A Kind of a Stopwatch

"A Kind of a Stopwatch"

"A Kind of Stopwatch" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. Star Pulse ranks this as the best episode The Twilight Zone.

The plot was adapted without permission (or credit) from The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything (1962), a science fiction novel by John D. MacDonald. The episode's credits state, "Written by Rod Serling (based on an unpublished story by Michael D. Rosenthal)"; Rosenthal is believed to have been Serling himself.

Opening narration

Submitted for your approval, or at least your analysis: one Patrick Thomas McNulty, who at age forty-one is the biggest bore on Earth. He holds a ten-year record for the most meaningless words spewed out during a coffee break. And it's very likely that, as of this moment, he would have gone through life in precisely this manner, a dull, argumentative bigmouth who sets back the art of conversation a thousand years. I say he very likely would have, except for something that will soon happen to him, something that will considerably alter his existence--and ours. Now you think about that now, because this is the Twilight Zone.

Synopsis

Patrick McNulty, an obnoxious talkative and unpopular know-it-all, befriends an odd man named Potts, whom he meets in the local bar the day after McNulty is fired. Potts offers him a stopwatch, "an old family heirloom" in exchange for his friendship. Thinking it's an odd gift, McNulty soon realizes that when the button is pressed, the stopwatch is capable of stopping all of time itself. Excited with his new toy, he unsuccessfully uses it in an attempt to win back his job, change the world for the better and make himself some friends. Disappointed at the failed results, McNulty finds another use for it--make big money. While he is robbing a bank, he drops the watch and it breaks--leaving the universe forever frozen in time except for McNulty, who now has no one to talk to or interact with, and is all alone in a still world, screaming to all his former acquaintences, "Somebody move! TALK!! Say something!!! HELP!!!!"

Closing narration

Mr. Patrick Thomas McNulty, who had a gift of time. He used it and he misused it, now he's just been handed the bill. Tonight's tale of motion and McNulty--in the Twilight Zone.

Preview for next week's story

Announcer: "And now, Mr. Serling."

Next on Twilight Zone a gentleman of myriad talents and a story written especially for him. Mr. Mickey Rooney appears in "The Last Night of a Jockey." He plays the role of a diminutive little man screaming for help in the bottom of a barrel, and the help he receives is unexpected and quite incredible. On The Twilight Zone, a cast of one - Mr. Mickey Rooney. I hope you'll be able to be with us.

Cultural reference

This episode was later adapted as a radio drama featuring Lou Diamond Philips in the lead role.

Ideas from this episode were used in A Little Peace and Quiet, an episode in the 1985 revival of The Twilight Zone.

This episode is parodied in The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XIV".

In one of the Time Warp Trio books by Jon Sciezka (Summer Reading Is Killing Me), Fred mentions that the town's emptiness reminds him of "a Twilight Zone episode where this guy gets a stopwatch that can stop and start time, and then it breaks when it's stopped and he goes crazy!" which is met with less than an enthusiatstic response.

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
• Zicree, Marc Scott: The Twilight Zone Companion. Sillman-James Press, 1982 (second edition)

See also

• The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)
• Episode List
• Season 5

External links

• "A Kind of a Stopwatch" at IMDb