"A Stitch in Time" is an episode 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, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed be ...

'' The Outer Limits''. It first aired on 14 January 1996, and was the first episode of the second season.

Amanda Plummer Amanda Michael Plummer (born March 23, 1957) is an American actress. She is known for her work on stage and for her roles in such films as ''Joe Versus the Volcano'' (1990), '' The Fisher King'' (1991), ''Pulp Fiction'' (1994), and '' The Hunge ...

won an Emmy for her appearance in this episode. This episode is also mentioned in the clip show from season six entitled " Final Appeal", and in the clip show " Better Luck Next Time".

Plot

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

agent Jamie Pratt investigates a series of murders spanning a period of forty years — all committed with the same

gun A gun is a ranged weapon designed to use a shooting tube (gun barrel) to launch projectiles. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns/cannons, spray guns for painting or pressure washing, p ...

. The gun is traced to Dr. Theresa Givens, a former employee at a

top-secret Classified information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to know, ...

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...

project. Mysteriously, Givens was only five years old at the time of the first murder, and the gun had not even been manufactured yet. As it turns out, Dr. Givens has used a property of developing

fetal A fetus or foetus (; plural fetuses, feti, foetuses, or foeti) is the unborn offspring that develops from an animal embryo. Following embryonic development the fetal stage of development takes place. In human prenatal development, fetal develo ...

human

brain A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a ve ...

s to create a

time machine Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a w ...

and has been traveling back through time to kill condemned

serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

s before they strike, all to prepare herself for one final journey to stop the man who had kidnapped and

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...

d her for five days when she was a teenager, the event having left her scarred all her life. Another angle of the episode is the rapidly deteriorating physical

health Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...

of Dr. Givens. She is already mentally scarred from the start from the trauma of her youth, and Dr. Givens's physical health declines throughout the episode. FBI agent Jamie Pratt finally uncovers the truth and Givens eventually discloses to Agent Pratt that an unfortunate side-effect of altering time for the

time travel Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a ...

er is the sudden merging of two completely different time streams into the brain at once upon return which, over time, has a visible physical impact (causing

nosebleed A nosebleed, also known as epistaxis, is bleeding from the nose. Blood can flow down into the stomach, and cause nausea and vomiting. In more severe cases, blood may come out of both nostrils. Rarely, bleeding may be so significant that low bl ...

s) and presumably will become fatal given enough occurrences. Dr. Givens herself explains at the end that she is finally making the journey to change her past for fear that she will not survive much longer, but Pratt steps into the time machine after Dr. Givens. She assists in stopping the kidnapping and rescues the young Theresa, but the elder Dr. Givens is fatally wounded and dies. Agent Pratt returns to a world where Dr. Givens never experienced the traumatic incident of Theresa of the previous timeline. But without that trauma, Dr. Givens was never motivated to travel back through time and preemptively murder known serial killers, one of whom eventually murdered a close friend of Agent Pratt (at the beginning of the episode this friend was dead, then alive later in the episode thanks to a temporal excursion by Dr. Givens, now dead again). In the end, Agent Pratt tracks down the decidedly healthier-looking Dr. Theresa Givens in the new timeline, who — despite lacking the motivation of preventing a traumatic event of her past — has also built a time machine, which she knew was possible because, as a 15-year-old girl, she had seen Agent Pratt use one to return to her normal time. The episode closes with Agent Pratt traveling back to 1980 and shooting the serial killer who would murder her best friend in the future.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stitch In Time 1996 American television episodes Television episodes about time travel Television episodes about rape Television episodes about serial killers Fiction set in 1966 Fiction set in 1976 Fiction set in 1980 Fiction set in 1996 Television episodes about multiple time paths The Outer Limits (1995 TV series) episodes