The Twilight Zone 1985 / Tropes Q to Z

This page covers tropes found in The Twilight Zone (1985). Tropes beginning with letters A-H can be found at Tropes A to H and tropes beginning with letters I-P can be found at Tropes I to P.

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The Twilight Zone (1985) provides examples of:

Q-R

• Questioning Title?: "But Can She Type?" and "What Are Friends For?".
• Race Lift:
  • In "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", the elderly man who lost the respect of his children is white. In the short story by William F. Wu, he is Chinese-American.
  • In "A Game of Pool", Jesse Cardiff is Hispanic. In the original episode, he is white.
  • In "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich", Nino Lancaster's henchman Bork is white. In the Comic-Book Adaptation, he is black.
• Rage Against the Reflection: In "A Saucer of Loneliness", the extremely depressed Margaret yells "I hate you!" at her reflection several times before breaking down in tears.
• Rapid Aging:
  • 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.
  • In "Our Selena is Dying", Debra Brockman, who is in her late 20s, has her Life Energy drained by her aunt Selena. Afterwards, she appears to be in her 70s. The same is true of her cousin Diane, whose youth was drained by her own mother Martha.
• Real Award, Fictional Character: In "Time and Teresa Golowitz", Bluestone tells Nelson Baxley that he will go into television production and win two Emmys in the future.
• Really 700 Years Old:
  • In "Monsters!", Emile Francis Bendictson appears to be in his early 80s but is 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 Merlin. Morgan le Fay is much the same age but she only looks to be in her early 30s.
• Real-Person Cameo: In "The Once and Future King", Elvis Presley's life long best friend Red West plays his boss Mr. Harris of the Crown Electric Company.
• Recurring Dreams:
  • In "Nightcrawlers", The Vietnam Vet 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 ability to manifest his thoughts, the Nightcrawlers appear in the real world 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.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning:
  • 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 takes over Georgie's body, he exhibits the same red eyes.
• Referenced by...: William Shakespeare:
  • In "The After Hours", Marsha Cole buys a 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 Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2.
  • "The Toys of Caliban" is a reference to the "half fish and half monster" Caliban from The Tempest.
  • "Love is Blind" is a line from The Merchant of Venice Act 2, Scene 6.
  • The opening narration of "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich" describes Arky Lochner as a "five for sixer Shylock."
• Reincarnation:
  • In "Her Pilgrim Soul", 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 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.
  • In "Memories", reincarnation is a fact of life in the Alternate Universe as everyone is able to remember the details of their past lives as if it had happened to them personally. Occasionally, souls go out of circulation for a time before being reborn yet again. New souls are created but such people often have a vacant look compared to people with past lives.
• Related in the Adaptation: In "Shadow Play", two characters in Adam Grant's recurring nightmare, Father Grant and Carol Ritchie, are his late father and his sister in the real world. In the 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.
• Relationship-Salvaging Disaster: 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 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.
• The Remake: Several episodes from the original series were remade, including "Dead Man's Shoes" (Gender Flipped as "Dead Women's Shoes") 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 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 and its original ending, where the challenger loses... without informing Johnson, which he did not appreciate.
• Rerouted from Heaven: 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 Celestial Bureaucracy that has taken over is using an overly-literal fundamentalist interpretation of The Bible, mainly due to them being paper-pushing Obstructive Bureaucrats, rather than actual malevolence.
• Reset Button:
  • In "Wish Bank", after Janice Hamill 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.
• La Résistance: In "Room 2426", Dr. Martin Decker's cellmate Joseph claims that he is a member of the resistance who got himself arrested so that he could help Martin escape using teletransportation. It turns out that Joseph is a mole placed in Martin's cell by his torturer Dr. Ostroff.
• Ret-Gone: 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 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. 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.
• Retro Universe: In "The World Next Door", Barney Schlessinger's counterpart is from an Alternate Universe 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.
• Rewriting Reality: In "The Library", an aspiring writer named Ellie Pendleton gets a job working at a mysterious private library which is Bigger on the Inside. 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 returns to her original self.
• Ridiculous Repossession: "The Card" plays this very darkly. A housewife signs up for the titular card because she has maxed out all her other cards. When she fails to pay the balance, the company takes her pets, then her children, then her husband. She ends up cutting the card in half but the company takes her anyway. The last shot is the two pieces of the card landing on a vacant lot.
• Ripple Effect Indicator:
  • A variation in "Little Boy Lost". 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 Hunting "Accident", 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 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." After Linda herself disappears, the card is entirely blank.
  • In "Extra Innings", Paula gives Ed Hamner a 1910 baseball card showing a player named Monte Hanks, who bears a remarkable resemblance to Ed and whose stats are identical to Ed's first two years in the Major Leagues. The card allows Ed to travel back in time to 1910 and assume Hanks' identity. While there, he scores a home run. After returning to 1988, he shows Paula the card and it now says that Hanks scored eight home runs in 1910 instead of seven. After Ed goes back to 1910 for the third time, Paula rips the card in half as she knows that he would rather remain in the past. That night, the stats on the card change before her eyes. As Hanks, Ed played in the Major Leagues until the early 1920s. When Paula turns the card around, there is a new photograph of a smiling Ed with the caption "Batting Champion."
  • Another variation in "Street of Shadows". After Steve Cranston and Frederick Perry swap lives and identities, Steve's image replaces Perry's in a photograph with the film star Lana Taylor and on his driver's license.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory:
  • In "Profile in Silver", once history is restored, the Secret Service agent Ray Livingston is the only person from 1963 who remembers the Alternate Timeline in which John F. Kennedy was not assassinated in Dallas.
  • In "The Library", Ellie Pendleton begins Rewriting Reality 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 disappear in turn because of her delinquent account. Her husband Brian worries that she may be having a mental breakdown until he himself disappears.
  • In "Street of Shadows", after Steve Cranston swaps lives with the millionaire Frederick Perry, he is the only person who is able to remember their original identities. Perry himself was in a coma at the time so it is not clear whether he could as well.
• The Roaring '20s: In "The Convict's Piano", Ricky Frost plays the song "Someone to Watch Over Me" on the old prison piano so that he will be sent back in time to 1928. He sums up the 1920s by saying "Calvin Coolidge, flappers, bathtub gin." Once he arrives in 1928, Ricky finds himself in the middle of a party being thrown by Mickey Shaughnessy where the guests are all drinking illegal alcohol. He decides to stay in 1928 instead of returning to 1986, where he is serving a life sentence for a murder that he didn't commit.
• Rodents of Unusual Size: 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 giant cat, giant dog and a Giant Spider.
• Room 101: In "Room 2426", the titular location is a torture chamber where prisoners such as Dr. Martin Decker are taken when they have information that the State wants. In Martin's case, the location of the notebooks detailing his research into a new bacteria strain.
• Rube Goldberg Device: In "The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon", the title character has been maintaining a contraption built from odds and ends such as dolls' heads, bicycle spokes, baseball cards, paper clips and broken instruments for eleven years. He regularly rummages through trash cans and dumps to find things that he desperately needs for it. Both his niece Cynthia and his landlady Mrs. Milligan are concerned by his behavior and ask the psychiatrist Dr. Jeremy Sinclair to look in on him. Edgar explains to Dr. Sinclair that a strange voice told him that the contraption was necessary in order to keep the world from going puff. Sinclair initially does not believe Edgar, thinking that he is suffering from a psychosis, but eventually realizes that it is all true when Tatoa, a tiny island in the South Pacific, is destroyed exactly as Edgar said it would be. After Edgar is relieved of his duty, it falls to Sinclair to keep the world in balance.
• Rule of Three: In "The Crossing", the apparition of the car in which Father Mark Cassidy's late girlfriend Kelly is a passenger appears to him three times. He figures out that he is supposed to get into it on the third occasion.

S

• Sadistic Choice: 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 says that it will now be given to someone whom they don't know.
• San Dimas Time: 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.
• Schmuck Bait: 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. 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.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: In "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich", Nino Lancaster uses a spell to shrink the demon Volkerps and trap him in a small box. He previously did the same thing to Volkerps' father.
• Secret Shop: Wong's Lost and Found Emporium in the episode of that title is a combination of this and The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday.
  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.
• Secret Test of Character: 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 The Vietnam War.
• Seeing Through Another's Eyes: In "A Message from Charity", Charity Payne, a Puritan girl living in the 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 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. In reality, she had 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.
  • In "20/20 Vision", the farmer's bank loan officer Warren Cribbens discovers that he can see the future through the cracked right lens of his glasses. This ability first manifests when he witnesses a teller accidentally dropping a bill into the trash several seconds before it happens. When the bank president Cutler orders him to foreclose on the struggling farmer Vern Slater's property, Warren sees a depressed and destitute Vern through his glasses. He later visits the Slater farm and sees it in a dilapidated state. Warren's conscience then gets the better of him and he loans Vern some of his own money to tide him over, which leads the furious Cutler to fire him. He also able to use his powers to prevent his secretary Sandy from falling off a ladder and breaking her neck.
• Selfless Wish: In "The Leprechaun-Artist", Buddy considers wishes for world peace or a Cure for Cancer 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 X-Ray Vision so that he can see through girls' clothing.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: In "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich", the mob boss Nino Lancaster is extremely verbose, using several multisyllable words in every sentence. This is lampshaded when he refers to his "complex syntax."
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In "Time and Teresa Golowitz", Bluestone abandons his plan to have sex with Mary Ellen Cosgrove and instead prevents the title character from committing suicide in October 1948. In the altered history, she becomes a highly successful singer. The Prince of Darkness admits that this was his plan all along as he is a sculptor of possibilities who could not bear the idea of the world losing a talent like Teresa's at 16.
• Setting Update:
  • In "A Message from Charity", Peter Wood's native time is 1985. In the short story by William M. Lee, it is 1965.
  • "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.
  • Inverted in "The Cold Equations", which takes place in the late 2050s. The short story by Tom Godwin takes place in 2178.
• Settle for Sibling: 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.
• Sharp-Dressed Man:
  • In "The Burning Man", the strange boy whom Doug and Aunt Neva pick up is wearing a very expensive looking white suit.
  • In "Welcome to Winfield", The Grim Reaper Griffin St. George wears a white suit with matching shoes.
  • In "Dead Run", the Dispatcher, who has recently taken over the Celestial Bureaucracy, wears an extremely expensive looking suit during his meeting with Johnny Davis.
  • In "Time and Teresa Golowitz", the Prince of Darkness appears to Bluestone as a suave man in his 60s wearing an elegant suit.
• Show Within a Show: In "Cold Reading", Milo Trent is cast as the title character's younger brother Timmy in the UBS radio series Dick Noble, African Explorer.
• Silent Treatment: 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.
• Slipping a Mickey: In "Cat and Mouse", Andrea Moffatt slips a sleeping pill into Guillaume de Marchaux's coffee. When he wakes up, he is once again in the form of a cat and Andrea has brought him to the vet in order to have him fixed.
• Smoldering Shoes: In "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich", Cassandra Fishbein's smoking high heels are all that is left of her after the demon Volkerps kills her with a bolt of lightning.
• Sole Survivor:
  • 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 Merlin.
• Something Only They Would Say: In "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.
• Space Clothes: In "Lost and Found", the two time travelers from 2139 wear shiny, silver clothes that look as if they are made out of foil.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In "Devil's Alphabet", Frederick is the only member of the Devil's Alphabet Society to be still alive when 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 equivalent character Charles Bellasis was frightened to death by the ghosts of the other members of the Everlasting Club on November 2, 1766.
• The Speechless: In "A Matter of Minutes", the faceless workers who build every minute are unable to speak.
• Spider-Sense: In "Teacher's Aide", Miss Peters can sense that Wizard plans to attack her after she is possessed by the spirit of a gargoyle.
• Spoiler Title: The title of "Dreams for Sale" makes it obvious that the idyllic country picnic experienced by Jenny is not real.
• Stable Time Loop:
  • In "Act Break", Maury Winkler uses Harry's amulet to wish for a better writing partner instead of wishing for Harry to come back to life. He is transported to Elizabethan England and immediately meets William Shakespeare. Taking the amulet from Maury, Shakespeare wishes for Maury to work with him. 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 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. The older Gus then remembers meeting Mr. Rosenthal as a child and vowing to become successful because he was hurt at him leaving.
  • Implied 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 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 Elvis Impersonator Gary Pitkin meets Elvis Presley on July 3, 1954, two days before he recorded his debut single "That's All Right". After he accidentally kills Elvis the next day, Gary usurps his identity and goes on to become the King of Rock & Roll. He later realizes that this was always meant to happen.
  • In "The Convict's Piano", the elderly convict Eddie O'Hara tells his fellow prisoner Ricky Frost that he was 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. 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 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.
• Stalker with a Crush: In "Appointment on Route 17", Mary Jo initially regards Tom Bennett's interest in her as being extremely creepy as he is clearly only visiting the diner where she works in order to be near her. She angrily tells him that there is nothing for him there. However, Mary Jo eventually realizes that Tom is a nice man who is attracted to her as opposed to a stalker. Tom doesn't reveal to her that his attraction is caused by possessing her late boyfriend Jamie Adler's heart.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Subverted in "Song of the Younger World". Mordecai Hawkline forbids his daughter Amy from ever seeing Tanner Smith again as he is an inmate of the House of Refuge Reformatory for Wayward Boys of which Mordecai is the superintendent. Amy and Tanner manage to escape Mordecai's grasp by transferring their souls into the bodies of wolves in a younger world, where they can presumably live happily ever after.
• Star of Bethlehem: In "The Star", based on a story by Arthur C. Clarke, 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 a species of peaceful aliens. The fact troubles him deeply.
• Stay with the Aliens: In "The Little People of Killany Woods", Liam O'Shaughnessy decides to go with the Little Green Men after their ship is repaired instead of remaining in 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.
• Stealth Pun: In "Dealer's Choice", Pete plays a game of one-on-one with Nick, who is in actuality the Devil, for his immortal soul. In the closing narration, it is pointed out that he did not heed the old saying "Never deal with the Devil."
• Sticky Fingers: 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 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.
• Stock Footage:
  • In "Chameleon", footage of a NASA space shuttle in orbit, several astronauts on a spacewalk and the shuttle returning to Earth are used to represent the Discovery's mission.
  • In "Private Channel", all of the exterior shots of the plane are taken from Twilight Zone: The Movie.
• Story Arc: In-Universe in "Special Service". The JSTV executive Arthur Spence tells John Selig that his losing his job formed a major recurring storyline in the TV show of his life two years ago. However, viewers eventually became bored of watching him look for work and ratings began to slip so JSTV arranged for him to get a new job.
• Struggling Single Mother: In "Stranger in Possum Meadows", Danny Wilkins and his mother live in a dilapidated trailer. His father left years ago, as did her subsequent boyfriend. His mother works almost every night in order to provide a meager living for the two of them.
• 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 1910 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 1910. 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 Very Special Episode about child molestation, the creepy subtext is amazing.
  • In "Stranger in Possum Meadows", it is not stated outright but it is clear that Mrs. Wilkins doesn't want her son Danny spending any time with Scout as she is afraid that he is a pedophile. His odd and creepy demeanor seems to confirm this and she instructs Danny to come home straight after school instead of showing Scout around Possum Meadows as he promised. The next day, Danny disobeys his mother and goes to the meadow, where his conversation with Scout features even more subtext. Scout tells him that he talked to Mrs. Wilkins and that she said that it was okay for Danny to come with him. Danny is reluctant but Scout convinces him to do so by reminding him that they are friends. Scout isn't a pedophile but an alien who has come to Earth to collect specimens. He chooses Danny as the human specimen but eventually lets him go.
• Suicide by Cop: 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 either unwilling or unable to kill himself.
• Summoning Ritual: 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.
• Supernaturally Young Parent: In "Father & Son Game", the 79-year-old Darius Stephens' consciousness is placed in a Cyborg body resembling a man in his late 30s. As such, he looks more than ten years younger than his 50-year-old son Michael.
• Supernatural Repellent:
  • In "Something in the Walls", Sharon Miles determines that the creatures that live in the walls and in anything with a pattern can be prevented from coming through if she surrounds herself with items that are plain and entirely one color. As such, she paints her room at the Crest Ridge Sanitarium white and covers each crack that appears. She also refuses to place a checkered blanket on her bed. In spite of all her precautions, however, the creatures manage to come through a crack in her wall and replace her with one of their own.
  • In "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich", Nino Lancaster has his henchmen Gus and Bork get 100 gallons of lead paint and tells them to spray his office with it 12 times so that the demon Volkerps will not be able to leave once he enters.
• Superpowers for a Day:
  • In "Private Channel", Keith Barnes' Walkman is effected by an electrical discharge after lightning strikes the plane. He soon discovers not only that it allows him to read minds but that a passenger is wearing a bomb vest and plans to blow up the plane. It turns out to be Mr. Williams, who is in the seat beside him. Keith tries in vain to convince Williams not to go through his plan. After Williams reveals that he has a bomb, Keith places the Walkman on him so that he can hear the frightened thoughts of the passengers and crew. As Williams is led away by security, he steps on the Walkman and it is crushed.
  • In "20/20 Vision", Warren Cribbens gains the ability to see into the future when he bumps into Sandy and the right lens of his reading glasses breaks. Later that day, Warren saves Sandy from falling off a ladder and breaking her neck. In the process, the other lens is broken but Warren assures her that he doesn't need them anymore.
• Super-Strength:
  • 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.
• Survivor Guilt:
  • In "Paladin of the Lost Hour", The Vietnam Vet 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 dodged the draft during The Vietnam War 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 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 Alternate Universe counterpart, who went to war, and sees his memories of fighting.
• Sympathy for the Devil: In "Dealer's Choice", Nick is actually a friendly, pleasant fellow who doesn't revel in taking souls—it's 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.

T

• Take Me Instead:
  • In "Welcome to Winfield", the people of Winfield plead for The Grim Reaper 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.
  • In "Rendezvous in a Dark Place", Barbara LeMay pleads with Death to take her instead of Trent, a young robber who is dying from a gunshot wound. However, Death tells her that it is Trent's time and that he can't take life where it doesn't exist, referring to Barbara's obsession with death.
• Taken for Granite: In "The Call", Norman Blane is turned into a bronze sculpture so that he and Mary Ann Lindeby, whose spirit inhabits her bronze self-portrait, can spend all eternity together and end their terrible loneliness. As such, this is a rare example of this trope leading to a Happy Ending.
• Take That!:
  • In "Ye Gods", the yuppie Todd Ettinger comes to realize that the 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 Karen Black, Sandy Dennis or Meryl Streep as they are always crying and their noses are always red. However, he later says that he is willing to make an exception for Streep.
  • In "The Once and Future King", the Elvis Impersonator Gary Pitkin does not want to take his act to Las Vegas as he thinks that it killed Elvis Presley 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.
  • In "Joy Ride", Greg sarcastically asks Adrienne if she wants to vegetate like her mother and watch Dynasty (1981).
  • In "The Girl I Married", Valerie Richman becomes irritated with the hippie version of her husband Ira and says that he is beginning to sound like something out of a rerun of The Mod Squad.
• Talking to Themself: In "Shatterday", Peter Jay Novins talks with a mysterious Doppelgänger.
• Tears from a Stone: In "The Call", the bronze sculpture of Mary Ann Lindeby, whose spirit inhabits it, sheds a single tear when Norman Blane tells her that he has fallen in love with her.
• Technophobia: In "Quarantine", the survivors of World War III 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 genetic engineering and achieving harmony with the natural world.
• Teleportation: In "Room 2426", Joseph tells Dr. Martin Decker that he has mastered the art of teletransportation and that he was sent into the prison by the resistance to teach Martin how to do it so he could escape. Martin is initially skeptical but Joseph convinces him that he has nothing to lose. After trying it, Martin wakes up in a resistance safehouse and Joseph explains to him that his belief that he could teletransport was enough for him to do so. However, it turns out that Joseph is a mole who was trying to determine the location of Martin's bacteria research. Although Joseph and Dr. Ostroff believe that teletransportation is not real, Martin is nevertheless able to transport himself to freedom.
• Temporal Sickness: 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.
• Temporary Blindness: In "Many, Many Monkeys", a rapidly spreading condition results in about 100,000 people in the US losing their sight due to a curtain of flesh growing over their eyes. It may be a punishment for ignoring each other's hardships or the result of bacteria being released from a biological research lab. After several days, it is determined that the flesh curtain can be safely removed through surgery.
• That Was Not a Dream: In "The Once and Future King", Gary Pitkin initially believes that he is having a dream about meeting his idol Elvis Presley before he was famous in Memphis, Tennessee in 1954. He later realizes that he has been sent back in time.
• There Are No Adults: In "The Shadow Man", there are no adults except for brief appearances by the school librarian and Danny Hayes' mother.
• They Would Cut You Up: In "The Toys of Caliban", Miss Kemp suggests that Ernest Ross allow his son Toby to be examined by experts after discovering that he can 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.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night:
  • 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 there's more than one of them... 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 Alternate Universe whose life was ruined after fighting in Vietnam and wanted to see the daughter that he never had.
• Third Eye: In "A Message from Charity", Master Croft's ewe has a lamb with three eyes. This is used as evidence when Charity Payne is 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.
• This Bear Was Framed: In "Red Snow", the Communist Party secretary Vladimir Borisov was killed by the vampires living in the 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.
• Thoroughly Mistaken Identity: In "The Once and Future King", Elvis Presley mistakes Gary Pitkin, an Elvis Impersonator from 1986 who looks just like him, for his stillborn identical twin brother Jesse who has come Back from the Dead. 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. It doesn't go according to plan.
• Three Wishes:
  • 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 Vast Bureaucracy that she wishes that she never found the lamp in the first place.
  • Discussed 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 William Shakespeare'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, none of them turn out according to plan. Buddy wishes for X-Ray Vision 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.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: In "The Cold Equations", Marilyn Lee Cross must be jettisoned into space after she stows away on the Emergency Dispatch Ship because her added weight means the ship doesn't have enough fuel to land safely at its destination Woden.
• Time Dilation: 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 nuclear war in 2043.
• Time-Freeze Trolling Spree: In "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.
• Time-Passage Beard: In "Shelter Skelter", Harry Dobbs and Nick Gatlin both have full beards after six weeks in the fallout shelter. Harry eventually shaves his but Nick's becomes longer and more unkempt as the months pass.
• Time-Shifted Actor:
  • 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 Danica McKellar 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.
  • In "Time and Teresa Golowitz", Bluestone is played by Grant Heslov as a 16-year-old in 1948 and by Paul Sand as a 55-year-old in 1987.
• Time Stands Still: In "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 a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union breaks out.^* 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.Penny is able to freeze time just seconds before her hometown is destroyed by a nuclear missile.
• Time Travel Escape: In "Profile in Silver", Professor Joseph Fitzgerald sends John F. Kennedy 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 take Kennedy's place. JFK becomes a history lecturer at Harvard in 2172.
• Time Travel Episode:
  • In "Act Break", Maury Winkler is sent back in time to the Elizabethan era and becomes the uncredited writing partner of William Shakespeare.
  • 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 change his life for the better.
  • In "Profile in Silver", the 22nd Century historian Professor Joseph Fitzgerald creates an Alternate Timeline when he prevents his Famous Ancestor John F. Kennedy 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 Elvis Impersonator from 1986, meets the real Elvis Presley 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 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 "Time and Teresa Golowitz", 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 injured baseball player named Ed Hamner receives a 1910 baseball card from his 12-year-old neighbor Paula depicting a player named Monte Hanks who looks just like him. Possessing the card allows Ed to travel to 1910 and play as Monte free of any injury.
• Titled After the Song: "Shelter Skelter" is a reference to The Beatles song "Helter Skelter".
• Title Drop:
  • 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 summons the Fury Megaera to his apartment.
  • In "What Are Friends For?", Alex and Jeff Mattingly's Not-So-Imaginary Friend Mike rhetorically asks Alex the titular question before he disappears.
  • The closing narration of "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich" says that "making a deal with the master of demons...well, that's crazy as a soup sandwich."
• Tomato in the Mirror: The Twist Ending of two episodes.
  • "The After Hours", like the original, the protagonist learns/remembers she's actually a mannequin.
  • "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.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: In "Gramma", Georgie finds the Necronomicon from which his grandmother, a powerful witch, gets her power. It contains several references to Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth.
• Took a Level in Kindness: 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 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.
• Tooth Fairy: 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. 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.
• Totally Not a Werewolf: In "The Little People of Killany Woods", Liam O'Shaughnessy claims that he has seen Leprechauns in Killany Woods. Mike Mulvaney later learns that they are three foot tall green aliens from a distant galaxy who enlisted Liam's help to repair their ship, which is shaped like a toadstool.
• Tough Room: 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 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.
• Town with a Dark Secret: In "The Beacon", Dr. Dennis Barrows stumbles into a small town called Mellweather which is protected by an enigmatic lighthouse that demands a Human Sacrifice for its services.
• Tracking Device: 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 John F. Kennedy forward in time to 2172 so that he doesn't have to be assassinated.
• Transferable Memory: In "The Mind of Simon Foster", memories can be copied, removed and transferred to other people in 1999. The pawnbroker Mr. Quint offers to take the title character's memory of his high school graduation in exchange for the money that he desperately needs. Simon reluctantly agrees and, although he intends it to be a one time thing, his financial situation means that he must return to the pawn shop and sell his memories on a regular basis. Over the next few weeks, Quint takes his memories of his fifth birthday, his first steps and a trip to the circus, among others. When Simon has an interview for an engineering position, however, he finds that he can't remember anything that he needs to know as he has sold his memories of attending college. He nevertheless returns to Quint's shop and sells his memory of making love for the first time. After he does so, Simon realizes that his memories were a vital part of him and demands at gunpoint to have them back. Since Quint has already sold them, he can't comply but gives Simon's other people's memories. At another job interview, Simon discusses his contradictory memories including graduating from numerous different high schools and colleges (including the women only Sorworth College), being an only child and having a brother and sister.
• Tricked-Out Shoes: 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. 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.
• "Truman Show" Plot: In "Special Service", John Selig learns that the last five years of his life have been filmed and shown on television. While shaving one morning, he accidentally changes the alignment of his bathroom mirror and discovers that there is a camera behind it. Almost immediately, a friendly repairman named Archie appears to fix the problem and tries to assure John that there is nothing out of the ordinary. After several minutes, however, he admits to John that his life is the subject of a hit TV show on cable and there are cameras in every room of his house, his workplace and elsewhere. When he is brought to meet the JSTV executive Arthur Spence, he is shocked to discover that his wife Leslie is an actress who was hired to play his love interest. As John has discovered that he is being filmed, the TV show is cancelled. However, Archie suggests that JSTV may only have pretended to remove all of the cameras and the show is continuing without John's knowledge. This example stands out because it was made nine years before The Truman Show.
• Truth Serums: 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 bullied Harlan Ellison 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 The Twilight Zone (1959).
    • Sheriff Haskin is named after Byron Haskin, who directed The War of the Worlds (1953).
    • H.G. Orson is named after H. G. Wells, who wrote the first Alien Invasion story The War of the Worlds, and Orson Welles, who produced the (in)famous 1938 radio adaptation.
    • Major Whitmore is named after James Whitmore, who played Sgt. Ben Peterson in Them!. He also played Captain William Benteen in The Twilight Zone episode "On Thursday We Leave for Home".
    • The Insectoid Aliens fire Bradbury rays at Kevin and Faith as they escape. The seminal writer Ray Bradbury wrote for both the 1959 and 1985 versions of The Twilight Zone.
    • In the final scene, a young man reports that he saw a Flying Saucer crash in Matheson, a reference to the prolific author and Twilight Zone writer Richard Matheson.
  • In "The Storyteller", Dorothy Livingston lives in Beaumont, another reference to Charles Beaumont.
  • In "The Junction", the Cassutt Coal Company is named after the writer Michael Cassutt.
• 20 Minutes into the Future:
  • In "Quarantine", Matthew Foreman entered 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 nuclear war in 2043.
  • In "The Mind of Simon Foster", the United States is experiencing a major economic depression in 1999. Unemployment is at 32%.
  • "Father & Son Game" takes place at some point after the early 1990s, by which time a person's consciousness can be placed in a Cyborg body. Interactive touch screen, speaking computers are commonplace.

U-V

• Unfinished Business:
  • In "If She Dies", Paul Marano speculates that the soul of Sarah, who died of tuberculosis decades earlier, has not moved onto Heaven yet as God wants her to save the life of his comatose daughter Cathy.
  • In "Nightsong", 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.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • 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.
  • In "Acts of Terror", Jack Simonson beats his wife 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.
• Unnamed Parent:
  • 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.
  • In "There Was an Old Woman", Brian Harris' father is not named.
  • In "Stranger in Possum Meadows", Danny Wilkins' mother isn't named.
• Urban Ruins: In "Voices in the Earth", Professor Donald Knowles, Jacinda Carlyle, Archer and Bledsoe explore the 1,000-year-old decaying ruins of a city on the dead Earth.
• Vampire Vannabe: In "Red Snow", the Communist Party secretary Ivan Povin agreed to become a vampire shortly after arriving in the 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 take it down from the inside.
• Vampires Sleep in Coffins: In "Red Snow", Titov, the mayor of the small Siberian town which has become a 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.
• Vanity License Plate: In "The Leprechaun-Artist", the "really hot" car that the Leprechaun Shawn McGool conjures up for Buddy, J.P. and Richie for their third and final wish has the license plate "Third Wish."
• Vast Bureaucracy: 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 Three Wishes 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 wishes that she never found the lamp.
• Video Phone:
  • 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.
  • In "The Cold Equations", Captain Thomas Barton communicates with Commander Delhart and the Ship's Records clerk over a video phone. Marilyn Lee Cross later uses it to talk to her brother Gerry.
  • In "The Mind of Simon Foster", the title character uses one to talk to a counselor at the unemployment agency several times, including twice for job interviews.
• The Vietnam Vet:
  • In "Nightcrawlers", Price is a traumatized Vietnam veteran who has the ability to 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 Alternate Universe Jeff McDowell went to fight in Vietnam in 1971 instead of dodging the draft and 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 Canada.
• The Voiceless: In "Children's Zoo", Debbie Cunningham never speaks but all indications are that she can.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: In "Stranger in Possum Meadows", Scout belongs to a race of shapeshifters. In his report to his home planet, he says that it was easy for him to assume a human form.

W

• War Is Hell:
  • In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Lancelot was a mercenery-for-hire who traveled the world fighting for India and China (which he still calls Cathay) and in The Crusades. 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 Merlin awakens, Lancelot asks him if even Camelot was worth all of the "blood and widows' tears" that it cost to build.
  • In "The Road Less Traveled", the Alternate Universe version of Jeff McDowell was traumatized by his experiences during The Vietnam War, especially losing his legs. He tells his counterpart that he regularly has terrible nightmares about the things that he saw there.
• Weather Manipulation: In "Welcome to Winfield", The Grim Reaper 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 take them instead.
• Weirdness Search and Rescue: 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.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: "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" ends badly.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: In "The Last Defender of Camelot", 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 King Arthur created in Camelot. However, he is willing to 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."
• Wham Shot:
  • Near the end of "Shelter Skelter", the camera leaves Harry Dobbs in his shelter and pans over the destruction and rubble among a darkened landscape... 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 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)? 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. Only problem? The episode ends by zooming in on her face... and her eyes are normal. She's blind in a psychosomatic sense.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve: In "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich", the demon Volkerps arrives in Nino Lancaster's office at midnight to claim his first refusal option on 51% of Arky Lochner's soul.
• Whole-Plot Reference:
  • "Her Pilgrim Soul" is one to Portrait of Jennie. 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 "The Elves and the Cobbler". The hooded creatures appear to Rockne O'Bannon so that he can cure his Writer's Block by writing a story about them.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: 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 death to put an end to his pain and guilt over betraying King Arthur through his affair with Guinevere.
• Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: In "Acts of Terror", Jack Simonson punches his wife Louise in the face after she burns his eggs. He tells her that it was her own fault and calls her a crybaby for making a big deal out of it.
• Wish Upon a Shooting Star: In "Grace Note", the 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 her future self performing La Traviata to a sold out audience in the Lincoln Center.
• Witch Hunt: 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 The Moon and The American Revolution. 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 Third Eye. While searching for references to Charity's trial in books on 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 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.
• With Friends Like These...:
  • 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.
  • In "Dead Run", it's implied that Johnny's company of truck drivers are like this.
  • In "The Last Defender of Camelot", Lancelot considers 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 sacrifice Tom and shape the world to his vision.
  • In "Cat and Mouse", Andrea Moffatt's co-worker Elaine, who calls her "the Mouse" behind her back, comes to the conclusion that sex is involved when Andrea goes from dowdy to chipper over the course of a few days. She bides her time and waits until Andrea leaves her house so that she can see for herself. She and Guillaume de Marchaux have sex in the 20 minutes that Andrea is gone, which is exactly what Elaine hoped would happen.
• 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. 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 died in childbirth. This fear led him to act coldly towards Carol.
  • In "The Crossing", Father Mark Cassidy has been working tirelessly in order to secure funding for the new children's wing of the hospital for two years. Both his housekeeper Maggie Dugan and Monsignor Perrault are concerned that he is going to make himself sick if he doesn't take a break. The latter comments that Father Mark has not taken a vacation in the 20 years that they have known each other. When the children's wing is opened, the bishop orders Father Mark to take some time off. The reason that he works so hard is that he feels the need to atone for the death of his girlfriend Kelly in the car that he was driving more than 20 years earlier.
• World War III:
  • In "A Little Peace and Quiet", a nuclear war breaks out between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1985.
  • Discussed 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 "Profile in Silver", John F. Kennedy's assassination is averted by Professor Joseph Fitzgerald, a time traveling historian from 2172 and one of Kennedy's descendants. This creates an Alternate Timeline 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 transported forward in time to 2172.
  • In "Shelter Skelter", Harry Dobbs and Nick Gatlin see and hear reports about an escalating crisis in the Middle East and the US preparing to take any means necessary to defend itself. Harry witnesses an immense explosion and concludes that the nearby Wakefield Air Force Base has been destroyed and World War III has begun. They enter the fallout shelter in Harry's basement to protect themselves from the high levels of radiation. It turns out that a nuclear cruise missile detonated while a B-1 bomber was preparing to take off from the base, destroying much of the surrounding area. The outbreak of nuclear war was avoided as the destruction of Dunston, Kansas illustrated the folly of war to the entire world.
• Would Hit a Girl: 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.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • In "Examination Day", the totalitarian government gives tests that identify 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. In the final scene, Danny is himself attacked by a Shadow Man who lives under someone else's bed.
• Write Back to the Future: 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.
• Writer's Block: 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 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.
• Writers Suck: 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.

X-Z

• The X of Y: "The Toys of Caliban" and "The Mind of Simon Foster".
• X-Ray Vision: 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.
• Younger Than They Look: In "Our Selena is Dying", Debra Brockman and her cousin Diane are both in their late 20s or early 30s but have the appearance of women in their 70s as they have had their Life Energy stolen by Selena and Martha respectively.
• Your Mind Makes It Real:
  • In "Nightcrawlers", Price is a 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 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 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. He shows Toby a picture of fire. When Miss Kemp returns with the police, they find the house in flames.
  • In "Dream Me a Life", Roger Simpson Leeds burns his right hand on one of the many candles in Laurel Kincaid's room after he enters her dream, causing him to wake up. He immediately realizes that he has a large burn mark.
  • In "Many, Many Monkeys", Nurse Claire Hendricks' blindness is psychosomatic, having been caused by her guilt at treating patients with coldness and indifference for many years. She never contracted the plague of blindness.
• Your Vampires Suck: 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.
• You Will Be Beethoven:
  • In "Profile in Silver", Professor Joseph Fitzgerald, a time traveler from 2172, switches places with his Famous Ancestor John F. Kennedy so that he can be assassinated in JFK's place on November 22, 1963.
  • In "The Once and Future King", the Elvis Impersonator Gary Pitkin is sent back in time to Memphis, Tennessee on July 3, 1954 and meets the real Elvis Presley, 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 impaled on the neck of his guitar and dies. Gary then 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 Rock & Roll. However, Gary wonders if Elvis would have made a better King if he had lived.
• Zeerust: In "The Mind of Simon Foster", memories can be transferred with ease in 1999.

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