Spur of the Moment

This article is about the Twilight Zone episode. For the play by Anya Reiss, see Spur of the Moment (play).

"Spur of the Moment"
The Twilight Zone episode
The older Anne screams for her younger self.
Episode no.	Season 5 Episode 141
Directed by	Elliot Silverstein
Written by	Richard Matheson
Featured music	Rene Garriguenc
Production code	2608
Original air date	February 21, 1964
Guest stars
Diana Hyland: Anne Henderson Robert J. Hogan: Robert Blake Philip Ober: Mr. Henderson Marsha Hunt: Mrs. Henderson Roger Davis: David Mitchell
Episode chronology
← Previous "From Agnes—With Love" Next → "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
List of Twilight Zone episodes

“Spur of the Moment″ is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

Plot

A young woman, Anne, is engaged to be married to a respectable investment broker, while rebellious David Mitchell is trying to get her to elope with him. One day while horseback riding, she sees a terrifying woman dressed in black on horseback, who begins yelling at her to stop. The woman in black gallops toward her at full speed, and the young woman flees in terror, escaping her pursuer. Just before she is to be wed, Mitchell forces himself into her home past the butler, and exposes Anne's father's weakness in the face of Mitchell's overbearing, relentless presence. Mitchell convinces Anne to elope with him.

Twenty-five years later, Mitchell is a dissolute failure, who has driven the ranch Anne's late father left her into bankruptcy, and himself and Anne to alcoholism. Anne has a fight with her husband and goes horseback riding, where she sees herself as a young woman on a horse. She now realizes that she was the terrifying woman in black who had frantically chased her younger self, not to threaten but to warn her not to make the mistake of eloping with Mitchell. Unfortunately, the older Anne is unintelligible to the younger Anne. Anne is her own "ghostly double", who, whenever horseback riding, can see her younger self. However, try as she might she can never catch up, and thus can never change her past/future.

References

• DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360
• Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090

External links

• "Spur of the Moment" at the Internet Movie Database