William Shatner's First Twilight Zone Episode Actually Taught Viewers An Important Lesson
Legendary actor William Shatner will forever be known to most as Captain James T. Kirk, but the "Star Trek" icon has been part of some other excellent TV shows too. One such show was the classic 1959 series "The Twilight Zone," where the major movie star's first appearance on the series taught viewers an important life lesson.
The lesson was simple: The episode deftly communicated to audiences that they shouldn't allow the fear of the future or the unknown to prevent them from living life to its fullest. How? Well, they did it with a haunting yet poignant plot line and top notch acting in "Nick of Time," the seventh telecast of the show's second season.
The episode, which aired in November 1960, followed a couple whose car breaks down on a road trip to New York City. They're forced to spend time in a diner while waiting for repairs. Their booth has fortune-telling machine in it, which they start to mess around with — but when it starts seemingly being right about everything, they start to find themselves addicted to its response.
William Shatner's first Twilight Zone episode has endured in the canon
Ultimately, Pat Carter, the wife character played by Patricia Breslin, tells her husband, William Shatner's Don Carter, that he has control over his own life, and the pair take their power back by leaving the restaurant — and the fortune-telling machine — when their car is ready. The episode made for a striking parable with a distinct and important life lesson, and its themes and imagery have endured. In fact, an episode of the 2019 "Twilight Zone" reboot titled "Replay" includes a shot of the fortune-telling machine when the story's main character discovers that she can rewind time while sitting in the diner from "Nick of Time."
Shatner made two appearances on the beloved genre series, but this one was his first and it made a lasting impression. The actor went on to play Bob Wilson, a man who notices a monster trying to sabotage a flight he's on, in the Season 5 episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" in 1963 (which we named one of the best performances on the classic sci-fi anthology show). Just three years later, he would become a household name with "Star Trek: The Original Series," which definitely has its own fair share of life lessons throughout.