Impact
"Time Enough at Last" was a ratings success in its initial airing and "became an instant classic". It "remains one of the best-remembered and best-loved episodes of The Twilight Zone" according to Marc Zicree, author of The Twilight Zone Companion. When a poll asked readers of Twilight Zone Magazine which episode of the series they remembered the most, "Time Enough at Last" was the most frequent response, with "To Serve Man" coming in a distant second. Indeed, in TV Land's presentation of TV Guide's "100 Most Memorable Moments in Television", "Time Enough at Last" was ranked at #25. In an interview years later, Serling himself cited the episode as being one of his two favorites from the entire series. (The other episode was "The Invaders", with Agnes Moorehead.)
Elements of American popular culture frequently pay homage to "Time Enough at Last". In Twilight Zone: The Movie, Albert Brooks recounts the episode to Dan Aykroyd as they drive along an empty stretch of highway. "This thing freaked me out when I was 7 years old," says Brooks' character adding, "I bought another pair of glasses just in case that would happen." There are also notable television spoofs of the episode. These include The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius ("Return of the Nanobots"); SpongeBob SquarePants; The Drew Carey Show ("Y2K You're OK"); Family Guy (at the end of the season 2 episode "Wasted Talent"); Futurama (during an episode of "The Scary Door" on "A Head in the Polls"); Stephen Colbert's A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All! (in the DVD's second alternative ending); and The Simpsons (on the season 14 episode "Strong Arms of the Ma"). In an episode of The Simpsons, a postman is accidentally trapped under a car in front of the Simpson house, he intends to read The Twilight Zone Magazine but discovers that his glasses were broken in the accident and says "That's not fair!" while the Twilight Zone main-theme is heard in the background. The comic book version of The Simpsons, Simpsons Comics, also published a story called 'The Last Fat Man', based partially on 'Time Enough at Last' and actually has a short scene where Homer Simpson shoos a bespectacled man who is reading a book out of a nuclear bunker so he can eat in it, unintentionally taking shelter in it. In a more subtle homage, the PC game Fallout Tactics includes a librarian in a desolate world who wants the player to find his missing glasses so he can read his books. The Pixar movie WALL-E, which takes place in a desolate future, also contains a scene in which a pair of broken glasses can be seen in the foreground. The sitcom Two and a Half Men made references to it when the character Alan has a nervous breakdown in a bookstore.
The episode's title was borrowed by a song on The Fall's 1992 album Code: Selfish, and a 2004 independent film about a man who tries to escape an office building. The film's naming was quite intentional; its official website even listed the webmaster's e-mail alias as "rodserling".
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Famous quotes containing the word impact:
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)
“Too many existing classrooms for young children have this overriding goal: To get the children ready for first grade. This goal is unworthy. It is hurtful. This goal has had the most distorting impact on five-year-olds. It causes kindergartens to be merely the handmaidens of first grade.... Kindergarten teachers cannot look at their own children and plan for their present needs as five-year-olds.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“Conquest is the missionary of valour, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)