy Livingston and her niece Heather follow a man believed to be Micah Front, whom she taught in 1933, to a hotel room in order to determine if he has managed to keep his great-great-great-grandfather alive by telling him stories and not finishing them until the next night. If he has done so, the old man would be almost 200 years old in 1986. [[spoiler:As Dorothy is about to open the door, it is revealed that it is part of a story that she is telling her mother. The episode ends with Dorothy saying that she will have to wait until the next night to hear the resolution.]]
* NoNameGiven:
** In "Ye Gods", the woman with whom Todd Ettinger falls in love after being struck by Cupid's arrow (four times) is never named.
** In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", the Marine who was killed saving Billy Kinetta from a Viet Cong ambush during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar is never named.
** In "The Burning Man", neither the disheveled man who rants about evil nor the [[CreepyChild strange boy in the white suit]] are named.
** In "A Small Talent for War", Mr. Fraser, the US ambassador to the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations, is the only character given a name.
** In "Gramma", the title character is never named.
** In "A Saucer of Loneliness", the man on the beach who [[InterruptedSuicide stops Margaret from committing suicide]] is not named.
* NoPartyLikeADonnerParty: In "Devil's Alphabet", Deaver is the first member of the Devil's Alphabet Society to die when he [[DrivenToSuicide shoots himself]] in October 1896. On November 2, 1897, Andrew hangs himself but [[PsychicAssistedSuicide may have been compelled to do so]]. That night, his ghost attends the meeting of the society and frightens Grant so much that he also hangs himself. After the meeting, the horse pulling Brian and Eli's carriage goes out of control. The carriage then spontaneously catches fire and crashes, killing them both. The next year, Cornelius commits suicide by shooting himself. This leaves Frederick as the [[SoleSurvivor last surviving member]] of the Devil's Alphabet Society. Seeking to bring an end to his deceased friends' torment and spare himself the same fate, Frederick proposes that the society be dissolved and [[DutyThatTranscendsDeath their agreement to meet every year irrespective of death]] be rescinded. The others agree, though reluctantly in Grant's case.
* NotSoImaginaryFriend: In "What Are Friends For?", a young boy named Jeff Mattingly meets another boy named Mike in the woods, who turns out to be [[spoiler:an immortal being of light]].
* NumberOfTheBeast:
** In "Dealer's Choice", Pete, Jake and Tony find it odd that Nick, who is filling in for their regular player Norman, always gets three sixes in every hand of poker. They come to the conclusion that he is the Devil. Later when Nick agrees to [[ChessWithDeath play one hand for Pete's immortal soul]], he puts up $18, which Jake points out is 6 + 6 + 6. Peter insists that he instead put up $19.
** In "Take My Life...Please!", Billy Diamond is told by Max, his new agent in {{Hell}}, that he can get (almost) anything that he wants by dialing 666 on the phone in his hotel suite.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:O]]
* OhCrap: As noted above under FromBadToWorse, in "Cold Reading", when it's pointed out to the old-time radio-show director what kind of things are still coming in the jungle-adventure script that his unintentional magic wish has brought to life. And then again at the very end, he combines it with a BigNo, when he belatedly realizes what [[AlienInvasion kind of story]] the announcer is plugging for next week's show.
* OddFriendship:
** In "The Star", Father Matthew Costigan, a Jesuit priest and an astrophysicist, is close friends with Dr. Chandler, an atheist physician and one of his shipmates aboard the survey ship ''Magellan''. They frequently have polite discussions about whether {{God}} is responsible for the beauty of the universe or whether it is merely random.
** In "Monsters!", a young monster movie fan named Toby Michaels becomes friends with a 158-year-old vampire named Emile Francis Bendictson, who has just moved next door.
* {{Oireland}}: In "The Little People of Killany Woods", Liam O'Shaughnessy is a lazy, shiftless Irishman with a well-deserved reputation for telling [[TallTale tall tales]], which he invariably does at the pub Kelly's. The mean-spirited and boorish Mike Mulvaney, another heavy drinker, is angered by Liam's stories of having seen {{Leprechaun}}s in Killany Woods - which turn out to be [[LittleGreenMen aliens]] - and [[FightingIrish throws him out of the pub head first]].
* TheOldConvict: In "The Convict's Piano", Eddie O'Hara was [[FrameUp framed]] for murder by the gangster Mickey Shaughnessy in 1928. When Ricky Frost meets him in 1986, he has been in prison for 58 years.
* OlderThanTheyLook:
** In "Red Snow", KGB Colonel Ilyanov meets a young woman named Valentina Orlova soon after arriving in the [[TheGulag Siberian gulag]]. When he consults her file, he discovers that she was exiled there by UsefulNotes/JosefStalin in 1936. He later learns that she is a vampire and is in her 80s even though she looks 50 years younger.
** In "Aqua Vita", Christie Copperfield's friend and co-worker Shauna Allen appears to be in her mid to late 20s but she is actually 46. She tells Christie that she drinks a brand of bottled water called Aqua Vita which makes anyone who drinks it look much younger than their actual age. When Christie orders some for herself, she is surprised when the 30-ish delivery man calls her "missy" and quickly realizes that he is much younger than he looks. However, when she asks him for his true age, he advises her not to ask that question. After Christie has been using Aqua Vita for several days, she discovers that it has a side effect that Shauna didn't mention: you must keep drinking it or [[RapidAging you age rapidly in appearance]].
* TheOmnipotent: In "I of Newton", the demon boasts about the seemingly limitless scope of his powers. He can travel to the Andromeda galaxy and back in a microsecond, make two electrons occupy the same quantum state, has access to every piece of recorded information in multiple universes and can visit [[AlternateHistory alternate histories]]. Sam manages to defeat him by setting him an impossible task: [[spoiler:he tells him to get lost.]]
* OneWordTitle: "Shatterday", "Wordplay", "Chameleon", "Healer", "Monsters!", "Quarantine", "Gramma", "Nightsong" and "Memories".
* OnlyFriend: In "The Shadow Man", Peter is Danny Hayes' only friend. The other students at Willow Creek Junior High School bully him or ignore him, at least until they learn of his apparent bravery in going out after dark when the Shadow Man is on the prowl.
* OntologicalMystery: "A Matter of Minutes" opens with a couple, Michael and Maureen Wright, waking up to the sound of blue blank-faced workers loading stuff into their house, along with every other house in the neighborhood. This winds up being a short mystery, however, since after they wind up stumbling across a BlankWhiteVoid, they meet a man dressed in orange who explains that they are essentially backstage time itself, seeing one particular minute being made. And now, he doesn't want them to leave...
* OpeningShoutOut: An image of Creator/RodSerling is featured in the opening credits.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent:
** In "Monsters!", the vampire Emile Francis Bendictson explains to Toby Michaels that most of what he has learned about [[YourVampiresSuck vampires from the monster movies that he loves so much is incorrect]]. Becoming a vampire is more like contracting a disease than dying and returning as TheUndead. It also doesn't mean that an infected person is granted eternal life and stops aging altogether. Mr. Benedictson became a vampire at 11 years old and appears to be in his early 80s in 1986, 147 years after he was infected. He is not evil but simply a kind old man who has returned to his native Mill Valley to die. Vampires are also [[DaywalkingVampire immune to sunlight]], garlic and the cross. Most significantly, there is something in a vampire's biology that activates a recessive gene in ordinary humans when in close proximity, causing them to mutate into monsters who destroy vampires. It acts as a genetic defense mechanism.
** In "Red Snow", the vampires living in the [[TheGulag Siberian gulag]] have fangs, [[VampiresSleepInCoffins sleep in coffins]] and [[WeakenedByTheLight are killed by sunlight]]. However, they are not evil. In exchange for protection during the summer months, they protect the townspeople from any possible source of danger. Aside from thieves and murderers, they never feed on humans. These vampires also [[DirtyCommunists despise the Soviet Union]] for all the suffering that it has caused the Russian people.
* OutOfBodyExperience: In "Healer", after being brought back to life by Jackie Thompson, Harry Faulk describes moving outside of his body and being able to see all of his neighbors gathered around him when he was temporarily dead.
* OutOfTheFryingPan: In "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich", a loser sells his soul to a demon in exchange for winning at the horse races, only to get cheated. He goes to the mobster he borrowed his betting money from, begging for protection [[spoiler:and the mobster does--because he's an arch-demon in human form, and now the loser owes his soul to a ''worse'' demon]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:P]]
* {{Panspermia}}: In "A Small Talent for War", the alien ambassador explains to the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations Security Council that Earth is one of several thousand planets that his people seeded with life and where they sped up evolution two million years ago. They have deemed the experiment on Earth to be a failure due to the small talent for war that humanity displays. [[spoiler:The Security Council doesn't realize until the next day that the aliens [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy breed warriors]] to fight for them across the galaxy and that humanity's talent for war is too small to be of any use to them.]]
* ParentalObliviousness: In "The Uncle Devil Show", Joey's parents are entirely oblivious to him using the spells that he has learned from his ''Tim Ferret and Friends'' video to change the world around him, including giving them the heads of a lizard and a wolf.
* ParentsKnowTheirChildren: In "The Once and Future King", Gary Pitkin tells Sandra that the real Music/ElvisPresley's mother Gladys could tell that he wasn't her son after he [[DeadPersonImpersonation assumed his identity]]. He believes the knowledge that Elvis was dead is what ultimately killed her.
* ParodyAssistance: "A Day in Beaumont" extensively parodies 1950s science fiction films. Four of the guest stars, Warren Stevens, Kenneth Tobey, Jeff Morrow and John Agar, were well known for their roles in such films.
* PartingWordsRegret: In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", Gus Rosenthal visits his old hometown and finds himself in the past. During that time, he meets his father Lou. Not telling him who he is, he says that his father was always angry and he never got the chance to tell him that he loved him.
* PassingTheTorch: "Paladin of the Lost Hour" features a dying elderly man named Gaspar passing on the titular object (a pocket watch containing the lost hour of the world) to a new bearer, Billy Kinetta.
* PastLifeMemories: In "Memories", everyone has the ability to recall the memories of their past lives. Memories that include past grudges, traumas, and every stressful event they've experienced. Plus, if their current life sucks, they have [[DrivenToSuicide a chance at a new one]].
* PeopleZoo: In "Children's Zoo", Debbie Cunningham, whose parents Sheila and Martin are constantly fighting and are [[AbusiveParents often emotionally and verbally abusive towards her]], receives an invitation to the Children's Zoo. Her parents take her to the zoo, very reluctantly, only to discover that it is a zoo where bad parents are imprisoned after being brought there by their children. Debbie inspects five pairs of parents in locked rooms before deciding on the two that she wants to become her new parents.
* PersecutedIntellectuals: In "Examination Day", [[spoiler:the government exterminates anyone who scores too high on a mandatory examination at twelve years old. Dickie Jordan is one such victim.]]
* PetsHomageName: In "Little Boy Lost", the photojournalist Carol Shelton's cat is named Ansel after Ansel Adams.
* PlaceWorseThanDeath: [[RunningGag Both "Dealer's Choice" and "I of Newton"]] make jokes about [[UsefulNotes/NewJersey New Jersey]] (specifically Newark in the latter case) being like {{Hell}}.
* PlagiarismInFiction: In "Take My Life...Please!", America's "hottest comic" Billy Diamond stole a routine about a gorilla eating a banana peel from a struggling young comedian named Dave, who approached him for advise. He performs it on the TalkShow ''Larry Gibbon's Hollywood'', unaware that Dave is in the studio audience. As he drives away from the studio after the show, Dave pulls a gun on him from the back seat. He is desperate as he has no money and his wife is pregnant. The two men struggle with the gun and both are killed when the car crashes. Diamond finds himself in an IronicHell where he is forced to tell an extremely amused audience about all of the terrible things that he has done, including stealing Dave's routine.
* PlayingWithFire:
** In "Gramma", it is mentioned that the title character used her powers to burn down several of her neighbors' houses.
** In "Dead Run", the demons who guard the condemned in {{Hell}} can light cigarettes by pressing them into the palms of their hands.
** A variation in "The Toys of Caliban". [[spoiler:Toby Ross is shown a picture of fire by his father Ernest and is able to start one with his mind as a result of his ability to [[YourMindMakesItReal manifest something after seeing a picture of it]]. As Ernest intended, the fire burns their house down and kills them both.]]
* PleaseSelectNewCityName: In "A Message from Charity", the village of Annes Town was renamed Anniston in the late 19th Century.
* PluckyOfficeGirl: In "But Can She Type?", a much-abused secretary named Karen Billings stumbles on a way to switch to a parallel universe where secretaries are treated like supermodels.
* PointOfNoReturn:
** Frost winding up in 1928 in "The Convict's Piano" was an unintentional variant: [[spoiler:after he steps away from the piano when Mickey Shaughnessy takes over, ''Mickey'' winds up being sent back to the prison in the present, and after coming face to face with a now elderly Eddie O'Hara, he gets punched (in the face) into the piano, causing it to be knocked over and broken]].
** Near the end of "Extra Innings", due to using the Monty Hanks baseball card, Ed Hamler winds up in a World Series-deciding game that goes to [[TitleDrop extra innings]]... meaning he unintentionally winds up blowing off a job interview ''and'' dinner with his wife Cindy. As a result, [[spoiler:Cindy decides to start [[KillItWithFire burning his baseball collection]], Paula showing up [[SubvertedTrope just in time to prevent the Monty Hanks card from being burnt...]] [[ZigZaggedTrope only to wind up tearing it up after realizing he'd have a happier, more fulfilling life as Monty]]]].
* PopCulturePunEpisodeTitle:
** "Tooth and Consequences" is a pun on ''Series/TruthOrConsequences''.
** "Take My Life...Please!" is a reference to Henny Youngman's famous joke "Take my wife...please!"
* ThePowerOfLove: {{Parodied|Trope}} in "A Day in Beaumont". Dr. Kevin Carlson makes two over the top declarations of love to his girlfriend Faith, assuring her that the aliens can never take that away from them.
* PrefersTheIllusion: In "Dreams for Sale", Jenny decides to remain in the "Country Picnic" program created by the Dreamatron in which she is happily married to Paul and has two daughters instead of returning to her real life as a worker in a sterile future world. She tells Paul that she wants to stay with him forever. The Dreamatron burns out and she dies with a smile on her face, though her mind seemingly survives in the machine.
* PrettyInMink: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E47TheNightOfTheMeek Night of the Meek]]", Mr. Dundee had a fur coat custom made for his wife for Christmas. He is furious when a junior salesman accidentally sells it. Henry Corwin later pulls the coat out of his magic Santa sank and gives it to Dundee.
* ProveIAmNotBluffing: In "A Small Talent for War", the Soviet ambassador to the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations expresses doubt that the aliens have the power to destroy all life on Earth. The alien ambassador tells him to keep watching the skies. Several minutes later, the British ambassador receives a message from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich that Halley's Comet has disappeared, having been destroyed by the aliens.
* PsychicAssistedSuicide: {{Implied|Trope}} in "Devil's Alphabet". On November 2, 1897, Andrew hanged himself from a high ceiling in his house. However, there was no chair found in the room so it is a mystery how he reached the rafters. The implication is that he was assisted by the occult forces with which he and the other six members of the Devil's Alphabet Society had unwittingly entered a [[DutyThatTranscendsDeath bargain that transcends death]].
* PunBasedTitle:
** "I of Newton" is a pun on eye of newt, a common ingredient in witches' brews in fiction, and UsefulNotes/IsaacNewton.
** "The Misfortune Cookie" is a pun on fortune cookie.
** "The Leprechaun-Artist" is a pun on con artist.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Q-R]]
* QuestioningTitle: "But Can She Type?" and "What Are Friends For?".
* RaceLift: In "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", the elderly man who lost the respect of his children in white. In the short story by William F. Wu, he is Chinese.
* RapidAging: In "Aqua Vita", the 40-year-old Christie Copperfield has the appearance of a woman in her 70s after she neglects to drink her daily glass of Aqua Vita.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld:
** In "Monsters!", Emile Francis Bendictson appears to be in his 70s but is actually a 158-year-old vampire.
** In "Welcome to Winfield", Weldon appears to be about 80 but will soon celebrate his 150th birthday. Most of the other residents of Winfield are also over 100 years old but look much younger. According to the closing narration, the median age of the townspeople is 112.
** In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Lancelot appears to be in his 60s but has lived for 1,000 years as a result of a spell cast by Myth/{{Merlin}}. Morgan le Fay is much the same age but she only looks to be in her early 30s.
* RealPersonCameo: In "The Once and Future King", Music/ElvisPresley's life long best friend Red West plays his boss Mr. Harris of the Crown Electric Company.
* RecurringDreams:
** In "Nightcrawlers", TheVietnamVet Price has a recurring nightmare about his unit, the Nightcrawlers, hunting him as he deserted them while they were under attack by the Viet Cong. Only Price survived. As he has the [[YourMindMakesItReal ability to manifest his thoughts]], the Nightcrawlers appear in the real word and cause havoc whenever he falls asleep.
** In "Shadow Play", Adam Grant suffers a recurring nightmare in which he is convicted of murder and hanged.
* RedEyesTakeWarning:
** In "I of Newton", the demon reveals his red eyes to Sam when he removes his sunglasses.
** In "Gramma", the title character, an extremely powerful witch, has glowing red eyes. Her grandson Georgie is even more terrified of her than he was before when he sees them. After Gramma [[GrandTheftMe takes over Georgie's body]], he exhibits the same red eyes.
* [[ReferencedBy/WilliamShakespeare Referenced by...: William Shakespeare]]:
** In "The After Hours", Marsha Cole buys a [[BlandNameProduct Cornfield Kid doll]] from a toy shop called Play's the Thing. This is a reference to the line "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king" from ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' Act 2, Scene 2.
** "The Toys of Caliban" is a reference to the "half fish and half monster" Caliban from ''Theatre/TheTempest''.
* {{Reincarnation}}: In "Her Pilgrim Soul", [[spoiler:Dr. Kevin Drayton is the reincarnation of Nola Granville's husband Robert Goldstone. Her soul appeared to Kevin in the holographic projector that he created so that they could live out the full life together that they were denied when she [[DeathByChildbirth died in childbirth]] in March 1943. Robert carried his grief at losing her over into his next life as Kevin, whose fear of experiencing the same kind of loss once again led him to distance himself from his wife Carol. The closure that Nola provides Kevin allows him to reconcile with Carol.]]
* RelatedInTheAdaptation: In "Shadow Play", two [[DreamPeople characters]] in Adam Grant's [[RecurringDreams recurring nightmare]], Father Grant and Carol Ritchie, are his late father and his sister in the real world. In the [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E62ShadowPlay original episode]], the priest was Father Beaman, an actual priest who died when Adam was ten years old, while it is never said whether or not Carol is based on anyone from Adam's real life.
* RelationshipSalvagingDisaster: In "The Junction", Melissa Parker discovers on September 15, 1986 that her husband John cheated on her with another woman. The next morning, after John has spent the night on the sofa, she tells him that she will pack his things for him and she expects him to move out once his shift in the mine is over. John pleads for forgiveness, asking if he has to apologize for one mistake for the rest of his life, but Melissa is too hurt to listen. Shortly afterwards, John becomes trapped in a cave-in and is transported back in time to September 16, 1912, where he saves the life of another trapped miner named Ray Dobson. Ray [[WriteBackToTheFuture writes a letter to Melissa]] and tells her that John was only thinking of her and how much he hurt her in what he thought would be his last moments. After John is located using the information in Ray's letter, Melissa is delighted to see him. She tearfully accepts his now much more heartfelt apology and takes him home.
* TheRemake: Several episodes from the original series were remade, including "Dead Man's Shoes" ({{Gender Flip}}ped as "Dead Women's Shoes") [[spoiler: and this time it's implied the ghost succeeds]], "Night of the Meek" being played more as a comedy, "Shadow Play" having the implication that [[spoiler:it's ''not'' a reoccuring nightmare, but rather an ''ongoing'' nightmare]], "The After Hours" being played more as horror, and "A Game of Pool" using George Clayton Johnson's original script [[spoiler:and its original ending, where the challenger loses]]... without informing Johnson, which he did ''not'' appreciate.
* ReroutedFromHeaven: In "Dead Run", a truck driver named Johnny Davis takes a job delivering dead souls to {{Hell}}. However, most of the people that he's delivering there don't seem to have done anything that warrants damnation. It turns out the new CelestialBureaucracy that has taken over is using an overly-literal fundamentalist interpretation of Literature/TheBible, mainly due to them being paper-pushing {{Obstructive Bureaucrat}}s, rather than actual malevolence.
* ResetButton:
** In "Wish Bank", after Janice Hamill [[MundaneWish wishes that she never found the magic lamp]], she is transported back to the rummage sale. She has no memory of picking up the lamp or her visit to the Department of Magical Venues.
** In "The Leprechaun-Artist", the {{Leprechaun}} Shawn [=McGool=] reverses Richie's wish which resulted in him and his friends Buddy and J.P. receiving a car that was "really hot" as in stolen. As a result, the police have no memory of any car theft.
** In "The Library", after Ellie Pendleton admits that she has been altering reality by changing the contents of the books in the library, Gloria returns everything to normal.
* RetGone: In "The Card", Linda Wolfe receives an invitation from a credit card company that specifically caters to people with a bad credit rating who have had their previous cards cancelled. When she misses the first payment, she finds that the family cat Boris has disappeared and [[RippleEffectProofMemory she is the only one to remember that he even existed]]. The following week, Linda misses the second payment and their dog Scooby disappears. Linda vows never to use the card again but she is forced to do so when her car breaks down. When she gets home that night, she discovers that her children Matt, Evan and B.J. have disappeared. The next day, Linda goes to the card company and demands to speak to the office manager Catherine Foley. While there, she sees her children, who fail to recognize her, being led into a room marked "Disbursements." Mrs. Foley explains to her that they may be returned to her if she writes them a check. Linda does so but Brian tells her that the bank called and he cancelled it. Further penalties are then made against her. Brian disappears and household items begin to vanish in front of her. [[spoiler:When she cuts the card in half, it falls to the ground. The final scene shows that Linda herself has ceased to exist and there is an empty lot where her house once stood.]]
* RetroUniverse: In "The World Next Door", Barney Schlessinger's [[AlternateSelf counterpart]] is from an AlternateUniverse which has an early 20th Century level of technology. For instance, automobiles exist but horse-drawn carriages are still the primary method of transportation for most people. The alternate Barney's "wonder substances" such as Trimbeline 3 have allowed this universe to make significant technological progress in recent years.
* RewritingReality: In "The Library", an aspiring writer named Ellie Pendleton gets a job working at a mysterious private library which is BiggerOnTheInside. It is run by Gloria, who explains to her that each book is an accurate, up-to-date account of the life of a living person. That night, Ellie is annoyed by all of the noise made by her obnoxious neighbor Doug Kelleher and his new live-in girlfriend Carla Hollencamp. At the library the next day, she rewrites Doug's life story so that he is a kind-hearted and extremely dedicated priest. However, she feels guilty because Carla is so miserable at being alone so she uses the opportunity to fix her up with the building's wealthy landlord Edwin [=DeWitt=]. When she returns home, Carla is happy and wearing an expensive fur coat but Edwin is bankrupt from lavishing her with so many presents. Ellie rewrites Edwin's life story so that he is financially stable but she finds that her younger sister Lori is leading a strike against the inflated rent that he charges. The next day, she gives herself and Lori a nice house by the ocean. However, as soon as she arrives at her new home, Ellie learns that Lori drowned after rescuing a little boy from the sea. Devastated, Ellie admits to Gloria what she has been doing and pleads for her help. After chastising her for not realizing that people's lives are interconnected, Gloria shoos her out of the library. She immediately finds Lori alive and well and returned to her original self.
* RippleEffectIndicator:
** A variation in "Little Boy Lost". [[spoiler:Kenny is the son that Carol Shelton would have had in the potential future where she stayed in the US and married her boyfriend Greg instead of going abroad on a photography assignment. When she decides to take the assignment, Kenny disappears from the photos that Carol took at the zoo.]]
** Another variation in "Opening Day". After Joe Farrell kills his love rival Carl Wilkerson in a HuntingAccident, Carl's image in a photograph of him and his wife Sally is replaced by one of Joe as he has become her husband. The next day, Joe himself drowns as he thinks that Carl is trying to kill him. The photo then reverts to its original state.
** In "The Card", after the Wolfes' cat Boris [[RetGone ceases to exist]], his bowl and pillow disappear from their front porch. Linda initially believes that her husband Brian and her older children Matt and Evan are pulling a prank but it later becomes apparent that they don't remember ever having a cat. After the credit card company takes the children away, Matt and Evan's room has turned into a study while the baby B.J.'s nursery is used for storage. Brian's image later disappears from a photograph of him and Linda and the name on her card changes from "Mrs. Linda S. Wolfe" to "Miss Linda S. Wilson." [[spoiler:After Linda herself disappears, the card is entirely blank.]]
* RippleEffectProofMemory:
** In "Profile in Silver", once history is restored, the Secret Service agent Ray Livingston is the only person from 1963 who remembers the AlternateTimeline in which UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy was not assassinated in Dallas.
** In "The Library", Ellie Pendleton begins RewritingReality using the books recording the events of people's lives in the library. After that she does so, she is the only person to remember the way things used to be.
** In "The Card", Linda Wolfe is the only person outside of the card company who remembers that she had a cat named Boris, a dog named Scooby and three children named Matt, Evan and B.J. after they all [[RetGone disappear in turn]] because of her delinquet account. Her husband Brian worries that she may be having a mental breakdown [[spoiler:until he himself disappears]].
* RodentsOfUnusualSize: In "The Elevator", Roger and Will learn that their father's super food causes extreme growth when they find several dead giant rats in his factory, each bigger than the one before. They later find a [[MegaNeko giant cat]], [[CanisMajor giant dog]] and a GiantSpider.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:S]]
* SadisticChoice: In "Button, Button", Mr. Steward sends a button unit to Arthur and Norma Lewis and tells them that two things will happen if they press the button: they will receive $200,000 tax free and someone whom they don't know will die. The Lewises have several heated discussions on whether or not to press the button. Norma argues that the person killed could be a Chinese peasant or someone with cancer while Arthur counters that it could be a baby. After Arthur goes to bed, Norma presses the button. The next day, Mr. Steward returns for the button unit and [[spoiler:says that it will now be given to someone whom they don't know]].
* SanDimasTime: In "The Convict's Piano", whenever Ricky Frost travels back in time by playing the old piano, he is gone for the equivalent amount of time in 1986.
* SchmuckBait: In "Button, Button", Arthur and Norma Lewis are given a button, which if pressed with give them $200,000 at the cost of killing a complete stranger. [[spoiler:They end up pushing the button, which is then taken away... to be given to a complete stranger.]]
* {{Schoolmarm}}: In "The Storyteller", Dorothy Livingston's first teaching assignment was in the small, isolated town of Powder Creek, West Virginia in 1933, where she taught students of all ages in a one room school.
* SecretShop: Wong's Lost and Found Emporium in the episode of that title is a combination of this and TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday.
-->''You won't find it in the Yellow Pages or advertised in the local papers. Its reputation is spread purely by word-of-mouth, from one satisfied customer to another. But if, like most of us, you've lost something in your time, look for this door. And if you don't find it at first, don't lose hope, because even that can be found again...in the Twilight Zone.''
* SecretTestOfCharacter: In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", Gaspar offers Billy Kinetta the opportunity to become the new paladin of the lost hour. After he does so, he asks Billy to use the watch to give him one minute with his beloved late wife Minna before he dies. Billy refuses as he believes that it would be wrong. Gaspar then reveals that this was the last test and that he is now completely sure that Billy is the right person to guard the watch. As a reward, Gaspar gives Billy one minute to talk to the Marine who died saving his life during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar.
* SeeingThroughAnothersEyes: In "A Message from Charity", Charity Payne, a Puritan girl living in the [[UsefulNotes/TheThirteenAmericanColonies colonial Massachusetts]] village of Annes Town in 1700, and Peter Wood, a teenage boy living in the Massachusetts town of Anniston in 1985, gain the ability to communicate with each other across time and see through each other's eyes after they both contract cholera. Charity and Peter can also experience sensations from the other's perspective. For instance, Peter introduces Charity to the unimaginable luxuries of his time such as orange juice and chocolate ice cream and she quickly becomes drunk when Peter has a glass of wine.
* {{Seers}}: In "A Message from Charity", after she is [[WitchHunt accused of witchcraft]], Charity Payne claims to have second sight and obliquely reveals that she is aware of the bodies of two murdered sailors hidden in Squire Jonas Hacker's root cellar. She had in fact learned of the bodies from a history book that Peter Wood found in 1985. As a result, Hacker finds her innocent of witchcraft, saying that second sight is a gift from {{God}} which his own grandmother possessed.
* SelflessWish: In "The Leprechaun-Artist", Buddy considers wishes for world peace or a CureForCancer using the wish that he received after he and his friend J.P. and Richie captured the {{Leprechaun}} Shawn [=McGool=]. However, he eventually wishes for XRayVision so that he can see through girls' clothing.
* SettingUpdate:
** In "A Message from Charity", Peter Wood's native time is 1985. In the short story by William M. Lee, it is 1965.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E47TheNightOfTheMeek Night of the Meek]]" takes place on Christmas Eve 1985 and features an unflattering depiction of yuppies in the store owner Mr. Dundee. The original episode takes place on Christmas Eve 1960.
** "Devil's Alphabet" takes place from November 2, 1876 to November 2, 1898. The short story "The Everlasting Club" by Arthur Gray is an account of the activities of the titular society from 1738 to 1766.
** In "Lost and Found", Jenny Templeton is visited by two 22nd Century time travelers in her dorm room in 1986. In the short story by Phyllis Eisenstein, Jenny's native time is 1979.
* SettleForSibling: In "The Junction", Ray Dobson tells John Parker that he meant to propose to Abby, who had an identical twin sister named Sarah, in 1907. However, Sarah opened the door when he came to visit and, having mistaken her for Abby, he proposed to her by mistake and she accepted. Although it was not his intention, Ray nevertheless married Sarah as she was the one who said yes.
* SharpDressedMan:
** In "The Burning Man", the [[CreepyChild strange boy]] whom Doug and Aunt Neva pick up is wearing a very expensive looking white suit.
** In "Welcome to Winfield", TheGrimReaper Griffin St. George wears a white suit with matching shoes.
** In "Dead Run", the Dispatcher, who has recently taken over the CelestialBureaucracy, wears an extremely expensive looking suit during his meeting with Johnny Davis.
* SilentTreatment: In "To See the Invisible Man", Mitchell Chaplin is convicted of the crime of coldness towards others and is sentenced to a year of invisibility. He is forced to wear an implant on his forehead that alerts people that they are to ignore him and pretend not to see him no matter what. If they engage with him in any way, they are violating Citizen's Law 24824 which carries the penalty of at least one year of invisibility. Invisible people who speak to each other have another year added to their sentences.
* SoleSurvivor:
** In "Still Life", the 86-year-old Professor Alex Stottel is the last surviving member of Dr. Levinson's expedition to the Amazon River basin, where they encountered the Curacai, in January 1913. Stottel was a 13-year-old boy at the time.
** In "Devil's Alphabet", Frederick becomes the last surviving member of the Devil's Alphabet Society after Cornelius' suicide on November 2, 1898.
** In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Lancelot is the last surviving Knight of the Round Table 1,000 years after the fall of Camelot. He was kept alive for all that time by a spell cast by Myth/{{Merlin}}.
* SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet Shatterday]]", Peter Jay Novins tests his alter ego's claim to be him by asking him what his childhood friend Skip Fisher's father did for a living. He correctly answers that he was a fireman until he quit his job to work at a Studebaker dealership.
* SpaceClothes: In "Lost and Found", the two time travelers from 2139 wear shiny, silver clothes that look as if they are made out of foil.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: In "Devil's Alphabet", Frederick is the only member of the Devil's Alphabet Society to be still alive when [[DutyThatTranscendsDeath their agreement to meet every year on November 2 be they alive or dead]] is rescinded. In the short story "The Everlasting Club" by Arthur Gray, the [[AdaptationNameChange equivalent character]] Charles Bellasis was frightened to death by the ghosts of the other members of the Everlasting Club on November 2, 1766.
* TheSpeechless: In "A Matter of Minutes", the [[TheBlank faceless]] workers who build every minute are unable to speak.
* SpiderSense: In "Teacher's Aide", Miss Peters can sense that Wizard plans to attack her after she is possessed by the spirit of a gargoyle.
* SpoilerTitle: The title of "Dreams for Sale" makes it obvious that the idyllic country picnic experienced by Jenny is not real.
* StableTimeLoop:
** In "Act Break", Maury Winkler uses Harry's amulet to wish for a better writing partner instead of wishing for Harry to [[BackFromTheDead come back to life]]. He is transported to Elizabethan England and immediately meets Creator/WilliamShakespeare. Taking the amulet from Maury, Shakespeare wishes for Maury to work with him. [[spoiler:Maury's mind is then filled with every line from all of Shakespeare's plays. It turns out that Shakespeare's greatest works were written by Maury using his knowledge of the future.]]
** In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", Gus Rosenthal is sent back in time to the 1940s and acts as a mentor and surrogate father to his younger self, who had a difficult relationship with his father Lou. Eventually, the older Gus realizes that he must return to his own time as [[TemporalSickness his presence in the past is making him sick]]. When the younger Gus finds out that he is leaving, he angrily tells his future self that he will be a "big something" when he is older and will beat "Mr. Rosenthal" up if he ever sees him again. [[spoiler:The older Gus then remembers meeting Mr. Rosenthal as a child and vowing to become successful because he was hurt at him leaving.]]
** {{Implied|Trope}} in "Grace Note". Rosemarie Miletti enters her future self's dressing room on March 22, 1986 after being sent 20 years forward in time. The older Rosemarie and her sister Dorothy [[InvisibleToNormals are unable to see her]] but it is implied that the former knows that the younger Rosemarie is there because she remembers her own experience of traveling through time 20 years earlier.
** In "The Once and Future King", the ElvisImpersonator Gary Pitkin meets Music/ElvisPresley on July 3, 1954, two days before he recorded his debut single "That's All Right". [[spoiler:After he accidentally kills Elvis the next day, Gary [[DeadPersonImpersonation usurps his identity]] and goes on to become the King of RockAndRoll. He later realizes that this was always meant to happen.]]
** In "The Convict's Piano", [[TheOldConvict the elderly convict]] Eddie O'Hara tells his fellow prisoner Ricky Frost that he was [[FrameUp framed]] for murder in 1928 by the gangster Mickey Shaughnessy, who disappeared shortly afterwards. Ricky later discovers that playing a particular song on the old prison piano sends him back in time to the relevant era. When he plays "Someone to Watch Over Me", he arrives at a party being thrown by Shaughnessy in 1928. [[spoiler:When Shaughnessy plays "S' Wonderful" on the piano, he is sent forward to 1986, which accounts for his unexplained disappearance in 1928.]]
** In "The Junction", after becoming trapped in a cave-in on September 16, 1986, the miner John Parker realizes that he is not alone. He finds that another miner named Ray Dobson is trapped with him. After talking to Ray for a few minutes, John realizes that he has been sent back in time to September 16, 1912. While they are waiting to be rescued, John and Ray tell each other about their respective wives Melissa and Sarah. In 1986, Melissa receives a letter from Reverend Bailey that was supposed to have been delivered to her the previous day. After Ray is rescued, he discovers that John has disappeared, having returned to 1986. Ray [[WriteBackToTheFuture writes a letter to Melissa and entrusts it to the church]]. His plan to alter history failed as John being sent back in time was always meant to happen. If it had never happened, Ray would have died. However, the letter contains John's location and the rescue team is able to find him in time.
* StarOfBethlehem: In "The Star", based on a story by Creator/ArthurCClarke, it's discovered by a Jesuit priest and astrophysicist named Father Matthew Costigan that this was actually a supernova in 3120 BCE, which wiped out an entire species of peaceful aliens. The fact troubles him deeply.
* StayWithTheAliens: In "The Little People of Killany Woods", Liam O'Shaughnessy decides to go with the LittleGreenMen after their ship is repaired instead of remaining in UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}}, where he is the laughing stock of his town. According to the closing narration, he brings shamrocks with him and plants them on the aliens' home planet, which humanity will find when it explores space in the future.
* StealthPun: In "Dealer's Choice", Pete plays a game of one-on-one with Nick, who is in actuality the Devil, [[ChessWithDeath for his immortal soul]]. In the closing narration, it is pointed out that he did not heed the old saying "[[DealWithTheDevil Never deal with the Devil]]."
* StickyFingers: In "Lost and Found", Jenny Templeton notices that the contents of her trash can and the mug that she uses for her pencils have both disappeared. She soon discovers that they were stolen by two time travelers from 2139 who wanted souvenirs as [[YoungFutureFamousPeople she will one day become the first President of Earth]]. The male time traveler returns the mug as they were only supposed to take things that Jenny wouldn't miss.
* StockFootage: In "Chameleon", footage of a UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} space shuttle in orbit, several astronauts on a spacewalk and the shuttle returning to Earth are used to represent the ''Discovery'''s mission.
* {{Subtext}}: "Extra Innings" had a washed-up former baseball star who was good friends with a tween or teen girl. Nothing too creepy, yet. They trade cards a lot, and she gets him this 1909 card of a rookie who looked just like him and had exactly the same stats as him. Then, he discovers that the card allows him to take control of the rookie on the card, which also takes him back to 1909. Then, the next day, he tells the girl about it, and at first she doesn't believe him. When he shows her the stats, she believes him, as they have changed. Then, when he takes her back in time with him, before the card opens the portal, he puts his arm around her. Between her face there and the dialog, which sounds like it came from a VerySpecialEpisode about child molestation, the creepy subtext is amazing.
* SuicideByCop: In "Monsters!", the vampire Emile Francis Bendictson never stayed anywhere too long for fear of activating the recessive gene that turns ordinary humans into vampire-killing monsters. After traveling the world for almost 150 years, he returns to his home town of Mill Valley so that he can die where he was born. Several days after his arrival, many of the townspeople turn into monsters and kill him in a very brutal fashion. Benedictson was [[ICannotSelfTerminate either willing or unable to kill himself]].
* SummoningRitual: In "Ye Gods", Todd Ettinger uses a spell provided by Bacchus to summon Megaera, one of the Furies, to his apartment in order to convince her to get back together with Cupid.
* SuperStrength:
** In "Teacher's Aide", Miss Peters develops super strength after she is possessed by the spirit of a gargoyle. After a gang member named Trojan tells her that he comes to school to see her legs, she lifts him up by his trousers and throws him against the wall. Later, she catches another student hitting and kicking his locker and shoves him up against it, telling him that he should respect the school as it is older than his grandmother. When another gang member named Wizard turns on his boom box at full volume during class, she tears it apart with her bare hands and physically throws him out of class when he tries to attack her. The rest of the students are much more attentive after that.
** In "Monsters!", the vampire Emile Francis Bendictson uses his super strength to lift up his car so that he can clean underneath it when he thinks that no one is looking. However, Toby Michaels, who had been spying on him, sees the whole thing.
* SurvivorsGuilt:
** In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", TheVietnamVet Billy Kinetta suffers from severe survivor's guilt as his life was saved by a Marine whom he had never previously met when his rifle was ambushed by the Viet Cong in Da Nang. The Marine was killed in the process. When Gaspar allows him to use one minute from the lost hour to speak with the Marine, Billy learns that the Marine had not even known that he was there. Billy thanks him for saving his life but the Marine tells him that he is the one who is grateful as he now knows that his death had meaning.
** In "The Road Less Traveled", Jeff [=McDowell=] [[DraftDodging dodged the draft]] during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar in 1971 and still feels guilty about his decision 15 years later. He often wonders whether the person who went to war instead of him was killed or badly wounded in his place. His wife Denise, who went with him to UsefulNotes/{{Canada}}, assures him that he has nothing to feel guilty about as it was a "dirty little undeclared war" that he helped to stop. Jeff manages to come to terms with his guilt when he makes physical contact with his AlternateUniverse counterpart, who went to war, and sees his memories of fighting.
* SympathyForTheDevil: In "Dealer's Choice", [[MeaningfulName Nick]] is actually a friendly, pleasant fellow who doesn't revel in taking souls--it's [[PunchClockVillain just his job as Satan]]. Similarly, when he loses the enchanted poker game he set up, he accepts defeat gracefully and bows out, leaving the other players the parting gift of a giant pile of snack food and beer.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:T]]
* TakeMeInstead: In "Welcome to Winfield", the people of Winfield plead for TheGrimReaper Griffin St. George to take them instead of Matt Winnaker as most of them are over 100 and Matt is only 20. However, Matt will have none of it and asks St. George to take him. Eventually, St. George decides to let them all go.
* TakeThat:
** In "Ye Gods", the yuppie Todd Ettinger comes to realize that his life that he leads is hollow, empty and calculated as it is all about acquiring money and possessions and he doesn't have a meaningful relationship with a woman. Cupid also twice refers to him as a "yuckie."
** In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", Gaspar tells Billy Kinetta that he does not want to see a film with Creator/KarenBlack, Sandy Dennis or Creator/MerylStreep as they are always crying and their noses are always red. [[SubvertedTrope However]], he later says that he is willing to make an exception for Streep.
** In "The Once and Future King", the ElvisImpersonator Gary Pitkin does not want to take his act to UsefulNotes/LasVegas as he thinks that it killed Music/ElvisPresley and it is nothing but "showgirls, sluts and sleaze." Gary then tells his manager Sandra that Vegas is good enough for Wayne Newton but not for him.
* TalkingToThemself: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet Shatterday]]", Peter Jay Novins talks with a mysterious {{Doppelganger}}.
* TanksForTheMemories: The protagonist of "The Mind of Simon Foster" sells chunks of his memories to pay his living expenses.
* {{Technophobia}}: In "Quarantine", the survivors of WorldWarIII in 2043 came to distrust and despise technology because nuclear weapons had wiped out 80% of the world's population. They abandoned machines in favor of improving humanity through [[BioAugmentation genetic engineering]] and achieving harmony with the natural world.
* TemporalSickness: In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", Gus Rosenthal begins feeling weak soon after he is transported back in time to the 1940s. After several days, he realizes that he has to return to his own time or he will die.
* ThatWasNotADream: In "The Once and Future King", Gary Pitkin initially believes that he is having a dream about meeting his idol Music/ElvisPresley before he was famous in Memphis, Tennessee in 1954. He later realizes that he has been sent back in time.
* ThereAreNoAdults: In "The Shadow Man", there are no adults except for brief appearances by the school librarian and Danny Hayes' mother.
* TheyWouldCutYouUp: In "The Toys of Caliban", Miss Kemp suggests that Ernest Ross allows his son Toby to be examined by experts after discovering that he can [[YourMindMakesItReal manifest anything after seeing its picture]]. Ernest angrily tells her that Toby would be subjected to countless tests and experiments to determine how his power works and then would most likely be killed.
* ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight:
** In "The Shadow Man", the murderous titular entity takes up residence under Danny Hayes' bed and offers him immunity to his/its attacks. Only it turns out [[spoiler:there's more than one of them...]] ''[[spoiler:[[AmbiguousEnding Maybe...]]]]''
** In "The Road Less Traveled", Megan [=McDowell=] tells her parents Jeff and Denise that there was a strange man in her room. When Jeff goes to investigate, he tells her that she just saw a pile of clothes on a chair and there is nothing to worry about. It turns out that Megan saw a version of Jeff from an AlternateUniverse whose life was ruined after fighting in UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}} and wanted to see the daughter that he never had.
* ThirdEye: In "A Message from Charity", Master Croft's ewe has a lamb with three eyes. This is used as evidence when Charity Payne is [[WitchHunt accused of witchcraft]]. After Squire Jonas Hacker finds her innocent, he holds that the deformed lamb was as a result of a noxious plant growing on Croft's farm.
* ThisBearWasFramed: In "Red Snow", the Communist Party secretary Vladimir Borisov was killed by the vampires living in the [[TheGulag Siberian gulag]] in order to protect the townspeople from his brutal excesses. Mayor Titov tells KGB Colonel Ilyanov that Borisov was torn apart by wolves but he later learns the truth.
* ThoroughlyMistakenIdentity: In "The Once and Future King", Music/ElvisPresley mistakes Gary Pitkin, an ElvisImpersonator from 1986 who [[CelebrityResemblance looks just like him]], for his stillborn identical twin brother Jesse who has come BackFromTheDead. Gary allows him to believe this and tries to use the opportunity to convince Elvis that he has a very bright future ahead of him. [[{{Understatement}} It doesn't go according to plan]].
* ThreeWishes:
** In "Wish Bank", Janice Hamill finds a magic lamp at a rummage sale. When she rubs it, she is transported to the Department of Magical Venues and is told by the broker Mr. Brent that she has three wishes. She wishes for $10,000,000, to look ten years younger and for her ex-husband Craig to suffer from moderate sexual dysfunction for a year and a half. Mr. Brent warns Janice that the first wish will turn out fine but that the second will not turn out as expected and she will almost certainly have to use the third wish to undo the first two. Eventually, Janice is so frustrated at the Department of Magical Venues being a VastBureaucracy that [[ResetButton she wishes that she never found the lamp in the first place]].
** {{Discussed|Trope}} in "Act Break". After Harry has a heart attack, he gives the amulet that he received from monks in Burma to his partner Maury Winkler and tells him that everyone gets one wish. He asks Murray to use his wish to bring him back to life. Maury laments that he doesn't get three wishes, which is the standard deal. Instead of saving Harry's life, he wishes to work with the greatest playwright in the world and is transported back in time to Creator/WilliamShakespeare's house in Elizabethan England.
** In "The Leprechaun-Artist", the {{Leprechaun}} Shawn [=McGool=] grants Buddy, J.P. and Richie three wishes - one a piece - after they capture him. However, [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor none of them turn out according to plan]]. Buddy wishes for XRayVision so that he can see girls' underwear but he can't control his new power and sees internal organs and skulls. [=McGool=] reverses the wish after he determines that Buddy has learned his lesson. J.P. wishes for all of their parents to do exactly what they tell them. The boys soon learn that [=McGool=] has once again tricked them by granting their wish too literally. When J.P. orders his mother to make pizza for the three of them, he has to tell her to perform every step in the preparation from taking the pizza out of the box. [=McGool=] likewise reverses this wish. Richie wishes for a "really hot" car with a driver with a mind of his own. While they are enjoying their new stretch limo, they are chased by the police. The driver, given that he has a mind of his own, refuses their instructions to stop and gets into a car chase. When the police catch up with them, the three boys are arrested as the limo was hot as in stolen. [=McGool=] again reverses the wish and the police have no memory of the car theft.
* TimeDilation: In "Quarantine", although 304 years have passed on Earth, Joshua estimates that it has only been five or ten years for the 1,000 people aboard the American spacecraft launched during the [[WorldWarIII nuclear war]] in 2043.
* TimeFreezeTrollingSpree: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet A Little Peace and Quiet]]", Penny just about resists the temptation to pull down a passerby's shorts when time is frozen. Later, she is annoyed by two anti-nuclear activists who call at her house. After she freezes time again, she drags them over to her lawn and lies them down. When time is resumed, they are too frightened to try talking to her again.
* TimeShiftedActor:
** In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", there are two examples:
*** Gus Rosenthal is played by Peter Riegert as an adult and Chris Hebert as a child.
*** Jack Wheeldon is played by Biff Yeager as an adult and Gary Karp as a child.
** In "Her Pilgrim Soul", Nola Granville is played by Anne Twomey as an adult, Betsy Lion as a five-year-old and Creator/DanicaMcKellar as a ten-year-old.
** In "Grace Note", Dorothy Miletti is played by Gina Marie Vinaccia as a teenager in 1966 and by Catherine Paolone as an adult in 1986.
* TimeStandsStill: In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet A Little Peace and Quiet]]", a stressed housewife named Penny finds a gold pendant shaped like a sundial. After wearing it for about a day, she discovers that it freezes time when she says "shut up" and resumes the normal flow of time when she says "start talking." However, it only works when she is wearing the pendant. She abuses this privilege for several days until [[spoiler:a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union breaks out.[[labelnote:*]]It's never explicitly stated, but it's at this point that Penny realizes the true purpose of her amulet: Freezing time to get the government officials together and forcing them to "start talking" about nuclear disarmament.[[/labelnote]]Penny is able to freeze time just seconds before her hometown is destroyed by a nuclear missile.]]
* TimeTravelEscape: In "Profile in Silver", Professor Joseph Fitzgerald sends UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy forward in time to 2172 instead of letting him be assassinated. With the assistance of the Secret Service agent Ray Livingston, Fitzgerald makes arrangements to [[HeroicSacrifice take Kennedy's place]]. JFK becomes a history lecturer at Harvard in 2172.
* TimeTravelEpisode:
** In "Act Break", Maury Winkler is sent back in time to the Elizabethan era and becomes the uncredited writing partner of Creator/WilliamShakespeare.
** In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", an unhappy and bitter writer named Gus Rosenthal becomes a mentor to his younger self in the 1940s and hopes to be able to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong change his life for the better]].
** In "Profile in Silver", the 22nd Century historian Professor Joseph Fitzgerald creates an AlternateTimeline when he prevents his FamousAncestor UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy from being assassinated on November 22, 1963.
** In "Grace Note", Rosemarie Miletti, an aspiring opera singer, is sent 20 years forward in time to March 22, 1986 and learns that she is destined to become a world famous star.
** In "The Once and Future King", Gary Pitkin, an ElvisImpersonator from 1986, meets the real Music/ElvisPresley on July 3, 1954.
** In "Lost and Found", a college student named Jenny Templeton finds a pair of time travelers from 2139 in her dorm room closet.
** In "The Convict's Piano", the [[MiscarriageOfJustice wrongfully convicted]] prisoner Ricky Frost finds an old piano that transports him to different eras depending on the songs that he plays.
** In "The Junction", the miner John Parker becomes trapped after a cave-in on September 16, 1986. He soon meets another trapped miner named Ray Dobson, who tells him that it is September 16, 1912.
** In "Joy Ride", Alonzo, his brother Greg, Deena and Adrienne steal a classic car and go joy riding. They soon discover that they have been sent back to the 1950s, when the car was manufactured.
** In "Time and Teresa Golowitz", [[{{Satan}} the Prince of Darkness]] offers the composer Bluestone one wish after he dies. He wishes to make it with his high school crush Mary Ellen Cosgrove at a party in October 1948 so that he can live out his teenage dream. Once he arrives in the past, however, he decides to help a depressed girl named Teresa Golowitz instead.
** In "Extra Innings", an [[CareerEndingInjury injured baseball player]] named Ed Hamner receives a 1910 baseball card from his teenage neighbor Paula depicting a player named Monty Hanks who looks just like him. Possessing the card allows Ed to travel to 1910 and play as Monty free of any injury.
* TitleDrop:
** In "If She Dies", Paul Marano's young daughter Cathy is in a coma. He twice laments "if she dies" to Dr. Brice, meaning that he can't face life without her.
** In "Ye Gods", Todd Ettinger says "Ye gods!" after he [[SummoningRitual summons]] the Fury Megaera to his apartment.
** In "What Are Friends For?", Alex and Jeff Mattingly's NotSoImaginaryFriend Mike rhetorically asks Alex the titular question before he disappears.
* TomatoInTheMirror: The TwistEnding of two episodes.
** [[spoiler:"The After Hours", like the original, the protagonist learns/remembers she's actually a mannequin.]]
** [[spoiler:"A Day in Beaumont" shows an astronomer and his girlfriend witnessing a UFO landing, apparently the start of an alien invasion. At the end, they discover that they themselves are aliens, and everything that happened is part of a training exercise to help the aliens infiltrate Earth society.]]
* TomeOfEldritchLore: In "Gramma", Georgie finds the Necronomicon from which his grandmother, a powerful witch, gets her power. It contains several references to [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth]].
* ToothFairy: In "Tooth and Consequences", the Tooth Fairy appears in Dr. Myron Mandel's office after his failed suicide attempt and offers to give him anything that he wants. Myron wishes to be liked and respected by his patients and for Lydia Bixby to fall madly in love with him. [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor The constant adulation soon proves to be too much for Myron]] and he hops a freight train. He meets five homeless men who turn out to be former dentists who had their own run-ins with the Tooth Fairy. Myron learns that he was just a pawn in the Tooth Fairy's scheme to get dentists out of the way so that he will have more business.
* TotallyNotAWerewolf: In "The Little People of Killany Woods", Liam O'Shaughnessy claims that he has seen {{Leprechaun}}s in Killany Woods. Mike Mulvaney later learns that they are [[LittleGreenMen three foot tall green aliens]] from a distant galaxy who enlisted Liam's help to repair their ship, which is shaped like a toadstool.
* ToughRoom: In "Take My Life...Please!", the stand-up comedian Billy Diamond performs his usual act for a crowd as soon as he arrives in the afterlife but none of them even crack a smile. It soon becomes clear to him that he is in {{Hell}} and [[IronicHell that the only way to make the audience laugh to tell them all of the horrible things that he has done in his life]]. His new agent Max tells him that he has been booked to perform this act for the next two eons, possibly more.
* TownWithADarkSecret: In "The Beacon", Dr. Dennis Barrows stumbles into a small town called Mellweather which is protected by an enigmatic lighthouse [[spoiler:that demands a HumanSacrifice for its services]].
* TrackingDevice: In "Profile in Silver", time travelers such as Professor Joseph Fitzgerald and Dr. Kate Wang are issued with homing devices in the form of a ring. When the homing device is separated from the temporal wrist controls worn by the time traveler, the wearer of the ring is automatically returned to their point of departure. Fitzgerald uses this to send UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy [[TimeTravelEscape forward in time to 2172 so that he doesn't have to be assassinated]].
* TrumanShowPlot: In "Special Service", John Selig learns that the last five years of his life have been scripted as a television show. This example stands out because it was made nine years ''before'' ''Film/TheTrumanShow''.
* TruthSerums: In "Examination Day", Dickie Jordan is given a truth serum to ensure that he answers all of the questions on the government intelligence test as truthfully as possible.
* {{Tuckerization}}:
** In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", Jack Wheeldon is named after a boy who [[TheBully bullied]] Creator/HarlanEllison while he was growing up.
** In "Cold Reading", there is a sign for Crocker Bank. James Crocker was the series' supervising producer and wrote five episodes.
** In "A Day in Beaumont", there are numerous references to actors, writers and directors who worked on science fiction projects:
*** Dr. Kevin Carlson and Faith are named after Richard Carlson and Faith Domergue, who each starred in several 1950s sci-fi films.
*** The town of Beaumont is named after Charles Beaumont, who wrote many episodes of ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959''.
*** Sheriff Haskin is named after Byron Haskin, who directed ''Film/TheWarOfTheWorlds''.
*** H.G. Orson is named after Creator/HGWells, who wrote the first AlienInvasion story ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'', and Creator/OrsonWelles, who produced the [[Radio/TheWarOfTheWorlds (in)famous 1938 radio adaptation]].
*** Major Whitmore is named after James Whitmore, who played Sgt. Ben Peterson in ''Film/{{Them}}''. He also played Captain William Benteen in ''The Twilight Zone'' episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E118OnThursdayWeLeaveForHome On Thursday We Leave for Home]]".
*** The InsectoidAliens fire Bradbury rays at Kevin and Faith as they escape. The seminal writer Creator/RayBradbury wrote for both the 1959 and 1985 versions of ''The Twilight Zone''.
*** In the final scene, a young man reports that he saw a FlyingSaucer crash in Matheson, a reference to the profilic author and ''Twilight Zone'' writer Creator/RichardMatheson.
** In "The Junction", the Cassutt Coal Company is named after the writer Michael Cassutt.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture:
** In "Quarantine", Matthew Foreman entered [[HumanPopsicle suspended animation]] on June 18, 2023 in the hope that his cancer could be cured in the future. After being revived in 2347, he learns that 80% of Earth's population were wiped out in a [[WorldWarIII nuclear war]] in 2043.
** In "The Mind of Simon Foster", the United States is experiencing a major economic depression in 1999.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:U-V]]
* UnfinishedBusiness:
** In "If She Dies", Paul Marano speculates that the soul of Sarah, who died of tuberculois decades earlier, has not moved onto {{Heaven}} yet as {{God}} wants her to save the life of his comatose daughter Cathy.
** In "Nightsong", [[spoiler:the ghost of Simon Locke appears to his ex-girlfriend Andrea Fields when she plays his single "Nightsong" on her KGRR radio show. He initially does not tell Andrea that he was killed in a motorcycle accident five years earlier but eventually shows her his skeleton. Simon explains to Andrea that he has returned because she has never been able to move on from their bumpy relationship and the memory of it is keeping her from living her life. He then disappears, having seemingly moved on to the afterlife. In the final scene, Andrea again plays "Nightsong" and dedicates it to Simon with love. Although she will always love Simon, she is ready to move on with her life.]]
* UngratefulBastard:
** In "Healer", Jackie Thompson revives Harry Faulk using the healing stone after he has a heart attack. However, Harry refuses to heal him after his gunshot wound reappears as he doesn't want the share that the money that they made from their TV ministry.
** Jack in "Acts of Terror" beats Louise, cheats on her, and breaks her property. Thanks to a supernatural Doberman responding to her anger, Jack starts suffering for his ways. When Louise is finally pushed over the edge, the Doberman begins mauling Jack (who is begging for mercy). Louise ultimately stops it from killing him, and the dog vanishes. The next morning, rather than express gratitude or change his ways, Jack intends to get payback for his injuries now that the supernatural pooch is seemingly gone. Of course, Louise is no longer scared of him, and the Doberman reappears as backup.
* UnnamedParent:
** In "The Uncle Devil Show", Joey's parents are not named.
** In "The Leprechaun-Artist", Buddy, J.P. and Richie's parents aren't named.
** In "A Saucer of Loneliness", Margaret's mother is not named.
* VampireVannabe: In "Red Snow", the Communist Party secretary Ivan Povin agreed to become a vampire shortly after arriving in the [[TheGulag Siberian gulag]] because he knew that it would be difficult to survive the harsh conditions otherwise. Although he is initially disgusted by the vampires and fears that they intend to feed on him, KGB Colonel Ilyanov later agrees to be made a vampire himself. Valentina Orlova convinces him that the best way to defeat the Soviet Union is to create further vampires and [[InternalReformist take it down from the inside]].
* VampiresSleepInCoffins: In "Red Snow", Titov, the mayor of the small Siberian town which has become a [[TheGulag gulag]], stores the vampires' coffins in the town's disused, boarded up church. They are empty during the winter months when there is no sunlight from October to April but Titov and others protect the vampires during the summer months when the coffins are occupied during the day. In exchange, the vampires protect the townspeople from dangerous criminals and animals.
* VanityLicensePlate: In "The Leprechaun-Artist", the "really hot" car that the {{Leprechaun}} Shawn [=McGool=] conjures up for Buddy, J.P. and Richie for their [[ThreeWishes third and final wish]] has the license plate "Third Wish."
* VastBureaucracy: In "Wish Bank", Janice Hamill is transported to the Department of Magical Venues after finding a magic lamp. Her broker Mr. Brent hands her a stack of papers and tells her that she needs to bring them to the validation window before her ThreeWishes can be granted. He also says that she has to pay tax on the $10,000,000 that she wished for. After queuing at the window for hours, the clerk tells her that she is missing a 604 form and that she needs to get one from her broker. Janice seeks help from Mr. Willoughby, the head of the office, but it is quitting time so he says that she will have to come back tomorrow. She is so frustrated that [[MundaneWish wishes that she never found the lamp]].
* VideoPhone: In "To See the Invisible Man", Mitchell Chaplin calls [=MedEm=] over a video phone in order to receive medical assistance after being hit by a car. The nurse immediately hangs up when she sees the invisibility implant on Mitchell's forehead.
* TheVietnamVet:
** In "Nightcrawlers", Price is a traumatized Vietnam veteran who has the ability to [[YourMindMakesItReal manifest any person or object that he can imagine]].
** In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", Billy Kinetta is a Vietnam vet who is haunted by the fact that a Marine whom he didn't even know died saving his life while he was hiding from the Viet Cong during an ambush in Da Nang.
** In "The Road Less Traveled", the AlternateUniverse Jeff [=McDowell=] went to fight in Vietnam in 1971 instead of [[DraftDodging dodging the draft]] and [[AnArmAndALeg lost his legs when he stepped on a landmine]]. He has spent most of his life since then in a VA hospital wondering what his life would have been like if he had crossed the border to UsefulNotes/{{Canada}}.
* TheVoiceless: In "Children's Zoo", Debbie Cunningham never speaks but all indications are that she can.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:W]]
* WarIsHell:
** In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Lancelot was a mercenery-for-hire who traveled the world fighting for UsefulNotes/{{India}} and UsefulNotes/{{China}} (which he still calls Cathay) and in UsefulNotes/TheCrusades. He did so for centuries after Camelot fell but eventually grew weary of all the death and destruction and refused to fight any more. When Myth/{{Merlin}} awakens, Lancelot asks him if even Camelot was worth all of the "blood and widows' tears" that it cost to built.
** In "The Road Less Traveled", the AlternateUniverse version of Jeff [=McDowell=] was traumatized by his experiences during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar, especially [[AnArmAndALeg losing his legs]]. He tells his counterpart that he regularly has terrible nightmares about the things that he saw there.
* WeatherManipulation: In "Welcome to Winfield", TheGrimReaper Griffin St. George has the power to create thunder and lightning. He first uses this ability to try and coerce the people of Winfield into telling him where Matt Winnaker is and later to get their attention when they plead with him to [[TakeMeInstead take them instead]].
* WeirdnessSearchAndRescue: In "A Matter of Minutes", the foreman of a group of people takes time to explain to a couple who end up 'outside time' how time really works, even showing them an animated computer graphic prepared for such an event.
* WellDoneSonGuy: "A Small Talent for War" features a race who sowed humanity on Earth in the distant past. Humanity's desperate attempt to impress our "fathers" [[spoiler:ends badly]].
* WellIntentionedExtremist: In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Myth/{{Merlin}} seeks to place a king on the throne who will rule the world according to the principles of honor, integrity, morality and chivalry that he and Myth/KingArthur created in Camelot. However, he is willing to [[HumanSacrifice sacrifice]] Tom in order to restore his powers fully. Lancelot warns him that war has changed in the 1,000 years that he slept and there are weapons capable of destroying the entire world. Merlin ignores him, intending to do whatever is necessary to fulfil his grand design. After he kills Morgan le Fay, Lancelot tells Tom not to hate him as he was "just an old man who slept too long and dreamt too hard."
* WhamShot:
** Near the end of "Shelter Skelter", the camera leaves Harry in his shelter and pans over the destruction and rubble among a darkened landscape... [[spoiler:before coming across a curved wall. Moving ''past'' it, we are shown... a bright, sunny day, with people out and about in a park, where we also see that the curved wall was part of a dome]].
** At the end of "The Toys of Caliban", over the sounds of [[spoiler:approaching police sirens]], Ernest Ross shows Toby one last image, so that he can summon it. That image in question (which is reflected in Toby's eyes)? [[spoiler:[[KillItWithFire A fire.]]]]
** By the end of "Many, Many Monkeys", Claire Hendricks becomes blind, much like most of everyone else in the episode[[note]]as shown with their eyes turning white and blank[[/note]]. Only problem? [[spoiler:The episode ends by zooming in on her face... and her eyes are ''normal''. She's blind in a ''psychosomatic'' sense.]]
* WholePlotReference:
** "Her Pilgrim Soul" is one to ''Film/PortraitOfJennie''. Dr. Kevin Drayton falls in love with the spirit of the long dead Nola Granville, who grows older every time that he sees her.
** "Personal Demons" is one to "Literature/TheElvesAndTheCobbler". The hooded creatures appear to Rockne O'Bannon so that he can cure his WritersBlock by writing a story about them.
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Lancelot has grown weary of immortality after 1,000 years and tells Morgan le Fay that he would welcome die to put an end to his pain and guilt over betraying Myth/KingArthur through his affair with Guinevere.
%%* {{Wishplosion}}: "The Wish Bank", "I of Newton"
* WishUponAShootingStar: In "Grace Note", the [[LittlestCancerPatient teenage leukemia patient]] Mary Miletti sees a shooting star and wishes that her elder sister Rosemarie can see that she will one day achieve her dream of being a famous opera star. The next day, after Mary is taken to hospital, Rosemarie is transported 20 years forward in time to March 22, 1986 and sees [[MyFutureSelfAndMe her future self]] performing ''La Traviata'' to a sold out audience in the Lincoln Center.
* WitchHunt: In "A Message from Charity", Charity Payne is accused of being a witch after she tells her best friend Ursula Miller of the wonders of 1985 that she has seen through Peter Wood's eyes or that he has told her about such as cars, television, airplanes, men walking on UsefulNotes/TheMoon and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution. The "evidence" against her is her family's well being the only one in Annes Town whose water is not tainted and Master Croft's ewe giving birth to a lamb with a ThirdEye. While searching for references to Charity's trial in books on [[UsefulNotes/TheThirteenAmericanColonies colonial Massachusetts]], Peter finds a reference to Squire Jonas Hacker being posthumously convicted of the murder of two sailors in 1704. During her trial, Charity claims to possess [[{{Seers}} second sight]] and describes the root cellar in which the bodies are hidden. Squire Hacker holds that her second sight is a gift from {{God}} and proclaims her innocent of witchcraft. However, Charity reluctantly breaks off contact with Peter to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.
* WithFriendsLikeThese:
** In "A Message from Charity", Charity Payne tells her best friend Ursula Miller what she has learned of the future through her telepathic contact with Peter Wood. Ursula then brings Charity's claims to the attention of Squire Jonas Hacker and Charity is accused of being a witch.
** "Cat and Mouse" has one such friend.
** In "Dead Run", it's implied that Johnny's company of truck drivers are like this.
** In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Lancelot considers Myth/{{Merlin}} to be his friend from their days at Camelot together 1,000 years earlier. However, Merlin proves himself to be untrustworthy almost as soon as he awakens from his long sleep as he plans to [[HumanSacrifice sacrifice]] Tom and shape the world to his vision.
* {{Workaholic}}: In "Her Pilgrim Soul", Dr. Kevin Drayton has been working obsessively to perfect his holographic projector for three years to the detriment of his marriage to Carol. She wants to start a family but their marriage is in the process of failing as she and Kevin barely even see each other anymore. [[spoiler:Kevin later learns from Nola Granville that he is the {{Reincarnation}} of her husband Robert Goldstone and that he inherited Robert's fear of loving someone after Nola [[DeathByChildbirth died in childbirth]]. This fear led him to act coldly towards Carol.]]
* WorldWarIII:
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet A Little Peace and Quiet]]", a nuclear war breaks out between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1985.
** {{Discussed|Trope}} in "Paladin of the Lost Hour". Gaspar tells Billy Kinetta that he knows for certain that the feared nuclear holocaust will never come.
** In "Quarantine", 80% of the world's population was wiped out in a nuclear war in 2043. The authorities of the time considered it a limited engagement as only six missiles were fired by each side.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E20 Profile in Silver]]", UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy's [[WhoShotJFK assassination]] is averted by Professor Joseph Fitzgerald, a time traveling historian from 2172 and [[FamousAncestor one of Kennedy's descendants]]. This creates an AlternateTimeline in which Soviet troops invade West Berlin, resulting in World War III. In order to restore the proper timeline, Fitzgerald takes Kennedy's place and allows himself to be killed. Kennedy is [[TimeTravelEscape transported forward in time to 2172]].
* WouldHitAGirl: In "What Are Friends For?", Jeff Mattingly pushes the much younger Cindy Conrad to the ground as he thinks that she is ruining the game of Tag that he is playing with her older brothers Tim and Larry. He later apologizes for his behavior and becomes friends with all three Conrad children.
* WouldHurtAChild:
** In "Examination Day", [[spoiler:the totalitarian government gives tests that identify [[ChildProdigy child prodigies]]--who are then killed before they can grow up to question or threaten the power structure.]]
** In "The Shadow Man", the titular entity attacks several of Danny Hayes' classmates at Willow Creek Junior High School, including Mark, Wendy and Chip Murphy. [[spoiler:In the final scene, Danny is himself attacked by a Shadow Man who lives under someone else's bed.]]
* WriteBackToTheFuture: In "The Junction", Ray Dobson is extremely grateful to John Parker, another miner from 1986, for saving his life while they were trapped by a cave-in on September 16, 1912. In order to return the favor, he writes a letter to John's wife Melissa and leaves it with the church with instructions that it be delivered on September 15, 1986, the day before John became trapped. Although Reverend Bailey had every intention of delivering it on the day in question, he was called away and forgot to do so. By the time that he gets it to Melissa, John is already trapped in the mine. However, Ray's letter includes the location where he and John were trapped in 1912 and John is rescued in time.
* WritersBlock: In "Personal Demons", the veteran television writer Rockne O'Bannon is suffering from severe writer's block. He admits to his friend and neighbor Herman Gold that he has not had an original idea in 20 years. Shortly afterwards, he begins seeing strange, hooded creatures everywhere he goes [[InvisibleToNormals that no one else can see]]. When he finally confronts them, they tell Rockne to write about them and he will never see them again. As soon as he starts typing, they begin to disappear.
* WritersSuck: In "Act Break", Maury Winkler and Harry are a pair of middle-aged writers who have written 17 unsuccessful plays in 22 years. Each one took six months to a year to write but most of them closed after only one night and none of them got anywhere near Broadway. They are two months behind on the rent for their filthy, cramped office and the landlord is threatening to throw them out.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:X-Z]]
* XRayVision: In "The Leprechaun-Artist", after he and his friends J.P. and Richie capture a {{Leprechaun}} named Shawn [=McGool=], Buddy wishes for X-Ray vision so that he can see through girls' clothes. His power starts working the next morning and he is initially able to see under his female classmates' clothes to their underwear. However, after a few seconds of concentrating on one girl, he sees her internal organs and faints in shock. When J.P. and Richie come to his aid, he can see their skulls. [=McGool=], who brands Buddy a "little deviant," eventually removes the wish when it becomes clear to him that Buddy has learned his lesson.
* YourCheatingHeart:
** In "Children's Zoo", Sheila Cunningham suspects, with good reason, that her husband Martin is cheating on her but he continually denies it. In his car, she finds proof: cigarette butts with lipstick on them. When they arrive at the Children's Zoo with their daughter Debbie, Martin starts hitting on the attendant Melody.
** In "Ye Gods", Cupid cheated on Megaera with a mortal woman named Drusilla. As a result, Megaera broke up with him and [[{{Animorphism}} turned Drusilla into a tree frog]].
** In "Nightsong", Simon Locke frequently cheated on his girlfriend Andrea Fields, including with a groupie in Fresno. Andrea was aware of Simon's behavior but she did not care as she was so in love with him.
** In "Lost and Found", the female time traveler tells her male companion that she is returning to 2139 and that he shouldn't bother coming home if he stops by to see UsefulNotes/CleopatraVII first. When he leaves 1986, he sets his time travel device for 32 B.C.E., suggesting that he does intend to visit Cleopatra.
* YourMindMakesItReal:
** In "Nightcrawlers", Price is a [[TheVietnamVet Vietnam vet]] who suffers from severe PTSD as a result of deserting his unit, the Nightcrawlers, while they were under attack from the Viet Cong in order to save himself. He has the ability to manifest anything that he can imagine. The first indication of this is when he briefly turns his cup of coffee into a Budweiser. Price later demonstrates his ability to the other people in Big Bob's diner when he makes a T-bone steak appear on the counter. He says that he has met four other vets with the same ability and that one of them speculated that their powers are as a result of being sprayed with a strange Soviet chemical by the Viet Cong. While he is awake, Price's creations last only a few seconds but they last far longer when he is asleep. When he fell asleep at a motel, he had his [[RecurringDreams recurring nightmare]] about his unit hunting him out of revenge and four people were killed. Trooper Dennis Wells knocks him unconscious with a ketchup bottle after he tries to escape. As a result, the Nightcrawlers unit again manifests from Price's thoughts and attacks the diner, killing Wells and Price in the process. With Price dead, the Nightcrawlers disappear.
** In "The Toys of Caliban", an intellectually impaired boy named Toby Ross has the ability to manifest any item after he sees a picture of it by saying "Bring!" As a reward, his parents Ernest and Mary show him a picture of a donut every night after dinner. Ernest is worried when Toby is able to create two donuts for himself without looking at the picture, something which has never happened before. That night, Toby is suffering from a severe stomach ache after manifesting dozens of donuts. His parents reluctantly take him to an emergency room where he has to get his stomach pumped. As a result of Ernest and Mary's odd, evasive behavior, a social worker named Miss Kemp calls on them before they leave the hospital the next morning. She becomes extremely concerned about Toby's welfare when Ernest angrily prevents her from giving Toby a magazine. Although Toby only got a glimpse of the magazine, he is nevertheless able to bring it later. He sees a diagram of a heart and accidentally kills Mary when he [[AttackOnTheHeart removes her heart from her chest]]. Sometime later, Miss Kemp visits the Ross household, convinced that Toby is being horribly mistreated. Ernest is forced to demonstrate Toby's ability for her. As Miss Kemp leaves, Toby sees an old photograph of his mother. Mary's decomposing corpse then appears in her armchair, traumatizing Toby. After burying Mary's body in the backyard, Ernest believes that he has run out of options. [[spoiler:He shows Toby a picture of fire. When Miss Kemp returns with the police, they find the house in flames.]]
* YourVampiresSuck: In "Monsters!", the vampire Emile Francis Bendictson criticizes the depiction of vampires in the monster movies enjoyed by Toby Michaels because almost everything in them is inaccurate.
* YouWillBeBeethoven:
** In "Profile in Silver", Professor Joseph Fitzgerald, a time traveler from 2172, switches places with his FamousAncestor UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy so that he can be assassinated in JFK's place on November 22, 1963.
** In "The Once and Future King", the ElvisImpersonator Gary Pitkin is sent back in time to Memphis, Tennessee on July 3, 1954 and meets the real Music/ElvisPresley, two days before he is due to perform "That's All Right" for Sam Phillips at Sun Records. The next day, Gary learns that Elvis intends to play "I Love You Because" instead and tries to convince him that he will ruin his chances of a record deal if he does so. However, Elvis begins to suspect that Gary has been sent to tempt him with devil's music and attacks him. In the ensuing fight, Elvis is [[InertialImpalement impaled on the neck of his guitar and dies]]. Gary then [[DeadPersonImpersonation assumes his identity]] and performs "That's All Right" for Phillips as history records Elvis did. It turns out that it was Gary posing as Elvis rather than the real Elvis who was destined to become the King of RockAndRoll. However, Gary wonders if Elvis would have made a better King if he had lived.
[[/folder]]

** In "Ye Gods", Megaera turned Cupid's lover Drusilla into a tree frog as she was angry that Cupid had cheated on her.

** "Tooth and Consequences" is a pun on ''Series/TruthOrConsequences''.

** "Take My Life...Please!" is a reference to Henny Youngman's famous joke "Take my wife...please!"

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: In "The Once and Future King", Mr. Harris, Music/ElvisPresley's boss at the Crown Electric Company in Memphis, Tennessee, is disgusted that the ElvisImpersonator Gary Pitkin has a picture of a "nigger" on his undershirt. Gary, a time traveler from 1986, is wearing a Music/ChuckBerry T-shirt.

* DraftDodging: In "Dead Run", a man who dodged the draft and crossed the border to UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar is sent to {{Hell}} by the fundamentalist Dispatcher who has recently taken over the CelestialBureaucracy.

* FlashSideways: In "The World Next Door", Barney Schlessinger has been having what he thinks are dreams in which he is a famous inventor who lives in a more technologically primitive age. After [[DownTheRabbitHole finding a doorway in his basement]], he arrives in a RetroUniverse which resembles the early 1900s. While there, he learns that he had in fact been seeing the life of his AlternateSelf and vice versa.

* SurvivorsGuilt: In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", TheVietnamVet Billy Kinetta suffers from severe survivor's guilt as his life was saved by a Marine whom he had never previously met when his rifle was ambushed by the Viet Cong in Da Nang. The Marine was killed in the process. When Gaspar allows him to use one minute from the lost hour to speak with the Marine, Billy learns that the Marine had not even known that he was there. Billy thanks him for saving his life but the Marine tells him that he is the one who is grateful as he now knows that his death had meaning.

* ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight: In "The Shadow Man", the murderous titular entity takes up residence under Danny Hayes' bed and offers him immunity to his/its attacks. Only it turns out [[spoiler:there's more than one of them...]] ''[[spoiler:[[AmbiguousEnding Maybe...]]]]''

* WarIsHell: In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Lancelot was a mercenery-for-hire who traveled the world fighting for UsefulNotes/{{India}} and UsefulNotes/{{China}} (which he still calls Cathay) and in UsefulNotes/TheCrusades. He did so for centuries after Camelot fell but eventually grew weary of all the death and destruction and refused to fight any more. When Myth/{{Merlin}} awakens, Lancelot asks him if even Camelot was worth all of the "blood and widows' tears" that it cost to built.

** In "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", Gus Rosenthal is sent back in time to the 1940s and acts as a mentor and surrogate father to his younger self, who had a difficult relationship with his father Jack. Eventually, the older Gus realizes that he must return to his own time as [[TemporalSickness his presence in the past is making him sick]]. When the younger Gus finds out that he is leaving, he angrily tells his future self that he will be a "big something" when he is older and will beat "Mr. Rosenthal" up if he ever sees him again. [[spoiler:The older Gus then remembers meeting Mr. Rosenthal as a child and vowing to become successful because he was hurt at him leaving.]]

* ThatWasNotADream: In "The Once and Future King", Gary Pitkin initially believes that he is having a dream about meeting his idol Music/ElvisPresley before he was famous in Memphis, Tennessee in 1954. He later realizes that he has sent back in time.

** {{Lampshaded|Trope}} in "Paladin of the Lost Hour". Gaspar tells Billy Kinetta that he shares with name with one of TheThreeWiseMen, the magi who saw the StarOfBethlehem and visited the newborn UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}}. He adds that Gaspar means master of the treasure, keeper of the secrets, paladin of the palace. Gaspar later explains that he is the latest in a long line of guardians of the lost hour going back to Pope Gregory XIII's adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1582.

** In "The After Hours", Marsha Cole buys a Cornfield Kids doll for her landlord's daughter Jennifer, a reference to the Cabbage Patch Kids. The doll itself is a repurposed Cabbage Patch Kid in a corn ear.

** In "Extra Innings", a [[CareerEndingInjury injured baseball player]] named Ed Hamner receives a 1910 baseball card from his teenage neighbor Paula depicting a player named Monty Hanks who looks just like him. Possessing the card allows Ed to travel to 1910 and play as Monty free of any injury.

%%* StableTimeLoop: "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", "The Once and Future King", "The Convict's Piano".

%%* TimeTravel: "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", "Profile in Silver", "The Once and Future King", "Lost and Found", "The Convict's Piano", "Joy Ride", "Time and Teresa Golowitz"

** In "The Convict's Piano", Rick Frost tells the prison doctor Puckett that he was transported back in time to 1899 and 1917 after playing songs from those years on the old piano in the reception hall. Puckett clearly does not believe a word that he is saying. The next day, Rick tells Eddie O'Hara that he can come with him to 1928 and get his revenge on his old nemesis Mickey Shaughnessy if he touches the piano while he is playing "Someone to Watch Over Me". Eddie retorts that he has been in prison too long to believe in magic. [[SubvertedTrope However]], he realizes that Rick is telling the truth when he disappears in front of his eyes. He receives further proof when Shaughnessy is sent forward in time after playing the piano himself.

** In "The Convict's Piano", Rick Frost is able to escape his [[MiscarriageOfJustice unjust prison sentence]] in 1986 when he plays "Someone to Watch Over Me" on the old piano and is transported back in time to 1928. He realizes that he has picked the right song and the right time because he remains in the past after he stops playing the piano, in contrast to his previous trips to 1899 and 1917. The gangster Mickey Shaughnessy is transported forward in time to 1986 when he plays "S' Wonderful". [[PointOfNoReturn He is trapped 58 years in his future]] as the piano is subsequently destroyed.

** In "The Convict's Piano", Rick 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.

* MiscarriageOfJustice: In "The Convict's Piano", Rick Frost was wrongfully convicted of the murder of his ex-girlfriend because her body was found in a car that had been stolen from him.

* MisterSandmanSequence: In "The Convict's Piano", there is one whenever Rick Frost travels back in time after playing a song from that era on the piano that he found in prison:

** When he plays "Something to Watch Over Me" by Music/GeorgeGershwin, he arrives at a private party in UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} in 1928. It is being held by the gangster Mickey Shaughnessy and the guests are all drinking illegal alcohol. Like every other women at the party, Shaughnessy's girlfriend Ellen is a [[TheFlapper flapper]]. Shaughnessy asks Rick to play "S' Wonderful", the most popular song of 1928 which was also by Gershwin.

* TheOldConvict: In "The Convict's Piano", Eddie O'Hara was [[FrameUp framed]] for murder by the gangster Mickey Shaughnessy in 1928. When Rick Frost meets him in 1986, he has been in prison for 58 years.

* DistinguishingMark: In "The Storyteller", Micah Frost falls from a tree and cuts his right cheek on a rock in 1933, leaving him with a prominent scar. In 1986, his former teacher Dorothy Livingston is able to recognize him as an adult because of this scar.

* EquivalentExchange: In "The World Next Door", Barney Schlessinger and his counterpart from the RetroUniverse switch places as each wants what the other has in life. The Barney of our universe has longed to be a famous and successful inventor for years. He is delighted when he meets the alternate version of his wife Katie, who admires "his" inventions greatly as opposed to his own Katie who belittles him for them. The alternate Barney has grown tired of the pressure that comes with fame and people's expectations for the next great invention so he settles in our universe, where he can live in blissful anonymity and doesn't have to invent anything else if he doesn't want to.

** In "I of Newton", the demon's sunglasses remain behind after he is defeated and is sent away. Sam immediately throws them in the trash.

* AbusiveParents: In "Children's Zoo", the four-year-old Debbie Cunningham's parents Sheila and Martin are frequently verbally and emotionally abusive towards her. Her mother yells at her without the slightest provocation, her father ignores her and the two of them spend most of their time arguing with each other with no regard for the effect that it is having on Debbie. This leads Debbie to trade her parents in for a new pair at the [[PeopleZoo Children's Zoo]].

* [[ReferencedBy/WilliamShakespeare Referenced by...: William Shakespeare]]: In "The After Hours", Marsha Cole buys a [[BlandNameProduct Cornfield Kid doll]] from a toy shop called Play's the Thing. This is a reference to the line "The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king" from ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' Act 2, Scene 2.

* YourMindMakesItReal: In "Nightcrawlers", Price is a [[TheVietnamVet Vietnam vet]] who suffers from severe PTSD as a result of deserting his unit, the Nightcrawlers, while they were under attack from the Viet Cong in order to save himself. He has the ability to manifest anything that he can imagine. The first indication of this is when he briefly turns his cup of coffee into a Budweiser. Price later demonstrates his ability to the other people in Big Bob's diner when he makes a T-bone steak appear on the counter. He says that he has met four other vets with the same ability and that one of them speculated that their powers are as a result of being sprayed with a strange Soviet chemical by the Viet Cong. While he is awake, Price's creations last only a few seconds but they last far longer when he is asleep. When he fell asleep at a motel, he had his [[RecurringDreams recurring nightmare]] about his unit hunting him out of revenge and four people were killed. Trooper Dennis Wells knocks him unconscious with a ketchup bottle after he tries to escape. As a result, the Nightcrawlers unit again manifests from Price's thoughts and attacks the diner, killing Wells and Price in the process. With Price dead, the Nightcrawlers disappear.

** In "The Star", the survey ship ''Magellan'' is named after the 16th Century explorer Ferdinand Magellan.

* AdaptationPersonalityChange: Harry Faulk is almost as mercenary when it comes to money in the short story adaptation of "Healer" as he is in the original episode but he still has a conscience. In the episode, Harry refuses to use the stone to heal Jackie Thompson's gunshot wound since he wants all of the money that they have made for himself. In the short story, Harry makes a genuine effort to heal Jackie but he becomes scared and runs away, promising to call an ambulance as he does so.

* AlternateUniverse: 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.

* BlandNameProduct: In "Cold Reading", ''Dick Noble, African Explorer'' is sponsored by the cereal Krisp-O-Meal, which is based on Corn Flakes.

* HenpeckedHusband: In "Button, Button", Norma Lewis constantly belittles her downtrodden husband Arthur at the simplest provocation and shows him no affection of any kind.

* MurderousMannequin: The remake of the "The After Hours", with a woman being stalked by mannequins in an after-hours department store.

* DeadAllAlong: In an extremely disturbing way, [[spoiler:"Kentucky Rye"]] ends on this note. After managing to walk away from a car crash, Bob Spindler (drunk at the time) wanders into a bar and, after befriending the patrons and the owner, winds up ''buying'' it (after getting a little help from a somber looking man). The next morning, Bob wakes up in the bar... which is dusty and abandoned. The somber man is with him. And as they look outside, they see [[spoiler:police and ambulance workers clean up a car crash outside the "Kentucky Rye". The victims? The somber man... and [[DiscoveringYourOwnDeadBody Bob (who hit him, then crashed)]]]].

* DrivesLikeCrazy: In "Dead Run", the trucker Johnny Davis is a reckless driver who has gotten into four accidents in two years and can no longer get any insurance company to take a risk on him. His fellow trucker Pete gets him a job as one of the truckers who drive the condemned to {{Hell}}.

* LongLived: In "A Small Talent for War", the alien ambassador's race live for at least several hundred years.

* {{Technophobia}}: In "Quarantine", the survivors of WorldWarIII of 2043 came to distrust and despise technology because nuclear weapons had wiped out 80% of the world's population. They abandoned machines in favor of improving humanity through [[BioAugmentation genetic engineering]] and achieving harmony with the natural world.

* UnfinishedBusiness: In "If She Dies", Paul Marano speculates that the soul of Sarah, who died of tuberculois decades earlier, has not moved onto {{Heaven}} yet as {{God}} wants her to save the life of his comatose daughter Cathy.

* StealthPun: In "Dealer's Choice", Pete plays a game of one-on-one with Nick, who is in actuality the Devil, [[ChessWithDeath for his immortal soul]]. In the closing narration, it is pointed out that he did not heed the old saying "[[DealWithTheDevil Never deal with the Devil]]".

** In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", the Marine who killed saving Billy Kinetta from a Viet Cong ambush during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar is never named.

* CelebrityResemblance: In "The Once and Future King", Gary Pitkin is an ElvisImpersonator who bears an uncanny resemblance to the King of RockAndRoll. After he is sent back in time to July 3, 1954, the real Music/ElvisPresley mistakes him for his identical twin brother Jesse, who died at birth and has [[BackFromTheDead seemingly been brought back to life]]. After Elvis is [[InertialImpalement impaled on the neck of Gary's guitar]], Gary [[DeadPersonImpersonation assumes his identity]] and manages to fool everyone except [[ParentsKnowTheirChildren Elvis' mother Gladys]].

* DeadPersonImpersonation: In "The Once and Future King", Gary Pitkin, an ElvisImpersonator from 1986, gets into a fight with the real Music/ElvisPresley on July 4, 1954 as Elvis believes that he is a demon who has been sent to tempt him with evil music. In the struggle, Elvis is [[InertialImpalement killed when he is accidentally impaled on the neck of Gary's broken guitar]]. After burying his body, Gary [[YouWillBeBeethoven assumes Elvis' identity]] and becomes the King of RockAndRoll.

** In "The Once and Future King", the ElvisImpersonator Gary Pitkin is sent back in time to Memphis, Tennessee on July 3, 1954 and meets the real Music/ElvisPresley, two days before he is due to perform "That's All Right" for Sam Phillips at Sun Records. The next day, Gary learns that Elvis intends to play "I Love You Because" instead and tries to convince him that he will ruin his chances of a record deal if he does so. However, Elvis begins to suspect that Gary has been sent to tempt him with devil's music and attacks him. In the ensuing fight, Elvis is [[InertialImpalement impaled on the neck of Gary's guitar and dies]]. Gary then [[DeadPersonImpersonation assumes his identity]] and performs "That's All Right" for Phillips as history records Elvis did. It turns out that it was Gary posing as Elvis rather than the real Elvis who was destined to become the King of RockAndRoll. However, Gary wonders if Elvis would have made a better King if he had lived.

* AlliterativeName: In "Tooth and Consequences", the protagonist's name is Dr. Myron Mandel.

* EnergyBeing: In "Chameleon", an energy being hitches a ride on the space shuttle ''Discovery'' and is unknowingly brought back to Earth. It has the ability to absorb any object or person into itself and transform itself into either them or anything from their memories. For instance, after absorbing Crew Chief Brady Simmons, it imitates both him and his wife Kate. Later, it absorbs the weapons expert Dr. Vaughn Heilman and changes into a nuclear bomb in order to coerce the UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} scientists studying it into releasing it.

* NotSoImaginaryFriend: "What Are Friends For?", with a young boy meeting another youth in the woods, who turns out to be [[spoiler: an immortal being of light]].

* OlderThanTheyLook: In "Red Snow", KGB Colonel Ilyanov meets a young woman named Valentina Orlova soon after arriving in the [[TheGulag Siberian gulag]]. When he consults her file, he discovers that she was exiled there by UsefulNotes/JosefStalin in 1936. He later learns that she is a vampire and is in her 80s even though she looks 50 years younger.

** [[spoiler:"A Day in Beaumont" shows an astronomer and his girlfriend witness a UFO landing, apparently the start of an alien invasion. At the end, they discover that they themselves are aliens, and everything that happened is part of a training exercise to help the aliens infiltrate Earth society.]]

* ThoroughlyMistakenIdentity: In "The Once and Future King", Music/ElvisPresley mistakes Gary Pitkin, an ElvisImpersonator from 1986 who [[CelebrityResemblance looks just like him]], for his stillborn identical twin brother Jesse who has come BackFromTheDead. Gary allows him to believe this and tries to use the opportunity to convince Elvis that he has a very bright future ahead of him.

** Music/ElvisPresley is used as a character in "The Once and Future King". The Sun Records producer Sam Phillips and his receptionist Marion Keisker also make brief appearances.

** Music/ElvisPresley is used as a character in "The Once and Future King".