History Main / ExactTimeToFailure

->''"You know what I hate? When you're at the doctor's office and he says, 'You have exactly ten minutes to live.'"''

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** As well as gender, age, weight, amount of body fat, general health, other medical conditions than could be worsened by the deprivations, external conditions (heat, humidity...), etc., etc.

--->Tal Celes:''' Shockwave impact in three, two, one. ''[pause]'' More or less...

* In ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'', there's a weird example where Nick Fury is ambushed in his car by goons firing automatic weapons at it. Meanwhile, the car's on-board AI continually calculates exactly how much structural capability the car's doors & windows have left before the defenses will be breached (and Fury will be riddled with bullets). While this may make a decent amount of sense in science fiction shows that have energy shields to show how much power is remaining, it's a little odd to be able to calculate the structural capability of a physical object to handle additional damage, not to mention using a rating for the vehicle as a whole as compared to individual doors, windows, etc.

** The finale of ''VideoGame/Portal2'' is another TimedMission where a ''series'' of different things will cause you're death after too long. The first timer is the same as above. When that fails, it switches to a timer for the reactor meltdown. Then the meltdown timer is blown up, so the facility activates a SelfDestructMechanism to ''[[SkewedPriorities remove the uncertainty of not having a timer]]''.

** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' played with this when Janeway decided to take a bunch of her worst crew members out on a mission to get them to shape up. One of them, a woman who can't do 24th-century math to save her life, gets put in charge of the one thing you need math for: calculating time to impact.
--->"Shockwave impact in three, two, one. [pause] More or less."
** Spoofed in an episode where the holographic Doctor is daydreaming that he's the captain of ''Voyager''. The computer voiced by Majel Barret is saying lines like "Warning: Warp core breach a lot sooner than you think" and "Warning: Last chance to be a hero, Doctor. Get going!"

** As a small note, expiration date is not the same as "best by" date. Expiration date means that food and medication becomes ''unsafe'' to consume or ineffective past a certain date. Best by only means that the food[[note]]best by is rarely used on medication[[/note]] will begin to lose flavor or texture (in most cases it will ''eventually'' become unsafe to eat even if the seal is unbroken.

* ''VideoGame/StarFox64'': Fortuna has a countdown till the bomb in the base goes off. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MWsxWDPhPY With correct timing]] you can have Fox go in to defuse the bomb a few seconds after ROB says that the bomb is exploding.
** Even then, you will win the mission if you kill Star Wolf with as little as 1 second remaining; despite the fact that Fox flying into the base and defusing the bomb must take several seconds.
* In ''VideoGame/FreeSpace2'', the last mission has a countdown until a star system is destroyed by a supernova. [[spoiler:But you die about 10 seconds ''before'' time runs out, which is frustrating.]]
* ''{{VideoGame/XCOM}}: Interceptor'' averts the trope rather spectacularly: any mission in which time is a factor (defending a base, attacking an enemy ship about to go into hyperspace, or [[spoiler: trying to get back to normal space after firing a Nova Bomb at a star]], for example), you're given periodic updates as to how close you are to running out of time ("Enemy hyperdrive at 75% charge"), but the time can vary based on a number of factors, most obviously how long it took you to respond to the particular emergency.
* In ''VideoGame/{{XCOM 2}}'', if ADVENT manages to accrue enough progress on "Project Avatar", a countdown commences until the project's completion (15-20 in-game days, depending on the difficulty level). If you do not take action to undo the progress ADVENT makes on the project and allow time to run out, the project will be completed, and [[GameOver XCOM will be destroyed]].
* Le MU from ''VisualNovel/{{Ever17}}'' even has audio announcement of last seconds countdown before the whole building will collapse. Which is kinda strange, because earlier was said, that calculations of this time has ''6 hours'' margin of error.
** Might it be possible that the margin of error shrinks as the time to collapse approaches? In other words, the margin of error itself is a percentage based on the estimate.
* Averted in the opening of ''VideoGame/MadWorld''. The BigBad unleashes a deadly virus across the city. He warns the citizens that everyone will be dead in 24 hours and that anyone can get an antidote as long as they kill someone. Seems like a pretty straight example of the trope so far, but then a member of the crowd collapses bleeding. The BigBad then suggests they hurry up as the virus' incubation time varries from person to person.
* ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'' has a few missions in the brood war campaign where a character manages to estimate the exact amount of time until an important event will happen. These estimates are used as setups for timed missions.
* ''The Subspace Emissary'' story mode in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'' has a boss fight with [[Franchise/{{Metroid}} Meta-Ridley]] while a bunch of characters are escaping a self-destructing ROB factory on [[VideoGame/FZero Captain Falcon]]'s Blue Falcon. The fight itself gives you two minutes to defeat Ridley before the factory explodes while you're still inside (and subsequently lose the battle).
* In ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'', the participants of the [[ArcNumber Nonary]] Game have ''9 hours'' to escape before the ship sinks.
** Subverted in the true ending, when you discover that [[spoiler:it seemed like you'd spent more than your ninety minutes remaining after going through Door 9. It turns out that, as the Gigantic had sunk nine years before, the entire Nonary Game had taken place in the identical facility Building Q which is in the middle of a desert in Nevada. Played straight with being trapped in the incinerator though.]]
** In the sequel ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', the players' watch timers (coincidentally) correspond with [[spoiler: the exact time to detonation of Dio's bombs.]]
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'' has a few of these. Some missions, assignments and tasks must be completed within certain time limits. Otherwise, the ship crashes, or the missiles launch, or the [[spoiler:tech specialist gets fried]], or the colony explodes, or the [[spoiler:asteroid wipes out the colony]], or something else bad happens that will really [[GameOver ruin Shepard's day]].
** ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' does this with the ''Arrival'' DLC. Shepard has just over an hour to [[spoiler:stop a [[EldritchAbomination Reaper]] invasion that will wipe out all sentient life in the galaxy]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'':
** The end of ''VideoGame/Portal1'' is a TimedMission based on "Exact Time to Death by Neurotoxin".
** The finale of ''VideoGame/Portal2'' is another TimedMission where a ''series'' of different things will cause you're death after too long. The first timer is the same as above. When that fails, it switches to a timer for the reactor meltdown. Then the meltdown timer is blown up, so the facility activates a SelfDestructMechanism to ''[[SkewedPriorities remove the uncertainty of not having a timer]]''.
--->'''Announcer:''' Reactor explosion timer destroyed. [[ExpospeakGag Reactor Explosion Uncertainty Emergency Preemption Protocol]] initiated. This facility will self-destruct in two minutes.
* The oxygen timer in ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'' and ''VideoGame/DeadSpace2'', where Isaac will immediately die when it hits zero. This is justified, as in the last ten seconds or so, he's already choking for air - the timer presumably isn't indicating how long his oxygen supply will last, but rather how long he has until he's unable to continue due to asphyxiation.
* ''Manga/Golgo13: Top Secret Episode'' features "Exact Time to Nuclear Missile Launch" in its final battle. Noteworthy in that you actually lose ''not'' at zero, but when the timer hits 0:13.
* In the last level of ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'', Cortana is able to tell you just how long you have before the reactor you threw explosives in blows up, despite at one point noting that it must have been more damaged than she thought it had been.
* Humorously averted in ''VideoGame/{{Bastion}}'', combined with the UnreliableNarrator. While waiting for a slowly rising cage to release a shard, the narrator starts in near the end:
--> '''Narrator''': It's not too long now. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven...give or take a few seconds.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'': Relatively early on in Disc 2, when Zidane and co. arrive back in Alexandria to save Garnet/Dagger, you have exactly 30 minutes until Brahne arrives at the dock, and she intends to have Garnet beheaded. As soon as the 30 minutes is up, it's a game over.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'': All Eidolon battles are this; the Doom spell is cast on your leader as soon as the battle begins, manifesting as a big red clock over their head, which counts down the seconds they have left. Later boss battles are also hidden timed missions; after 20 minutes, they will get bored and cast Doom, leaving you with 3 minutes or so to defeat them.
* {{Parodied}} in one mission of ''VideoGame/MetalWolfChaos''; your secretary Jodie flat out ''guesses'' it will take the Alcatraz Cannon three minutes to fire. She's correct to the last micro-second.
* Invoked in ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'': [[spoiler:the giant percentage on BLADE Tower is a measure of how much energy is remaining within the lifehold. If it reaches zero before the crew of the White Whale can retrieve it, everyone trapped in the Lifehold will die when their life support functions shut down, and humanity will go extinct as a result.]]
* In ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'', attacking a [[BeePeople Hiver]] system which contains a gate[[labelnote:*]]i.e. all of them.[[/labelnote]] gives you until the end of the combat round[[note]]4 minutes, although it can be changed at game setup[[/note]] to destroy the gate before [[CurbStompBattle the entire Hiver navy arrives in the system]]. If a Hiver fleet is attacking your system, you have two combat rounds until this happens, since they need one turn to set up the gate and another to send in the fleet. Although the extra turn is not really as much of an advantage; since the Hivers can only travel at sub-light speeds without a gate in your system, they tend to send massive 'Nesting Fleets' in one big group.
* ''VideoGame/TheEscapists'' starts a 99 second timer til back-up arrives and stuffs you into solitary confinement under certain circumstances (not showing up to places you need to be, attacking large numbers of guards). The only way to make it go away is to either escape or have an officer see you in your cell during the countdown.
* Played with in ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable'': There is one such countdown, but it turns out there is no way to stop it and it’s all just the Narrator at his absolute worst in the game.
* In ''VisualNovel/WillAWonderfulWorld'', near the end of the game, a 90-minute timer will trigger. This timer will tick on no matter what the player is doing and if by the end of it the player hasn't achieved the best endings for every character, [[spoiler:Myth and Will both run out of power and remain dormant forever]].
* ''VideoGame/Persona5'' Has this. You have a certain number of in-game days to clear each dungeon and defeat the boss at the end. Failure to do so will result in a NonStandardGameOver. Usually [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] as the deadlines are almost always based on events happening (such as a scheduled teacher's meeting for the first target). Played straight for the third target, who simply gives you three weeks with nothing stopping them from moving the deadline forward or back, and [[spoiler: fully subverted for the final dungeon, where the timer in the corner simply says "Few" instead of giving you an exact number of days.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}} Episode II'' has the TimedMission to escape the Ormus Stronghold. If you don't complete it within the time limit, you will ''die''!

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Lampshaded, naturally, in ''Webcomic/{{Adventurers}}!''; to Karn's obvious surprise, the bomb goes off earlier than expected. The guy who gave him the exact time admits he's not a bomb expert, as well.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode "Bad Hair Day", Dr. Doofenshmirtz ends up [[CoincidentalAccidentalDisguise being mistaken for a rare orangutan]] and shot in the butt with a tranquilizer dart. The episode ends with him singing a song about it, which includes the lyrics "I'm blurry and drowsy, but balladry beckons / though I'll probably lose consciousness in seventeen seconds." Sure enough, approximately seventeen seconds later, Doofenshmirtz passes out in the middle of his song.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode "Wild Cards", ComicBook/TheJoker sets bombs over Las Vegas, giving the League 23 minutes to find and disarm them. ("Oh come on, what did you expect from me, a round number?")

* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** The episode "Journey's End" had the current companion, Donna, and the TARDIS itself, tossed into a big vat of TARDIS-eating energy. Much things exploded, there was lots of anguish and then one second before it was supposed to be destroyed, Donna and Plot save the day. All the observers think the TARDIS was destroyed on schedule.
** The episode "42" revolves around a countdown of, er, [[ShapedLikeItself 42]] minutes until a spaceship crashes into the sun.
** "Time Crash" has "Two minutes to Belgium!"
** The 2010 Christmas Special has a [[spoiler: person in cryogenic statis who only has a fixed number of days to live, thanks to a ''really'' specific (and incurable) disease.]]
** In "Let's Kill Hitler" the Doctor is poisoned and will die in thirty-two minutes.
* On ''Series/TwentyFour'', people make exact time estimates ("It'll take me 13 minutes to get to the airport!") a lot, due to the RaceAgainstTheClock nature of the show.
* In an episode of ''Series/{{Bones}}'', a serial abductor known as "the Gravedigger" left their victims BuriedAlive with 24 hours' worth of air, then used that time limit as the deadline for said victims' ransom. In one case, the Gravedigger made an error when [[spoiler:they took two brothers when they intended to take one, and forgot to amend the air supply to compensate, causing the boys to die well before the deadline.]]
* Justified several times in ''Series/{{House}}'', when a risky procedure (such as stopping a patient's heart) is allowed to go on for a very specific time, watched carefully by the team. Subverted in that, when they run out of time, House invariably argues that the time limit is a rough guideline and they should keep going. Of course, the patient almost always makes a full recovery either way.
* The ''Animorphs'' example is worse in the [[Series/{{Animorphs}} TV show]]. In the books, morphing is possible but extremely difficult as you near the limit, and there are times when they could've been a few minutes over the oft-repeated two-hour mark. In the show, however, there's an instance of Ax (of the perfect timekeeping sense) counting down his morph time limit to the second. He demorphs at the last second as easily as anyone with plenty of time left, with the implication that ''one second later'', it would have been completely impossible to demorph at all.
* ''Series/{{GARO}}'': Makai Knights have 99.9 seconds of enhanced armor time [[spoiler: before it goes berserk and drives the wearer violently feral. Bad news: when the main character hits the mark for the first time in the series, he slaughters the enemy that he is dueling, while said enemy's mother is watching. Good news: the mother is evil.]]

* In ''Series/NinpuuSentaiHurricaneger'' and its American counterpart ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm'', the heroes' mecha has a mode which sheds its armor for increased speed, but it can only stay that way for 60 seconds lest its internal components are damaged.
* ''Series/OtherSpace'' sees a new planet form around their ejected fuel supply. The ship computer provides a down-to-the-second countdown until the fuel is no longer extractable. This despite the vagaries of user skill, the poorly-understood mechanics of this planet's formation, and a reality that may or may not conform to known physics.
* ''Series/NCISNewOrleans'': In "Broken Hearted", the team has 6 hours to recover a stolen donor heart before it's no longer viable. [[spoiler:SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs when, despite being found in the nick of time, the heart is in poor enough shape that the patient [[NotQuiteSavedEnough doesn't survive the transplant]].]]
* Spoofed in ''Series/BlakesSeven''. In "Hostage", Vila wants to know how many minutes they have left before they die of [[AlmostOutOfOxygen oxygen deprivation]]. Avon's reply? [[DeadpanSnarker "I'll let you know."]]
* ''Series/FatherBrown'': In "The Two Deaths of Hercule Flambeau", [[spoiler:Lisandra]] poisons Father Brown with a dose of thallium that will kill him in 35 hours if he does not receive the antidote. Exactly how she calculated the correct dose to do this is not explained. It is possible he was just being dramatic, as the number 35 held special significance for her, and [[spoiler:she had no intention of giving him the antidote anyway]].
** Averted in the second episode of ''Series/Travelers'' when multiple characters ask Trevor how long they have until a certain antimatter container goes critical, and all he can say is "It's not like this thing has a clock on it".

* Many early games, such as ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'', ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'', and ''VideoGame/FinalFight'' have timers on each level. When the timer expires, your character will typically drop dead for no reason. These timers are often there because the games were designed around arcade games, which have timers to keep the quarter-munching at a fast clip.

--->Final safety warning... Nominal functional l-levels will be exceeded in three... two... one...
* Aside from the end-of-game self-destruct runs, the ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' series has done this more than once. One example: in ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'', the space station's computers predict that the overloading core will melt down in six minutes. Since it's a TimedMission, you have ''precisely'' six minutes before it does just that.

* ''VideoGame/EscapeFromButcherBay'' has a level where you're trapped in the sewers with a shotgun with a built-in flashlight. Only problem is, the flashlight was damaged and is now flickering, and a computerized voice (in the ''shotgun'', remember) helpfully informs you that it will break entirely in six minutes.
* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'''s [[TimedMission Timed Missions]] really had no reason to play this trope to a T, especially seeing as the moment time runs out the screen simply fades to black and no actual "death scene" is given. This becomes especially ridiculous when you have to fight Demyx's water clones, which like cause nuclear meltdown or something or other when time runs out.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'':
** When Cloud arms the bomb in Reactor 1, the clock is set for ten minutes.
** When Cid grapples with the decision to blast off in a rocket, incinerating a woman, Shera, who stayed behind to fix the oxygen tanks, a timer, normally reserved for gameplay purposes, pops up and counts down as dialogue rolls. Cid hits the button to abort at the last second. This ends up subverting the trope somewhat since, even though Shera was spared, cutting the engines damaged the rocket and caused the space program to lose all credibility, making it several years before another attempt into space is made. Before then, a town formed around the damaged rocket which Cid and Shera took residence in.
** In a later gameplay sequence, it's played straight with [[spoiler:escaping the rocket with or without the Huge Materia before it crashes into Meteor]].
** Another gameplay sequence involves trying to stop a train from crashing into a settlement. Normally this would be a subversion, since the train moves with constant speed, but even when you start fiddling with the controls and changing the train's speed, the timer is not affected.
** Subverted at the end of the opening Bombing Mission sequence in the first part of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake''. [[spoiler:The clock is set for 30 minutes, which is plenty of time to escape. As Cloud and Barrett board the elevator to get to the ground level, regardless of how long it took, the bomb explodes in three seconds... but doesn't cause enough damage to the reactor. The scene then cuts to President Shinra, who orders Heidegger to command drones to fire on the reactor and destroy it]].
* Done oddly in ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars: Dual Strike''. Even though the turns progress in days, some missions have a timer that operates in real time. So even if it takes twelve "days" to complete the mission, the fifteen-minute timer could only have advanced by a single minute. This is compounded by the fact that the characters discuss the timer and stress how time is of the essence. It's better not to think about it.
** Done straight in ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars 2'' where on the missions to capture enemy laboratory before they destroy their weapons data, you are given a specific amount of days to invade before the data is destroyed. Makes one wonder how clearing the mission on the final day doesn't result in the data being mostly deleted...
* Subverted in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'': In the Tanker chapter, you are given a varying time limit based on difficulty level before the US Marine Commandant finishes his speech. But throughout the speech he interrupts it with a joke or two, pointing out his repeating himself due to old age and even outright gives his marines a slight break for a while by conducting reactionary and neck-stretching exercises. Even if you let the timer run out once, he'll decide he's on a roll and adds an extra bit onto his speech, adding more time to the clock.
* In ''VideoGame/Fallout2'', you can wind up contaminating the Sierra Army Depot by removing one of the virus samples from storage, which will promptly break. You then have a few minutes to leave before the base is fully contaminated. Even if you loiter around in the very room you broke the sample in, you'll be perfectly fine as long as long as the timer doesn't run out completely. Fail to leave, or leave in time and then walk back, and your character will ''melt''. (i.e. the "killed by plasma" death animation.)
* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'' has a few timed side-missions which give you a countdown timer for you to complete the task. While this is understandable for the racing minigame (this is the time set by the previous racer, try to beat it), some of the other missions are predicated on a guard running away after exactly one minute of combat.
** Just for the record, that mission involves Ezio having to carve his way through ten [[EliteMook Brute]] guards...in ''one minute''. That's six seconds per guard...and they don't die easily unless you poison about half of them first.

* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' is mostly a game where you can take years (game time) to get things done but one mission features a fifteen minute countdown before a giant city destroying war machine marches though a portal and splats the new emperor.
* ''VideoGame/{{Descent}}'' subverts this trope. It seems to have a reactor explode countdown, but it's actually a self destruction countdown. [[AllThereInTheManual According to the briefing]], the revolting robots would stop working then the reactor fails, so they start the self-destruction (which can be assumed to be accurate). It's also a case of ShownTheirWork, because a nuclear meltdown and a nuclear explosion are two different things in real life.
** [[DoubleSubversion Doubly subverted]] in that it appears as if you have a few moments of the screen fading to white ''after'' the countdown completes to enter the evacuation tunnel, but the effect is unchanged, right down to the tunnel exploding behind you no matter if you make it by one white frame or one whole minute.
* Used, though played with a bit, in ''[[VideoGame/TimeCrisis Crisis Zone]]''. After beating the final boss, you manage to stop the nuclear reactor from going critical with seconds to spare. Despite this, the control room still explodes soon after. It's not clear if it's just the control room blowing up due to all the bullets and grenades being tossed around, or the reactor still causing some damage due to how close it was to exploding.
** Games in the ''VideoGame/TimeCrisis'' series always have an Exact Time To Failure in every segment. If you fail to kill all the targets and move on from your current spot within 40 seconds, you'll lose a life (presumably from being flanked). If it wasn't your last life, the timer is reset to 40 and you can continue. The intent is obviously to force the player not to abuse the hiding mechanics and be more aggressive.
** The original ''Time Crisis'' is far less forgiving - instead of being reset to 40 seconds after every segment, time is instead added to the timer after each segment. The problem is that the timer keeps counting down even while the character is running to the next segment in cutscenes. Not only that, but running out of time is an instant GameOver instead of a life lost.

* Planet Namek during the Frieza Saga of ''Anime/DragonBallZ''; the planet was about to be destroyed, with "five minutes" mentioned at least once, for ''ten episodes''. Indeed, one episode had "two minutes" mentioned at the beginning, and "one minute" mentioned at the end. Later material reveals that Frieza [[AssPull pulled the number out of his ass.]] He had meant to instantly destroy the planet, but choked at the last moment. He made up the "time remaining" [[IMeantToDoThat to make it seem like he did that on purpose]].
* Subverted in ''Anime/MyHime'': the time until Artemis the KillSat is ready to fire is announced, then it gets prepared earlier than expected, catching the protagonists (and the viewers) off guard. It is explained that "just because it's a satellite doesn't mean it moves at a constant rate".
* In later episodes of ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'', the exact time for the Cradle to orbit Mid-Childa is shown at the end of the episode. A bit of a plot point considering that the Dimensional Fleet will be six minutes ''too late'' unless the Cradle's ascension is somehow slowed...
* In ''Manga/SaintSeiya'', some manner of contrived HeroicSacrifice (or enemy deathtrap) will kill Saori Kido, reincarnation of the Goddess Athena, WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve. And it's always ''exactly'' twelve hours. To the ''second''.
* In ''[[Manga/{{Naruto}} Naruto Shippuden]]'', in the battle between [[TheMedic Sakura]] and [[MarionetteMaster Sasori]], Sakura takes an antidote that blocks Sasori's poison-based attacks for ''exactly'' three minutes, Sakura can tell exactly how much time has gone by, she even ''counts down the final seconds before the antidote wears off''
* In ''Anime/SkyGirls'', each pilot's nanoskin gel -- which shields the girls' skin from extreme conditions -- expires in exactly twenty-one minutes and thirty-two seconds. After the gel expires, operating the [[MiniMecha Sonic Diver]] is equivalent to suicide: nothing protects their bodies when flying at hundreds of kilometres per hour at high altitude.
* Subverted in the ''Anime/ReadOrDie'' OVA, where, even though the heroes stop the launch countdown with one second to spare, the Ijun launch anyways. In fact, the countdown ending display even ticks from 0 to -1 just to illustrate the point.

* In the last couple of episodes of ''Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman'', Leader X attempts to destroy Earth by dropping nuclear bombs into the mantle. The result is supposed to be equivalent to a black hole. Suffice it to say that every bomb EXCEPT ONE drops into the mantle -- and because the last one doesn't drop, the reaction doesn't come off.
* In the second ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' movie, ''Our War Game'' (and the second part of ''Digimon The Movie''), Diablomon has launched a nuke at Japan from the United States and a five-minute countdown starts up, letting the Chosen Children know that they only have that long before they're wiped off the map. When Omegamon stabs Diablomon in the head, he stops the countdown with one second remaining and the nuke flops harmlessly into the water.
* Played realistically in ''Anime/{{Planetes}}'': when a ship is going to crash into a lunar colony, the countdown isn't until the collision, it's to when it will be too late to stop it. By that point, the ship is still a very good distance away.
* In ''Anime/SonicTheHedgehogTheMovie'', Sonic and company are racing to stop Eggmanland's main reactor from going critical. They're given a couple of hours and despite the troubles getting there, as well as a fight with Dark Eggman, Sonic's able to pull the switch with one second left to spare. [[spoiler:Of course, it's actually a trap to gain Sonic's life data to get Hyper Metal Sonic functioning.]]
* In ''Anime/MartianSuccessorNadesico'', the Aestivalis run on a special power system that grants them infinite energy as long as they're in range of the Nadesico. Once they're out of that range, they have eight minutes before the unit shuts down completely.
* An entire episode of ''Anime/SuitePrettyCure'' runs on this: the Hojo and Minamono families are set to go on a hiking trip and they are supposed to gather at 9 AM. At the same time, at 8:30 AM: Hibiki wakes up late, Kanade prepares cupcakes and Trio the Minor set out to unleash the Melody of Sorrow. Thanks to a comedy of errors, Ellen finds out about the Trio's plans, Hibiki and Kanade catch up to them, stop the latest Negatone and make it back with three seconds left to spare. Note that this was a 30 minute countdown in a 22 minute cartoon.
* ''Anime/DokiDokiPrecure'' has Cure Ace's transformation, which only lasts 300 seconds.

[[folder:Comics]]

* In another biological variant, a [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] Franchise/{{Batman}} story featured Hugo Strange. Strange had invented a serum that turned a normal person into a giant Monster Man, strong enough to rip out a support for an elevated train, [[spoiler:which one of them actually did]]. Strange injected Batman with this serum, saying it takes 18 hours to work. [[spoiler:And then a Monster Man punched Batman, leaving him knocked out for 17 hours and 45 minutes. He cures himself, obviously.]]

* The final storyline of ''[[ComicBook/SpiderMan The Amazing Spider-Man]]'', "Dying Wish", when a bunch of villains break Doc Ock/[[spoiler:Peter Parker]] from jail, it's revealed that his body only has 700 minutes left before it fails completely. The issue number with that revelation? 699.

[[folder:Fanfic]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
* ''WesternAnimation/MonstersVsAliens'':
-->'''A.I:''' 3... 2... 1... ''[{{Beat}}]'' Maybe my count was w-
-->'''[BOOM]'''

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* When Johnny 5 is worked over by the goons in ''Film/ShortCircuit 2'', a countdown timer on his control panel shows how much time he has left before his ruptured battery drains and shuts him down. As can be expected, he stops the baddies in time and is repaired with only a few seconds of "life" remaining.

* ''Film/{{Darkman}}'''s synthetic skin, when exposed to light, decays in exactly 99 minutes.

* In ''Film/TwoThousandTwelve'', the computers installed on the arks are somehow capable of calculating the ''exact second'' the tsunamis will strike the ships, despite the very limited predictability we in reality have of them.
* In a variant using location rather than time, an on-screen graphic in ''Film/{{Asteroid}}'' shows the calculated probability that a fragment of Eros will strike particular areas of Texas. The potential zones of impact form an implausibly-tidy pattern of concentric rings, and the fragment strikes dead center, even though the characters had admitted it was only a rough estimate.
* In ''Film/DangerDiabolik'', the protagonist takes a capsule that puts him in a death-like trance for 12 hours, allowing him to escape capture. As he wakes, he tells the coroner (who literally had the scalpel pressed to Diabolik's forehead) that if the antidote isn't administered within 12 hours the fake death becomes real. Then his DarkMistress (disguised as a nurse) reveals that he was out for 11 hours and 57 minutes.
* In ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'':
-->'''HAL:''' I've just picked up a fault in the [=AE35=] unit. It's going to go 100% failure in 72 hours.

* ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'':
** While the ''Enterprise''-B is inside the energy ribbon, a bridge officer says "45 seconds to structural collapse."
** After the ''Enterprise''-D is damaged by the Klingon attack, Geordie tells the bridge that "We're five minutes from a warp core breach." A few minutes later, Commander Data says that there's one minute to warp core breach.
* Parodied in ''[[ParallelPornTitles Sex Trek: Where No Man Has Cum B4]]''. On being told they'll be sucked into a black hole in thirteen minutes, Captain Quirk realises that's [[OutWithABang just enough time for an obligatory sex scene]].
* Abused in ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises''. [[spoiler:The fusion reactor is converted into a bomb in a matter of minutes, then Bane removes the radioactive core from the reactor itself. Without the containment provided by the reactor, the core is said to be gradually becoming more unstable until it will finally explode. Yet despite this detailed explanation, the core has ''both'' a pretty ring of green lights that gradually turn red ''and'' a digital countdown timer so we can see exactly when the thing will detonate. And it takes ''months'', yet the device can predict down to the second when it gets unstable enough to explode.]]

* Double subverted near the end of ''Film/TheManhattanProject'': The homemade atomic bomb is accidentally armed and its display is turned on. It starts counting at 999 hours, so at first no one's worried about disarming it in time... until Paul realizes his timing mechanism isn't perfect and will speed up the clock as it goes on. The double subversion comes into play when he and Dr. Mathewson eventually remember that the degradation will result in exponential growth in the timer's speed, so they ''can'' calculate how long it will take the timer to reach zero.
* Justified ''and'' parodied in ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}''. As the timer is for a self-destruct sequence, this trope is basically a given. At one point, however, during the final countdown, the timer skips from 8 to 6, then when the remaining crew point it out, the computer says "just kidding" and returns to 7.
* ''Film/TheManWhoCouldCheatDeath'': For his eternal youth to continue, Dr. Bonnet has to receive a transplant of parathyroid glands every ten years exactly. If he misses this deadline, he can extend his youth for up to four weeks by drinking a special elixir. Exactly four weeks. When he is blackmailing Dr. Gerrard into performing the transplant, he says that he has exactly 6 hours left, which is later proven to be true. Exactly why a biological and surgical process would have such a fixed time limit is never explained.
* ''Film/InTime'' depicts a society where every person is implanted with a KillSwitch, which activates at the age of 25 with a 1-year countdown, helpfully displayed in large glowing numbers on their arm. If it runs out, the person instantly dies. On the flip side, the timer can be replenished, potentially indefinetly. As a result, the lifetime has become the currency, with the super-wealthy being essentially immortal and the proletariat constantly scurring about with at best a day of life left.
* At the start of ''Film/ResidentEvilTheFinalChapter'', the Red Queen synchronises Alice's watch to show the countdown till the last remaining human enclaves have been wiped out by Umbrella military forces; she has that long to get hold of a MagicAntidote that will destroy the T-Virus. This is played entirely straight even though the attack on the enclave at Racoon City takes place during the course of the movie, rather than waiting to attack at that particular time. [[spoiler:It's somewhat justified as once the BigBad has been killed he's no longer in a position to countermand the Red Queen's order to stop the attacks.]]

* Exploited as the entire point of the story "Literature/TheColdEquations" by Tom Godwin. A small ship is launched towards a planet, carrying a lifesaving vaccine and just enough fuel for the computed weight of the ship, its pilot, food, air, and cargo for cost reasons. A young girl stows away on the ship to go see her brother, who happens to be on the planet the ship's heading to. Problem is, her mass wasn't figured into the calculations of the fuel needed -- so her very presence on the ship has doomed it to crash when it runs out of fuel and has no way to slow down once it reaches destination and the fuel runs out early.
* The poem "The Deacon's Masterpiece" (a.k.a. "The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay") by Oliver Wendell Holmes describes a one-hoss shay built to have its weakest part just as strong as the rest. The contraption lasts for a hundred years, and then disintegrates all at once. (Randall Garrett had a homage to this with the "Von Horst-Shea" process in one of the ''Literature/LordDarcy'' stories.)
* Justified in ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' by Frank Herbert. The BigBad knows exactly when the ActionMom will wake up from the sleep drug she was given. When he tells her this, she immediately realizes that he must have had access to secret and detailed medical information about her.
* Subverted in ''ShowdownAtCenterpoint'', the third book of Roger [=McBride=] Allen's Literature/TheCorellianTrilogy, set in ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends''. Han and a couple Allies of the Week are falling towards a planet's surface on a ship (which is battle-damaged, and even at its best made the ''Millennium Falcon'' look cutting-edge and [[RagnarokProofing ultra-strong]]) with a none-too-reliable altimeter. When they reach three hundred meters, Han wonders how accurate it is. When they hit neg ten, he decides "not all that accurate." They finally hit the ground at about negative fifty meters.
** Later, the cavalry's ship's computer was counting down how long their [[AppliedPhlebotinum Phlebotinum]]-aided hyperdrive could continue functioning in a hyperspace-negation field. The timer hit zero, but the ships remained in hyperspace, prompting the technician in charge of the [[AppliedPhlebotinum Phlebotinum]]-drive to point out, a little ruefully, "it ''was'' just a guess."

* In Creator/NevilShute's novel ''No Highway'', Theodore Honey has determined, almost down to the hour, how long the Reindeer airliner will last before the tailplane experiences metal fatigue and breaks, dooming the aircraft.
* Averted in Joe Haldeman's ''Literature/TheForeverWar'', all failure times are given in half-lives (ie, after said period there's a 50% chance it hasn't blown up yet).

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' does this one all the time.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''. In "That Which Survives" the ''Enterprise'''s engines are sabotaged and the ship accelerates to extremely high speeds. Spock estimates that the engines will overload and detonate in 14.87 minutes, and continues giving a precise countdown as time passes (12 minutes 21 seconds, 10 minutes 19 seconds, and 8 minutes 41 seconds).
** Happens constantly with the Vulcans. Made more logical when they made an android a crewmember in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''.
** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' played with this when Janeway decided to take a bunch of her worst crew members out on a mission to get them to shape up. One of them, a woman who can't do 24th-century math to save her life, gets put in charge of the one thing you need math for: calculating time to impact.
--->"Shockwave impact in three, two, one. [pause] More or less."
** Spoofed in an episode where the holographic Doctor is daydreaming that he's the captain of ''Voyager''. The computer voiced by Majel Barret is saying lines like "Warning: Warp core breach a lot sooner than you think" and "Warning: Last chance to be a hero, Doctor. Get going!"
** The quote from ''Webcomic/DinosaurComics'' on the quote page refers to the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Booby Trap". The ship is being subjected to severe radiation. The computer reports the exact time, down to the second, when the accumulated dosage will become lethal. The implication is that this time is meant to be uniform for all crew members. But even if it were, say, the time when radiation would be lethal to the lowest common denominator (the LittlestCancerPatient, for example), it's still a long stretch to believe that any time before that, the damage would be perfectly fine to recover from, but the instant you hit that deadline, it becomes lethal with no hope of recovery. And presumably any damage before that point could be cured with a complete recovery, otherwise Dr. Crusher ''et al'' would be working a lot faster before those radiation burns, mutations, and sterility become downright miserable.

* ''Series/{{Lost}}''
** The show, besides featuring a prominently displayed countdown for much of the second series, contains a rare non-technological example of this trope: in an episode of the third series, Jack, performing surgery on Ben, intentionally makes a small incision in his kidney and announces that if he doesn't sew it back up in an hour, he'll die. This is shown to mean that he will die in precisely 60 minutes and no earlier, and the other characters repeatedly make reference to how long is left on the "countdown"; in reality, a person in such a condition might die at any time within the hour, or might live longer, but an exact estimation like that would be impossible to make.
** The fourth season episode "The Other Woman" also features a computer which knows, to the second, how long one can mess with lethal gases before contamination occurs.
* In an episode of ''Series/{{CSI}}'', while trying to locate a person buried alive, the team calculates how much power is in the battery that's being used to vent him oxygen. One of them then starts a watch timer, and despite the obviously rounded figure (also the fact that they have only a vague idea of when he was actually buried), the oxygen flow is cut off within seconds of the timer running out.
* Subverted in an episode of the educational series ''Series/ReadAllAboutIt'': a CliffHanger shows our heroes trapped on a doomed planet as the countdown to its destruction reaches zero. In the next episode, the planet remains intact for several more minutes as the countdown was "only an estimate."
* Occurs in the ''Series/{{MASH}}'' episode "Life Time", wherein a wounded soldier is said to have only twenty minutes before damage to his aorta and a consequent lack of blood flow will cause permanent brain damage and/or paralysis. The episode unfolds in RealTime, complete with a ticking clock icon in the corner of the screen. Subverted slightly in that the staff decides to immerse him in ice to buy more time. Therefore, the deadline is slightly missed but the patient wakes up seemingly unharmed, although he may have still have had damage that wasn't immediately evident.
* In the ''Series/MacGyver1985'' episode "Nightmares", an interrogator gives [=MacGyver=] a slow-acting poison, and tells him that if he doesn't get the antidote within six hours, his death will be inevitable. There is a prominently-displayed countdown timer. [=MacGyver=] gets the antidote with two and a half minutes to spare, and makes a full recovery. It's never explained how they were able to state the time limit so exactly -- the interrogator says that the poison was calibrated specially for [=MacGyver=], but that just changes the question to how they got the medical information about [=MacGyver=] they'd need for the calibration.
* ''Series/{{Monk}}'':
** Played with in one episode. Monk is buried alive in a coffin. Upon learning this, Stottlemeyer says that there are 44 minutes of air in a coffin...''unless'' the occupant panics. There's a brief pause, then everyone starts rushing.
** Even worse is an episode where we're supposed to buy that there's an exact countdown to the point where a crucial piece of evidence in someone's stomach will be too digested to be of any use. They get it out with literally one second to spare, and apparently it's perfectly fine.

* ''Film/PleaseMurderMe'' opens with defense lawyer Craig Carlson buying a pistol at a pawn shop and depositing it in his office desk drawer with a file folder. [[DeadManWriting He dictates a message into a tape recorder]] for district attorney Ray Willis, revealing that he expects to be murdered within an hour.

** ... and then they played it completely straight again in the Atlantis episode "38 minutes" - a small shuttle gets mechanically jammed inside a gate in outer space, so when the event horizon opens it is cut in half. Everything's under control for the 38 minutes the gate stays open, but after that time there might have been half a shuttle floating in space.

* Subverted in the ''Anime/ReadOrDie'' OVA, where, even though the hero's stop the launch countdown with one second to spare, the Ijun launch anyways. In fact, the countdown ending display even ticks from 0 to -1 just to illustrate the point.

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' uses this in both games. In the first, it's "Exact Time to Death by Neurotoxin". ''VideoGame/Portal2'' plays with it like you wouldn't believe. The first timer is the same as above. When that fails, it switches to a timer for the reactor meltdown. Then the meltdown timer is blown up, so the facility activates a SelfDestructMechanism to ''[[BetterToDieThanBeKilled remove the uncertainty of not having a timer]]''.
-->'''Announcer:''' Reactor explosion timer destroyed. [[ExpospeakGag Reactor Explosion Uncertainty Emergency Preemption Protocol]] initiated. This facility will self-destruct in two minutes.
** It's also given a LampshadeHanging when you first enter the FinalBoss lair.
--->'''[[spoiler:Wheatley]]:''' Let me just flag something up: according to the control panel light up there, the entire building is going to self-destruct in about six minutes. I'm pretty sure it's a problem with the light -- I think the light's on the blink, but just in case it isn't, I am actually going to have to kill you, as discussed earlier. So let's call that three minutes, with a minute break afterwards, which gives me a leisurely two minutes to figure out how to shut down whatever's starting all the fires.

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'': In the Tanker chapter, you are given a varying time limit based on difficulty level before the US Marine Commandant finishes his speech. But throughout the speech he interrupts it with a joke or two, pointing out his repeating himself due to old age and even outright gives his marines a slight break for a while by conducting reactionary and neck-stretching exercises. Even if you let the timer run out once, he'll decide he's on a roll and adds an extra bit onto his speech, adding more time to the clock.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'', you can wind up contaminating the Sierra Army Depot by removing one of the virus samples from storage, which will promptly break. You then have a few minutes to leave before the base is fully contaminated. Even if you loiter around in the very room you broke the sample in, you'll be perfectly fine as long as long as the timer doesn't run out completely. Fail to leave, or leave in time and then walk back, and your character will ''melt''. (I.e. the 'killed by plasma' death animation.)

---> A.I: "3... 2... 1..."
--->''[{{Beat}}]''
--->"Maybe my count was w-"
--->'''[BOOM]'''

'''[BOOM]'''

** SMART is a system to predict hard drive failure by measuring the rate at which the mechanical components deteriorate.

** "Self-destruct sequence activated. T-minus-15 minutes to self-destruct. Thank you and have a nice day!"

* In a biological variant, Comicbook/{{Aquaman}} (and all other Atlanteans in Franchise/{{the DCU}}) originally could survive exactly one hour out of water; after that point they fell down dead. This has been quietly done away with in recent years.
** The ''belief'' still lasts, which allowed Aquaman, in one of his annuals, to put one over on the bad guys.

* In ''VideoGame/WillAWonderfulWorld'', near the end of the game, a 90-minute timer will trigger. This timer will tick on no matter what the player is doing and if by the end of it the player hasn't achieved the best endings for every character, [[spoiler:Myth and Will both run out of power and remain dormant forever]].