"A Little Peace and Quiet" is the second segment of the first episode of the first season (1985–86) of the

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite television, satellite, or cable television, cable, excluding breaking news, television adverti ...

The Twilight Zone ''The Twilight Zone'' is an American media franchise based on the anthology television series created by Rod Serling. The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, absurdism, dystopian fiction, suspense, horror, su ...

''. In this segment, a woman discovers a pendant which allows her to freeze time.

Plot

While digging in her garden, harried housewife Penny unearths a wooden box containing a gold pendant in the shape of a sundial. She discovers that saying "shut up" while wearing the pendant causes the entire world but herself to become frozen in time and saying "start talking" makes everything begin moving again. She uses this power to give herself much-needed reprieves from the demands of her dim-witted and hapless husband Russell and their four children: Janet and Susan, who are always fighting; Bertie, who is clumsy; and Russell Jr., who is always playing pranks. She also silences news programs about recent arms talks between the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

and moves door-to-door

anti-nuclear The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, natio ...

weapons activists away from her house while they are frozen in time. One evening, the radio announces that

nuclear missiles Nuclear weapons delivery is the technology and systems used to place a nuclear weapon at the position of detonation, on or near its target. Several methods have been developed to carry out this task. ''Strategic'' nuclear weapons are used primari ...

are heading for the United States from the Soviet Union. When the radio reveals that ICBMs have entered U.S. airspace, the terrified Penny freezes time, then leaves her house and walks through town. As she notices terrified people looking skyward, she looks up to see a Soviet nuclear missile frozen a few hundred feet in the air, nose down, and moments from impact. She is left with a no-win choice: unfreeze time and die or live eternally alone in a silent world.

Production

No visual effects were used for the time stops; the actors and numerous extras, even the dog, all had to hold themselves perfectly still during these sequences. In the cases of characters who were frozen in off-balance positions (e.g. running or lunging), concealed armatures were used to support their weight. The mid-pour orange juice and mid-spill milk were both plastic. Director

Wes Craven Wesley Earl Craven (August 2, 1939 – August 30, 2015) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and editor. Craven has commonly been recognized as one of the greatest masters of the horror genre due to the cultural imp ...

said the child actors needed little encouragement to be rambunctious, being naturally full of energy. In conjunction with the exceptionally large cast, the set was always chaotic between takes. Lead actress

Melinda Dillon Melinda Dillon (born October 13, 1939) is a retired American actress. She received a 1963 Tony Award nomination for her Broadway debut in the original production of ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'', and she was nominated for the Academy Award ...

's shouting "Shut up!" an extra two times as the nuclear missiles approach was unscripted. In the final scene, the two films playing in the theater when Penny stops time are ''

Dr. Strangelove ''Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'', known simply and more commonly as ''Dr. Strangelove'', is a 1964 black comedy film that satirizes the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and t ...

'' and ''

Fail Safe In engineering, a fail-safe is a design feature or practice that in the event of a specific type of failure, inherently responds in a way that will cause minimal or no harm to other equipment, to the environment or to people. Unlike inherent safet ...

.'' Both 1964 films depict

nuclear warfare Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Little Peace And Quiet 1985 American television episodes World War III speculative fiction The Twilight Zone (1985 TV series season 1) episodes Television episodes about nuclear war and weapons fr:Une petite paix bien tranquille

Plot

Production

See also

References

External links