The Twilight Zone (TV Series) Time Lapse (2002) User Reviews

It's interesting...but the WHY and HOW really are never explained nor does it make much sense.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 13 February 2022]

A man is in a coma in the ICU after being shot. Oddly, he is able to leave his body and control another guy...some innocent who is now being pulled into an assassination plot.

I do have to commend "Time Lapse" because unlike most of the prior episodes of the 2002 reboot of "Twilight Zone", this one seems very original. Most of the others (apart from episode 1) seemed to have borrowed ideas from other old "Twilight Zone" episodes...making them less enjoyable to folks who grew up watching the original shows.

That being said, while I enjoyed the episode, it also is one that leaves you wondering HOW and WHY all this occurred. Still, if you can put this aside, it's worth seeing.

Another Poor Sucker Pays a Price for Nothing

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 7 July 2017]

Once again a man is put in a position of powerlessness. He is taking care of a man who has been shot in the head. As he walks down the halls of the hospital where he works, he moves suddenly to a hotel room in Portland. During the rest of the episode, he has these constant shifts in space. At every juncture there is a gun present and we are led to believe that he is part of an effort to kill the President's daughter. He is a sort of dorkish character who is going to get married and suddenly he has nothing and no one. Even his tiresome bride to be is of no help to him. She simply keeps screaming about him trying to get out of the wedding. Even the resolution leaves a bit to be desired.

The "Fickle Finger of Fate" in action

[kapelusznik18 · 6/10 · 25 March 2015]

***SPOILERS*** With secret service agent Tom Fisk in a coma after being shot by an unknown assailant hospital orderly Zack Walker and his fiancé nurse Maria Hernandez get involved in a dispute over a bachelor party that Zack's to attend that evening where he'll be the guest of honor. Suddenly Zack is transported from the Phoenix hospital to a seedy hotel room in downtown Portland Oregon two days into the future. Not quite making out what's happening to him Zack finds a gun and map of L.A giving him instructions in where to go and what to do without any real explanation of what it's all about! Jumping into his car that just happened to be parked outside the hotel Zack with as much as a blink of the eye finds himself in a L.A Chinese restaurant exchanging $5,000.00, where the hell did he get the cash, with gun moll Mei Ling for a gun that's undetectable to x-ray machines to be used for what the hell can he, being in total confusion, know bout!

Now finding himself at a swanky L.A hotel Zack starts to put two and two together with a map and the hotel's lay out and who's expected to show up there that afternoon: The President's daughter Michelle Carson! Trying to warn secret service agent Carl Taggart, agent in a coma Fisk's partner, that somehow someone is planning to knock off or assassinate Michelle Carson. As the out of control and hysterical Zack is about to be arrested and detained for psychological evaluation he knocks Taggert cold and make his way to the hotel to prevent that tragedy from happening!

****MAJOR SPOILERS**** Zack does make it to the hotel lobby but as it later turned out it wasn't exactly him who was there. It was the almost brain dead Fisk who in using Zack's body did his job in protecting the President of the United States and members, his daughter, of his family from being killed! As fate had it by it using Zack to do Fisk's work made him the real hero of the hour and as an added bonus gave Fisk, in Zack's body, the satisfaction of him knowing that he got the job down! That while he was lying flat on his back and in a coma hundreds of miles away!

"Don't fight this'

[classicsoncall · 5/10 · 27 February 2023]

A muddled script makes this a less than satisfying Twilight Zone episode. You can catch on pretty quickly what's happening to Zack Walker (Ethan Embry) when he suddenly finds himself displaced in time and space. However, there's no real explanation for how he can navigate great distances in the blink of an eye, like waking up in a Portland. Oregon hotel room and then finding himself in the middle of a gun transaction with Chinese gangsters in Seattle. While trying to make sense of all this, he's in constant contact with his fiancée Maria (Alexandra Barreto) back in Phoenix where they both worked as hospital staffers, desperately trying to assure her that he's not running out on their wedding plans. At the center of Zack's mind-bending ordeal is an assassination plot against the daughter of the President. The resolution of this story has Zack eventually occupying the body of the gunshot patient that he and Maria were attending to start the episode, but the confusing dialog makes it impossible to determine if the original patient Tom Fisk (Rob Lee) was a good guy or a bad guy. The cryptic words written on a hotel room mirror (see my summary line) don't really help clarify things, except to suggest that Zack would remain hopelessly lost in his unusual predicament.