History Recap / TheTwilightZone1985S1E1ShatterdayALittlePeaceAndQuiet

!! Shatterday

-> "Some push for what they need. Some push for what they ''want''. Some people, like Peter Jay Novins, just push. If they do it hard enough and long enough, something might ''just'' push back -- from the Twilight Zone."

Misanthropic businessman Peter Jay Novins (Creator/BruceWillis), currently out drinking, accidentally dials his home phone number on the bar's payphone. Peter is later shocked when his call is answered by a man who claims to be Peter himself. While he inititally thinks that this man is some lowlife trying to steal his identity, the man reveals that he's in fact Peter's alter-ego, who has grown sick and tired of how much of a horrid person Peter is. To this end, the doppelganger goes to work fixing Peter's mistakes and making him into a better person, while the real Peter slowly becomes an echo of his former self.

[[folder:Tropes]]
* FiveFiveFive: Peter's home phone number is Klondike 5-6189.
* AdaptationNameChange: Peter's alter-ego doesn't have any other name to distinguish him from the original Peter. In the short story by Creator/HarlanEllison, the original Peter decides to call him "Jay."
* AstralProjection: {{Discussed|Trope}}. The alter ego claims that he is the real Peter while the other one is only a piece of him that wandered off while he was sleeping, thanks to astral projection.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Peter's alter-ego reminds him that he took the account of the Cumberland company at his PR firm, knowing full well that they intend to strip-mine a county.
* {{Doppelganger}}: Peter accidentally dials his home number and ends up talking to his alter ego, who gradually takes over his life while the original Peter vanishes into nothing.
* ForWantOfANail: Peter is subsumed and replaced by a doppelganger he didn't even know existed, solely because he dialed his home phone number out of instinct.
* GracefulLoser: Seeing that he's going to die while the doppelganger assumes his identity, Peter takes his loss gracefully, especially because the doppelganger is the nicer of the two, and will continue to make amends in his life he never got to make.
* HeelRealization: Peter gradually comes to realize that between the two of them, his doppelganger is a better person than he ever was.
* {{Hypocrite}}: In a single conversation, Peter's doppelganger calls the real Peter out on this ''three times''. For one thing, Peter claims that everybody deserves a chance to live, but the doppelganger happens to know that Peter is a misanthrope who couldn't give a single care about anyone other than himself. Second, there's the fact that Peter claims to loathe hypocrisy, despite his being involved with the heavily corrupt Cumberland company indicating he's also a hypocrite. Lastly, Peter advertised said company to the public, despite knowing very well they'll milk the county for all their money and get away with it.
* ItsAllAboutMe: One of Peter's flaws is his selfishness. In particular, instead of recognizing that his ailing mother deserves to be cared for, he only sees her as dead weight.
* {{Jerkass}}: Peter is rebuked by his alter-ego as a ''very'' unpleasant person. While visiting his extremely sick mother in Miami, Peter told her that he had to return to New York City earlier than he actually had to just because he couldn't stand being around her any longer. He also convinced a woman named Patty to leave her husband, set her and her son up in an apartment, and then abandoned her as soon as he got bored with her. He also mistreated his current girlfriend Jamie, but it's not specified how. He also works for a PR firm and took the Cumberland account, knowing full well that the company's unsafe environmental practices would destroy a small town. His alter ego, who describes him as having the ethics of a weasel, [[TookALevelInKindness is a far better person]] who sets about making amends for everything the original Peter has done.
* NeverTheSelvesShallMeet: {{Discussed|Trope}}. When Peter threatens to go to his apartment and fight his alter ego head on, the alter ego speculates that this would be a very bad idea, as each of them could be destroyed in the process. He cites the scientific theory that only one of each object can exist in one place at the same time. This proves not to be the case when the two of them come face to face in the final scene, though it's implied that the alter ego knew this already.
* PunBasedTitle: Each of the days listed throughout the episode are puns on normal days of the week: Someday, Duesday, Woundsday, Freeday, Shatterday.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: The alter-ego spends the entire episode giving Peter the mother of all such speeches.
* TheRemake: The story is essentially a sucessor to the classic episode, "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room."
* SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay: Peter tests his alter ego's claim to be him by asking him what his childhood friend Skip Fisher's father did for a living. The alter ego correctly answers that he was a fireman, until he quit his job to work at a Studebaker dealership.
* TalkingToThemself: Peter spends the whole episode talking to a mysterious {{Doppelganger}} who aims to repair his life choices.
[[/folder]]
-> "Peter Jay Novins, both victor and victim of a brief struggle for custody of a man's soul. A man who lost himself, and found himself, on a lonely battlefield somewhere -- in the Twilight Zone."
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!! A Little Peace and Quiet

-> "Wouldn't it be nice if once in a while, everyone would just shut up and stop pestering you? Wouldn't it be great to have the time to finish a thought, or spin a daydream? To think out loud without being required to explain exactly what you meant? If you had the power, would you dare to use it? Even knowing that silence may have voices of its own -- to the Twilight Zone?"

Penny is a wife and mother who is clinging to her sanity by a thread, thanks to the nonstop ride of hecticness that is her home life. Her husband Russel is a hapless dimwit who always asks for her help with the simplest tasks. Her four children are no better, as eldest daughters Janet and Suzie are always fighting, only son Russel Jr. has a penchant for pulling pranks, and youngest daughter Bertie is always making a mess. One afternoon, while tending to her garden and having to deal with her neighbor doing some disruptive yard work of his own, Penny digs up a wooden box housing a gold pendant in the shape of a sundial. With Russell not having had bought anything for her in several years, Penny puts the pendant around her neck.

After an outing at the supermarket where the kids are on their absolute worst behavior, and things get just as chaotic around dinner time, Penny, at the end of her rope, yells the words "'''''SHUT UP!'''''" All at once, everyone and everything around Penny is frozen in place. Once she realizes what's going on, she hesitantly says "Start talking." This causes everything to start moving again, as well as resuming the chaos running amok throughout the house. After a few more utterances of "Shut up" and "Start talking", Penny realizes that her pendant has the ability to stop time at her command. Realizing that she wields the cure to an inevitable nervous breakdown, Penny frequently uses the pendant so she can relax, regain her composure, and stave off migraines.

Over the next several days, she uses her power to enjoy a peaceful breakfast with her family and shop at the grocery store without being bothered by customers. Late one afternoon while trying to cook dinner and nurse another migraine, she gets a knock on the door. A pair of young college students are at the door, having grown alarmed at the news of a complete collapse of U.S./Soviet relations and both sides have been making ominous threats that they will attack with minimal provocation, and are trying to rally support for an emergency meeting to make one last attempt to stave off nuclear war. Penny looks at her pendant, and decides that this is a good time to tell the activists to "shut up." But instead of re-starting time immediately after dragging their bodies into the yard, she leaves them there and then says "start talking." Upon realizing their predicament, the students nervously conclude that this woman is simply not interested and decide to try to continue their rallying efforts elsewhere.

That night, Penny is enjoying a peaceful bath, while Russell Sr. monitors the constant news bulletins throughout the evening over the U.S.-Soviet situation, which report that attacks are now all but assured. Just then, an air raid siren begins sounding, and Russell screams for Penny to come in. Penny hastily dries herself off and puts on a bathrobe, and then they listen to the radio, where the news announcer -– losing his efforts to keep his composure -– reveals that the Soviets have made the first nuclear strike of World War III. A terrified Penny tries to make sense of the situation as Russell decides they'll gather the kids find an emergency shelter. Russel Jr., meanwhile, has been awakened by the sirens and the chaos outside, frightened and wondering what’s going on. As ICBM missiles enter U.S. airspace, Russell and his son begin to embrace and cry, and just seconds after an explosion is heard in the distance, Penny finally stops time by screaming "'''''SHUT UP!'''''"

After hugging her frozen husband and son one last time, Penny, clad only in her robe, walks through town and sees a frozen scene of panicked residents trying to find shelter. After taking note of the marquee on a local movie theater, she sees a Soviet missile frozen a few hundred feet in the air, nose down and moments from impact. The episode ends with Penny facing an unwinnable dilemma: live eternally alone in a safe but silent world, or unfreeze time and have the world be annihilated by nuclear war. More than likely, she's also brought upon herself an eternity to think about misusing a gift that could have been used to bring about world peace, but instead was used for selfishness.

[[folder:Tropes]]
* AndIMustScream: Penny freezes time for the final time during the Soviet's nuclear attack on the United States, the ''exact second'' a Soviet missile explodes nearby. As she glimpses an inbound missile frozen over her own town, she's stuck with the choice of either living forever frozen in time, or unfreezing time and dying instantly.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Penny just wants a way to make the world stop bothering her so she can regain her sanity. The pendant allows her to freeze time at her command and escape her responsibilities, until her increasingly impulsive use of it during a horrific disaster leaves her stuck in a situation where the only way out would result in certain death.
* BigScrewedUpFamily: Penny's family fits this to a T: Her husband, Russell Sr., is an imbecile who henpecks her to help him with minor tasks; their two pre-teen daughters, Janet and Susan, are always fighting with one another; youngest daughter Bertie is very clumsy and always making a mess; and only son Russell Jr. has a habit of playing pranks on his parents. Their antics are just too much for Penny to bear, and she believes that the magic pendant she discovers is simply a way to control her family and regain control of her sanity.
* BigShutUp: How Penny is able to freeze time, and she later says "Start talking." to let it start again.
* BystanderSyndrome: Harried housewife Penny refuses to note the fact that the Soviet Union and United States are on the brink of war, and that she just might be wearing the thing that can bring world peace. Instead, she uses the pendant selfishly and the United States pays a dear price in the end.
* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: It's implied that if Penny used the pendant to mend the relations of the US and the Soviet Union, World War III wouldn't have happened.
** Earlier, she could've potentially saved herself the trouble by just ''sitting her family down and talking to them'' about how stressed they've been making her feel. Though judging by Russel Sr.'s low intellect and the kids' attitudes, they respectively wouldn't understand or care about her feelings.
* CruelTwistEnding: Penny finds a pendant that can stop time, but instead of using it to help the USA and the USSR make last ditch efforts to stop nuclear war, she uses it to stop time for her own needs, doing so immediately before Soviet missiles destroy her town. This leaves her with the choice of either being permanently stuck in a frozen world, or starting time again only to be vaporized.
* DarkerAndEdgier: A much bleaker version of the classic episode "A Kind of a Stopwatch". Not only does this version end with [[TimeStandsStill time standing still]], it ends with time standing still at the start of a nuclear apocalypse.
* DownerEnding: Mutually Assured Destruction disintegrates, resulting in the Soviets attacking the USA with nuclear weapons in a first strike. Penny stops time ''the second'' the nukes go off, then wanders through a street of frozen people desperately trying to escape certain doom, even seeing a missile frozen in mid-air. All she wanted was a reprieve from the stress of her home life and her dysfunctional family before she went insane, but using the pendant to regain control of her life cost the world the ultimate price.
* EmergencyBroadcast: A live announcer, trembling through an EBS radio alert, is heard failing in his attempts to keep calm as nuclear war breaks out between the Soviet Union and the United States.
* FantasticTimeManagement: Penny uses the pendant to literally make time for herself, enjoying a peaceful breakfast and leisurely shopping for groceries while time is stopped for everyone else.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: While on the phone with her friend Fran, Penny sarcastically says that "it's World War III" in her house, as her children are bickering and making tons of noise. Throughout the episode, various radio and television reports of steadily deteriorating arms talks between the United States and the Soviet Union. As a result, the actual World War III breaks out shortly before the episode ends.
* JustBeforeTheEnd: The episode is set during the final days before a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. When the missiles start to fall, Penny manages to yell "Shut up!" just a split second before a nuclear missile incinerates her town and kills everyone (she freezes time just a moment after an explosion is heard in the distance).
* JustInTime: In the last fraction of a second before her neighborhood is swallowed up in a nuclear blast, Penny manages to freeze time once more. This leaves her forever stuck in a state of frozen time, living alone in the last instant before the explosion and resulting blast envelopes her hometown.
* MagicalAccessory: The pendant that Penny discovers, which can stop and start time at her call and beck.
* MortonsFork: Penny freezes time just before a Soviet nuclear missile can hit her hometown. She's faced with a horrible choice: keep everyone frozen forever, preventing their deaths but leaving herself the only conscious, active person in an unmoving world, or unfreeze time, killing the entire planet via mutually assured destruction.
* RapidFireShutUp: Penny can freeze time by saying "Shut up!" while wearing the pendant, and can reverse the effect by saying "Start talking." She misuses the amulet just so she can regain her sanity, until she realizes that it was perhaps a means to get world leaders to defuse the arms crisis. One night, while relaxing in a bubble bath, Penny learns that nuclear war has broken out, and the only way to stop it is by enforcing the trope. At the last possible instant, she shouts out a final "SHUT UP!", then says it again rapid-fire to make sure that time is surely frozen... and then realizes that she is trapped in the instant of time between the panic of the pouplace of Southern California and its destruction.
* ShoutOut: In the final scene, ''Film/DrStrangelove'' and ''Film/FailSafe'' are advertised as a double feature on the cinema marquee. A darkly humorous throwaway gag, considering that both films concern nuclear war.
* SpiritualSuccessor: To "A Kind of a Stopwatch" from the original series, although the ending of this episode is much darker.
* TimeFreezeTrollingSpree: While Penny originally freezes time to get some peace and quiet, she quickly becomes a prankster like her son Russel Jr., even very nearly resisting the temptation to pull down a passerby's shorts. Later, she is annoyed by the anti-nuclear activists who come to her house. After she freezes time again, she drags them over to her lawn and lays them down. When time is started again, they are too frightened to try talking to her again.
* TimeStandsStill: The crux of the plot. Penny finds a pendant that pauses time when she says "Shut up", and unpauses it when she says "Start talking."
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Russell Jr. (the only boy among Russell Sr. and Penny's four children) is the only one seen in the final bedroom scene, where the world is under nuclear attack and they are seconds away from certain death.
* TheWoobie: Penny, a frazzled housewife who suffers from chronic migraines and is seconds away from a nervous breakdown every day, thanks to the noise and stress genereated by her outrageously dysfunctional family. The reason she freezes time to her heart's content just so she can have some peace and solitude for the first time in years. Unforunately, by only thinking of herself in this manner, Penny freezes time when World War III starts, a mere ''second'' after a missile is heard exploding near her house. The final scene shows her learning about her lose-lose dilemma, either staying the only living person in a frozen world, or unfreeze the world so she and everyone on it can be destroyed, all because she was desperate for a way to not go mad. Makes you just wanna give the poor woman a hug.
* WorldWarIII: Nuclear war breaks out between the United States and the Soviet Union, thanks to deteriorating arms talks.
[[/folder]]
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* JustBeforeTheEnd: The episode is set during the final days before a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. When the missiles start to fall, Penny manages to yell "Shut up!" just a split second before a nuclear missile incinerates her town and kills everyone. (She freezes time just a moment after an explosion is heard in the distance.)

-> "Some push for what they need. Some push for what they ''want''. Some people, like Peter Jay Novins, just push. If they do it hard enough and long enough, something ''might'' just push back -- from the Twilight Zone."

-> ''"Some push for what they need. Some push for what they want. Some people, like Peter Jay Novins, just push. If they do it hard enough and long enough, something might just push back -- from the Twilight Zone."''

-> ''"Peter Jay Novins, both victor and victim of a brief struggle for custody of a man's soul. A man who lost himself, and found himself, on a lonely battlefield somewhere -- in the Twilight Zone."''

-> ''"Wouldn't it be nice if once in a while, everyone would just shut up and stop pestering you? Wouldn't it be great to have the time to finish a thought, or spin a daydream? To think out loud without being required to explain exactly what you meant? If you had the power, would you dare to use it? Even knowing that silence may have voices of its own -- to the Twilight Zone?"''

-> ''"Peter Jay Novins, both victor and victim of a brief struggle for custody of a man's soul. A man who lost himself, and found himself, on a lonely battlefield somewhere...in the Twilight Zone."''

A man (Creator/BruceWillis) accidentally dials his home phone number and is shocked when it is answered by a doppelganger of himself.

The new series would revisit a tried-and-true theme of the original series: International relations as affected by the Cold War and the fear of a world-ending nuclear war, fears and issues that were still very much prevalent in the mid-1980s; and opportunities to bring about peace. And it did so quite well in just the second segment of the revival.

Indeed, the narrator intones the themes of "A Little Peace and Quiet" in the opening narration: "Wouldn't it be nice if once in a while everyone would just shut up and stop pestering you? Wouldn't it be great to have the time to finish a thought or spin a daydream? To think out loud without being required to explain exactly what you meant? If you had the power, would you dare to use it, even knowing that silence may have voices of its own to ''The Twilight Zone''?"

And it is that silence -- a "A Little Peace and Quiet," if you will -- that has a harried housewife named Penny wondering if this is the type of "peace and quiet" she really wanted.

Penny, you see, has lost control of her hectic home life and is literally on her last nerve, what with a helpless husband always demanding simple errands and four bratty children. One afternoon, while trying to garden -- but her neighbor is being disruptive doing some yard work of his own, and he basically ignores her -- she digs up a wooden box.

And what is inside the box, you doth ask? A beautiful gold pendant in the shape of a sundial. It's so beautiful and, with Russell not having had bought anything for her in several years, she puts it around her neck. She's unaware that this pendant has special powers...

...but we don't get to that until, after an outing at the supermarket where the kids are on their absolute worst behavior, we get to the dinner table that night, where once again things get chaotic. Having lost her patience, she yells the words "'''''SHUT UP!'''''"

And everyone does...

...except everyone (but Penny) are also frozen in place... literally!

Once she realizes what's going on, she says the words "start talking," to which time restarts... and everything gets hectic and chaotic once again. After a few more "shut ups" and "start talkings," Penny realizes she has the magic cure to an inevitable nervous breakdown, and can -- when things become too much -- use the pendant to stop time so she can relax, regain her composure, stave off migraine headaches... all of that.

If only she knew she had a gift that could have much bigger implications than just regaining control of her nerves and her family. This is foreshadowed in a later scene, where she is watching a news report about the recent arms talks with the United States and the Soviet Union, and that tensions are at an all-time high and patience between the two sides has become less than razor thin. Rather than listen to the report and take interest, Penny sees this as what the 1985 version of "fake news" is. After a "shut up"/"start talking," she happily congratulates herself and has a peaceful night's sleep.

Over the next several days, she uses her power to enjoy breakfast with her family and to shop at the grocery store without being bothered by other customers. Then, late one afternoon while trying to cook dinner and nurse another migraine, she gets a knock on the door. It's two young college-aged students who -- alarmed at the news of a complete collapse of relations between the U.S. and the Soviets and both sides have made ominous threats that they will attack with minimal provocation -- are trying to rally support for an emergency meeting to make one last attempt to stave off nuclear war.

Penny looks at her pendant and decides this would be a good time to tell the activists to "shut up." But instead of re-starting time immediately after dragging their bodies into the yard (and thus talking about the pendant and that it could be used to force negotiations and the world's two superpowers to come to a peaceful resolution), she leaves them there and then says "start talking." The protesters, upon realizing their predicament, conclude that this woman is simply not interested and decide to try to continue their rallying efforts elsewhere.

That night, Penny is enjoying a peaceful bath, all while Russell Sr. appears to be monitoring constant news bulletins throughout the evening over the U.S.-Soviet situation and that attacks are now all but assured. Just then, an air raid siren begins sounding, and Russell screams for Penny.

Penny hastily dries off and puts on a bathrobe, and then they listen to the radio, where the news announcer -– losing his efforts to keep his composure -– reveals that the Soviets have attacked with nuclear weapons. A terrified Penny tries to make sense of the situation and the elder Russell decides they'll gather the kids and go to an emergency shelter; little Russell, meanwhile, has been awakened by the air raid sirens and chaos outside -- a neighbor is heard screaming for his family to get into their car -- and frightened, wonders what’s going on. But then there's no time, as the ICBM missiles enter U.S. airspace; Russell (both senior and junior) begin to embrace and cry, and just moments after an explosion is heard in the distance, Penny finally stops time, screaming "'''''SHUT UP!'''''"

After hugging her frozen husband and son one last time, Penny -- clad only in her house robe -- walks through town and sees a frozen scene of panicked residents trying to flee. After taking note of the marquee on a local movie theater, she sees a Soviet nuclear missile frozen a few hundred feet in the air, nose down, and moments from impact.

The episode ends with Penny facing an impossible dilemma: live eternally alone in a safe but silent world, or unfreeze time and have the world be annihilated by nuclear war? That, and more than likely, an eternity to think about misusing a gift that could have been used to bring world peace, but instead was used for selfishness... and now, at least southern California has to pay a very dear price.

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!!This episode contains the following tropes:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Shatterday]]
* FiveFiveFive: Peter Jay Novins' phone number is Klondike 5-6189.
* AdaptationNameChange: Peter Jay Novins' alter ego does not have any other name to distinguish him from the original Novins. In the short story by Creator/HarlanEllison, the original Novins decides to call him "Jay."
* AstralProjection: {{Discussed|Trope}}. Peter Jay Novins' alter ego claims that he is the real Novins and that the other one is a piece of him that wandered off while he was sleeping because of astral projection.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Peter Jay Novins took the Cumberland account at his PR firm in full knowledge of the company's intention to strip-mine a county.
* {{Doppelganger}}: Peter Jay Novins accidentally dials his own number and ends up talking to his alter ego, who gradually takes over his life.
* GracefulLoser: Seeing he's going to die while the doppelganger subsumes his identity, Peter takes it gracefully, especially because he's the nicer of the two and will make amends in his life he never got to make.
* HeelRealization: Gradually, Peter comes to realize that of the two of them, his doppelganger is a better person than he ever was.
* {{Hypocrite}}: In a single conversation alone, Peter's doppelganger calls him out on this ''thrice''. For one thing, he claims that everybody deserves a chance to live, but the doppelganger happens to know that Peter is a misanthrope. Second, there's the fact that Peter claims he hates hypocrisy, despite that his involvement with a corrupt company indicates he's also a hypocrite. Lastly, Peter advertised said-company to the public, despite knowing very well they will milk the county for all their money and get away with it.
* ItsAllAboutMe: One of Peter Jay Novin's flaws is that he's selfish. For one instance, instead of recognizing his ill mother deserves to be cared for, he sees her as a burden.
* {{Jerkass}}: Peter Jay Novins is a very unpleasant person. While visiting his extremely ill mother in Miami, he told her that he had to return to New York City earlier than he actually had to because he could not stand being around her any longer. He convinced a woman named Patty to leave her husband, set her and her son up in an apartment and abandoned her as soon as he became bored with her. Novins also mistreated his current girlfriend Jamie but it is not specified how. He works for a PR firm and took the Cumberland account, knowing full well that the company would destroy a small town with its unsafe environmental practises. His alter ego, who describes him as having the ethics of a weasel, [[TookALevelInKindness is a far better person]] and sets about making amends for everything that the original Novins has done.
* NeverTheSelvesShallMeet: {{Discussed|Trope}}. When Peter Jay Novins threatens to go to his apartment and fight his alter ego, the alter ego speculates that this would be a very bad idea as each of them could be destroyed in the process. He cites the theory that only one of each thing can exist in the same place at the same time. This proves not to be the case when the two of them come face to face in the final scene. It is implied that the alter ego knew this already.
* PunBasedTitle: Each of the days are puns on normal days of the week: Someday, Duesday, Woundsday, Freeday, Shatterday.
* TheRemake: The story is very similar to the classic episode, "The Nervous Man in the Four-Dollar Room."
* SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay: 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.
* TalkingToThemself: Peter Jay Novins talks with a mysterious {{Doppelganger}}.

[[folder:A Little Peace and Quiet]]
* AndIMustScream: Penny freezes time during the Soviet nuclear attack on the United States, and she can see an inbound missile frozen over her own town. She's stuck with the choice of either living forever frozen in time, or unfreezing time and dying instantly.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Penny wants a way to make the world stop bothering her. The pendant allows her to freeze time and escape her responsibilities -- until her impulsive use of it during a disaster leaves her stuck in a situation where the only way out would result in certain death,
* BigScrewedUpFamily: Penny's family fits this to a T: Her husband, Russell Sr., who is henpecking her with minor demands and isn't the smartest guy in the bunch; their two older pre-teen daughters, Janet and Susan, who are always fighting; youngest daughter Bertie (Creator/JudithBarsi), who is very clumsy; and Russell Jr., who is always playing pranks. Their antics are all but too much for Penny to bear, and believes the magic pendant she discovers is there simply to control her family and regain control of her sanity.
* CruelTwistEnding: Penny finds a pendant that can stop time, but uses it to stop time immediately before Soviet missiles impact her town, leaving her with a choice of being permanently stuck in a frozen world or starting time again only to be vaporized.
* DarkerAndEdgier: Than the classic episode "A Kind of a Stopwatch". Not only does this version end with [[TimeStandsStill time standing still]], it also ends with a nuclear apocalypse.
* DownerEnding: Mutually Assured Destruction disintegrates, resulting in the Soviets attacking the USA with nuclear weapons... and Penny stops time ''the second'' the nukes go off. The last shot of the episode is of her wandering down to the middle of town, only to see a missile frozen in mid-air.
* EmergencyBroadcast: The climatic scene, alerting to breakout of nuclear war.
* FantasticTimeManagement: Penny uses the magic sundial it to literally make time for herself, enjoying a peaceful breakfast or leisurely shopping for groceries while time is stopped for everyone else.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: While on the phone with her friend Fran, Penny says that it is World War III in her house as her children are bickering and making a lot of noise. She later ignores the radio and television reports of the deteriorating arms talks between the United States and the Soviet Union. A nuclear war breaks out shortly afterwards.
* JustBeforeTheEnd: The episode takes place during the final days before a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. When the bombs start to fall, Penny manages to blurt out the words "shut up" just a split second before a nuclear missile incinerates her town and kills everyone. (She freezes time just a moment after an explosion is heard in the distance.)
* JustInTime: Just a split second before her neighborhood is swallowed up in a nuclear blast, Penny manages to freeze time (with the words, "Shut up!"). This leaves Penny forever in a state of frozen time, living alone in what is thought to represent the last instant before the explosion and resulting blast envelopes her hometown. (Indeed, in the distance, a large fireball -- presumably growing -- is seen; that explosion can be heard in the final second before she manages to freeze time.)
* MagicalAccessory: The pendant, which can stop time, that Penny discovers.
* RapidFireShutUp: Penny can freeze time by saying the words "shut up!" while wearing a magic amulet. (The spell is reversed by saying "start talking," also while wearing the amulet.) She misuses the amulet for selfish gains until she realizes (far too late) that perhaps it was to be a gift to get world leaders to defuse a world nuclear crisis... as one night, while she is relaxing in a bubble bath, war breaks out, and the only way to stop it is by enforcing the trope. At the last possible instant, she shouts out "SHUT UP!", then says it again rapid-fire to make sure that time is frozen... and then realizes that she is trapped in an instant of time between panic and mass destruction of southern California.
* ShoutOut: In the final scene, ''Film/DrStrangelove'' and ''Film/FailSafe'' are advertised on the cinema marquee. Both films concern nuclear war.
* SpiritualSuccessor: To "A Kind of a Stopwatch", although the ending of this episode is much darker.
* TimeFreezeTrollingSpree: 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 lays them down. When time is resumed, they are too frightened to try talking to her again.
* TimeStandsStill: The crux of the plot. Penny finds a pendant that pauses time when she says "shut up" and unpauses when she says "start talking."
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Russell Jr. (the youngest of Russell Sr. and Penny's four children) is the only one seen in the final bedroom scene, where their region is under nuclear attack and they are seconds away from certain death.
* WorldWarIII: A nuclear war breaks out between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1985.
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If only she knew she had a gift that could have much bigger implications than just regaining control of her nerves and her family. This is foreshadowed in a later scene, where she is watching a news report about the recent arms talks with the United States and the Soviet Union, and that tensions are at an all time high and patience between the two sides has become less than razor thin. Rather than listen to the report and take interest, Penny sees this as what the 1985 version of "fake news" is. After a "shut up"/"start talking," she happily congratulates herself and has a peaceful night's sleep.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Than the classic episode "A Kind Of a Stopwatch". Not only does this version end with [[TimeStandsStill time standing still]], it also ends with a nuclear apocalypse.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Penny wants a way to make the world stop bothering her. The pendant allows her to freeze time and escape her responsibilities-until her impulsive use of it during a disaster leaves her stuck in a situation where the only way out would result in certain death,

* FantasticTimeManagement: Penny uses the magic sundial it to literally make time for herself, enjoying a peaceful breakfast or leisurely shopping for groceries while time is stopped for everyone else.

And it is that silence — a "A Little Peace and Quiet," if you will — that has a harried housewife named Penny wondering if this is the type of “peace and quiet” she really wanted.

Penny, you see, has lost control of her hectic home life and is literally on her last nerve, what with a helpless husband always demanding simple errands and four bratty children. One afternoon, while trying to garden – but her neighbor is being disruptive doing some yard work of his own, and he basically ignores her – she digs up a wooden box.

And what is inside the box, you doth ask? A beautiful gold pendant in the shape of a sundial. It's so beautiful and, with Russell not having had bought anything for her in several years, she puts it around her neck. She's unaware that this pendant has special powers ...

... but we don't get to that until, after an outing at the supermarket where the kids are on their absolute worst behavior, we get to the dinner table that night, where once again things get chaotic. Having lost her patience, she yells the words "'''''SHUT UP!!!!!!'''''"

And everyone does ...

... except everyone (but Penny) are also frozen in place ... literally!

Once she realizes what's going on, she says the words "start talking," to which time restarts ... and everything gets hectic and chaotic once again. After a few more "shut ups" and "start talkings," Penny realizes she has the magic cure to an inevitable nervous breakdown, and can – when things become too much – use the pendant to stop time so she can relax, regain her composure, stave off migraine headaches ... all of that.

Over the next several days, she uses her power to enjoy breakfast with her family and to shop at the grocery store without being bothered by other customers. Then, late one afternoon while trying to cook dinner and nurse another migraine, she gets a knock on the door. It's two young college-aged students who – alarmed at the news of a complete collapse of relations between the U.S. and the Soviets and both sides have made ominous threats that they will attack with minimal provocation – are trying to rally support for an emergency meeting to make one last attempt to stave off nuclear war.

Penny looks at her pendant and decides this would be a good time to tell the activists to "shut up." But instead of re-starting time immediately after dragging their bodies into the yard (and thus talking about the pendant and that it could be used to force negotiations and the world's two superpowers to come to a peaceful resolution), she leaves them there and then says "start talking." The protesters, upon realizing their predicament, conclude this woman is simply not interested and decide to try to continue their rallying efforts elsewhere.

Penny hastily dries off and puts on a bathrobe, and then they listen to the radio, where the news announcer – losing his efforts to keep his composure – reveals that the Soviets have attacked with nuclear weapons. A terrified Penny tries to make sense of the situation and the elder Russell decides they'll gather the kids and go to an emergency shelter; little Russell, meanwhile, has been awakened by the air raid sirens and chaos outside — a neighbor is heard screaming for his family to get into their car — and frightened, wonders what’s going on. But then there's no time, as the [=ICBM=] missles enter U.S. airspace; Russell (both senior and junior) begin to embrace and cry, and just moments after an explosion is heard in the distance Penny finally stops time, screaming "'''''SHUT UP!!!!!!!!'''''"

After hugging her frozen husband and son one last time, Penny – clad only in her house robe – walks through town and sees a frozen scene of panicked residents trying to flee. After taking note of the marquee on a local movie theater, she sees a Soviet nuclear missile frozen a few hundred feet in the air, nose down, and moments from impact.

The episode ends with Penny facing an impossible dilemma: live eternally alone in a safe but silent world, or unfreeze time and have the world be annihilated by nuclear war? That, and more than likely, an eternity to think about misusing a gift that could have been used to bring world peace, but instead was used for selfishness ... and now, at least southern California has to pay a very dear price.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To "A Kind Of a Stopwatch", although the ending of this episode is much darker.

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* TimeStandsStill: The two main elements that make up the backbone of the plot, all of which can be caused by a magic pendant and its wearer's commands to "shut up." The reverse – time re-starting – happens when the wearer states the words, "Start talking."

* FrozenInTime and TimeStandsStill: The two main elements that make up the backbone of the plot, all of which can be caused by a magic pendant and its wearer's commands to "shut up." The reverse – time re-starting – happens when the wearer states the words, "Start talking."

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Penny stops time a nanosecond before a nuke would have incinerated her city and the episode ends. What does she do then? Try to somehow drag her family to safety (with no automobiles or the like). Does she go to the library and frantically try to learn about the amulet and if there's something more she could do? Does she dig up all around her house to see if there's another amulet? Does she live decades and grow old, unwilling to restart time? Does she die without ever restarting time?

* BigScrewedUpFamily: Penny's family fits this to a T: Her husband, Russell Sr., who is henpecking her husband with minor demands and isn't the smartest guy in the bunch; their two older pre-teen daughters, Janet and Susan, who are always fighting; youngest daughter Bertie (Creator/JudithBarsi), who is very clumsy; and Russell Jr., who is always playing pranks. Their antics are all but too much for Penny to bear, and believes the magic pendant she discovers is there simply to control her family and regain control of her sanity.