Line #25 Recap/TheOuterLimits1963S2E16ThePremonition


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/83d2abf56166f3406eff238cde9ebbb0.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:The Limbo Being speaks...]]
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4	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/outer_limits_premonition_darcys_1403.png]]
5	[[caption-width-right:350:...as the Darcys interrogate him at flarepoint.]]
6
7	->'''The Control Voice''': On the fabulous spawning grounds of Man's ever-increasing knowledge of science and technology, ancient, half-forgotten legends seemingly have no place. Except one: The legend of the [[CuttingTheKnot Gordian Knot]], a knot so intricate and convoluted that no man could untie it. For there are problems so perplexing that they are seemingly impossible to solve, when Man ventures to the outer limits of his experience...
8
9	Test pilot Jim Darcy (Dewey Martin) and his wife Linda (Mary Murphy) are having a ''really'' bad day... one that might literally never end.
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11	It all starts when Jim, Linda and their young daughter Janie (Emma Tyson) arrive at Palmville Air Force Base so Jim can test an X-15--like jet plane while his family watches. Linda drives along the ground, following her husband's plane, while Janie pedals her tricycle around the day care area. But then Jim's jet malfunctions and crashes! And this shocks Linda so much that she drives the family convertible straight into a boulder! Both survive their accidents, but their troubles are just beginning -- because all around them, TimeStandsStill.
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13	Or at least that's how it seems. As the Darcys try to figure out what happened to them, they realize that their simultaneous crashes have somehow thrown them JustOneSecondOutOfSync with the timestream. Time is actually moving forward to the critical moment of their accidents, but it's moving so slowly they can't perceive it. Also, they can't physically move anyone or anything except themselves and the objects on their persons and in their vehicles. But all they have to do is get back to their places in the jet and the car and wait for time to resynchronize itself.... right?
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15	Wrong! It turns out that Janie is riding her bike into the path of an improperly parked truck! So now the Darcys have to save themselves from getting killed or stuck in time, ''and'' their daughter from getting squashed flat, but at least there's nothing else to worry about...
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17	...until they encounter the episode's MonsterOfTheWeek! This "Limbo Being" (Creator/KayEKuter), who looks like a glowing, somewhat blurry photographic negative of a man in a suit and tie, explains everything the Darcys need to know -- after they threaten to set him on fire with a road flare from Linda's car. The Being reveals that the Darcys returning to their proper places before time resynchronizes is ''really'' important. If they fail, as the Limbo Being did, they'll share his chilling fate... forever trapped in "a black, motionless void" of "eternal nothing". The Being claims he can escape only if one of the Darcys takes his place, but they keep him away with more road flares while they use his information to figure out how to save themselves and their daughter. But how can they do that when they have to be in their vehicles at the precise moment Janie is about to get run over?
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19	Jim comes up with a way to rescue Janie! He uses a knife in his uniform and some shrapnel from his crashed jet to cut the seatbelts out of their convertible, then wraps them around the threatening truck's handbrake, creating a RubeGoldbergDevice that will pull the brake back when time resynchronizes... he hopes. Jim and Linda return to their vehicles, survive their respective crashes (again) when time restarts, then rush to check on Janie -- who's alive and well, because Jim's contraption worked. However, since Jim and Linda re-entered normal time at the same moment they left it, they've forgotten their entire limbo experience. So how did they know that Janie was in trouble? "It must have been a premonition", Jim says as he and his family walk off together.
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21	->'''The Control Voice''': Man is forever solving the most perplexing problems as he ventures ever further into the unknown. But where are the outer limits of his ingenuity? Will he ever encounter a problem, a Gordian Knot, which he cannot ultimately cut?
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23	!!"Troped in this limbo world between the present and the future":
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25	* ActorAllusion: Dewey Martin had also played a troubled, ethically challenged pilot running through the desert in ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E15IShotAnArrowIntoTheAir I Shot an Arrow into the Air]]''.
26	* AllThereInTheScript: The phrase "Limbo Being" is never used until the closing credits. In the actual episode, the character is NoNameGiven.
27	* AndIMustScream: The fate of the Limbo Being, who talks about it at length during his soliloquy.
28	* AntiVillain: The Limbo Being's just trying to leave the VoidBetweenTheWorlds. The only reason he qualifies as a threat is his warning that only two of the three characters can escape ("Since two lives entered here, there will be space for two lives to escape this time prison"[[note]]''Why'' this is true, besides RuleOfDrama, is never explained[[/note]]), and his admission that he's desperate enough to leave one of them behind; after all, if one of them were in his place, they'd feel the same way. However, the Darcys have already subdued him by this point.
29	* BioluminescenceIsCool: The Limbo Being's glowing effect.
30	* BlankWhiteVoid: A variation; the Limbo Being is trapped in a blank black void.
31	* CheerfulChild: From the little we see of her, Janie is just adorable.
32	* CoolCar: Linda's Ford Galaxie convertible.
33	* CoolPlane: Jim's X-15.
34	* DamselInDistress: Janie is a variation, in that a) she's a child and b) she never realizes she's in danger.
35	* ExpositionDump: The Limbo Being's speech is a creepy, horrific example.
36	* FateWorseThanDeath: Quite literally in the Limbo Being's case.
37	* FromBadToWorse: The stakes just keep getting higher for the Darcys, as they continually discover new threats throughout the story.
38	* GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: When Linda [[FreakOut freaks out]] and becomes a HystericalWoman, Jim calms her down with a slap to the face.
39	* HopeSpot: The Darcys' arrival in his timeless world is one for the Limbo Being -- at least until they start waving a lighted flare at him.
40	* ItIsDehumanizing: The Darcys usually refer to the Limbo Being as "it", although he's clearly human (more or less).
41	* JacobMarleyWarning: One third of the Limbo Being's role in the story.
42	** MonsterOfTheWeek: The second third.
43	** MrExposition: The third third.
44	* LastNameBasis: We never learn General Baldwin's first name.
45	* ManOnFire: The Darcys threaten the Limbo Being with this. It's implied that if the Darcys actually set him on fire, he would burn ''forever''. No wonder he tells them everything, ruining what little chance he has to escape -- as bad off as he is, the alternative is ''much'' worse.
46	* MoveInTheFrozenTime: The Darcys become trapped ten seconds ahead of their own time. They initially believe that time is frozen but they soon come to the conclusion that it is moving very slowly: at a rate of one second for every 30 minutes of their time. Although the Darcys can move about freely in this reality, they can't move objects. This presents a problem when they discover that their daughter Janie is about to be run over by a military truck which does not have its parking brake on. Jim later finds that he can move objects in his crashed X-15 and Linda's crashed car. He ties one end of the car's seat belts to the back wheel of the truck and the other to the parking brake. When time resumes its normal course, the seatbelt pulls the parking brake and Janie is saved.
47	* MysteriousPast: How did the Limbo Being wind up in limbo? "What has happened to you happened to me. I didn't get back in time." That's all the BackStory we get.
48	* NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: "Palmville" is presumably based on the actual southern UsefulNotes/{{California}} city of Palmdale, where [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_Plant_42 United States Air Force Plant 42]] and related installations (including Lockheed Martin's famous "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works Skunk Works]]" facility) are located.
49	* NothingIsScarier: Literally, in the Limbo Being's case. He's basically experiencing TheNothingAfterDeath while still technically alive. Most of his soliloquy is about how horrible this is.
50	* OnlyTheLeadsGetAHappyEnding: The Darcys escape their TimeStandsStill situation, Janie is saved, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick and the Limbo Being is still trapped in the]] VoidBetweenTheWorlds [[FateWorseThanDeath for eternity.]] Yay?
51	* PlaceBeyondTime[=/=]VoidBetweenTheWorlds: Where the Limbo Being winds up.
52	* PlotHole: The Limbo Being warns the Darcys that they'll end up like him "if you are not in your plane, in your car, at the exact instant" time resynchronizes. Presumably he could tell Jim was a pilot from the uniform, but it's never stated how he knows about Linda's car. It's possible he had observed the Darcys; if not, there's always the road flare they threaten him with.
53	* RaceAgainstTheClock: In the most literal sense.
54	* RubeGoldbergDevice: The jury-rigged [[BuffySpeak brake puller thing]] that Jim improvises to save Janie. Some fans feel that it would have been simpler to just entangle the spokes of Janie's tricycle, thus immobilizing her.
55	* SharpDressedMan: The Limbo Being may be trapped in a timeless void forever, but [[Film/MenInBlack he makes it look good]].
56	* StockFootage: The episode starts with footage of an actual X-15 flight and crash. It also includes scenes of a coyote chasing a rabbit through the desert and a hawk attacking its prey, which were taken from ''Series/MutualOfOmahasWildKingdom''.
57	* TimeIsDangerous: The Darcys and the Limbo Being learn this the hard way.
58	* TimeStandsStill: What seems to be happening to the Darcys.
59	** JustOneSecondOutOfSync: What's actually happening to them.
60	* TitleDrop: In one of the episode's last lines of dialogue. Also, this is one of only two episodes that uses the phrase "The Outer Limits" in the Control Voice narration ("[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1963S1E12TheBorderland The Borderland]]" is the other). Had the episode's WorkingTitle "Gordian Knot" been retained, it would have been dropped in both the opening and closing narrations.
61	* TorturedMonster: The Limbo Being. His torture is psychological rather than physical, although he narrowly escapes that happening as well thanks to Jim's ManOnFire threat.
62	* TragicMonster: Although the Limbo Being is much more "tragic" than "monster".
63	* VictoryGuidedAmnesia: Happens to the Darcys when they resynchronize with time -- although as noted, they somehow remember enough to check on Janie.
64	* WhatTheHellAreYou: When he's about to give the Limbo Being the third degree, Jim sets the tone for their conversation.
65	-->Who are you? What are you? Stand where you are or I'll set you on fire!
66	* WhipPan: Used to transition between the Darcys and the Limbo Being when their conversation begins, since the low budget special effects don't allow the characters to be shown together.
67	* WhoWantsToLiveForever: Not the Limbo Being.

Context Recap / TheOuterLimits1963S2E16ThePremonition