The Twilight Zone (r1s02e10)

A Most Unusual Camera

by Rod Serling, directed by John Rich

Release: 16 December 1960
Format: TV Episode
Genre: Weird Fiction
Audience: Adults
Content: Debatable Time Travel
Original Language: English

Petty thieves Chet and Paula Diedrich are frustrated, angry, and in a bickering mood when they find nothing but cheap junk in the 400-lbs. of stuff they lifted from a curios store in the middle of the night, . . . until that boxy looking camera with the indecipherable label—dix à la propriétaire—produces a photo of the immediate future.

— Michael Main

Yeah, it takes dopey pictures—dopey pictures like things that haven’t happened yet, but they do happen.

DEBUT

The Twilight Zone (v1s02e10), “A Most Unusual Camera” (CBS-TV, 16 December 1960).

VARIANTS

1 English variant

DERIVATIVE WORKS

Say Cheese and Die! by R. L. Stine, (Scholastic, April 1992).

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

Circa AD 1960 to 1969: Chet calls Paula “Miss Culture of 1960.”

Timeline Models

Foretold or Seen Future Is Inevitable: This is The Twilight Zone. What did you think was gonna happen?
Single Static Timeline: Everything
Viewing the Future

Themes

Get Rich Quick through Time Travel: This is The Twilight Zone. What did you think was gonna happen?
Photographing Another Time

Groupings

Cited in Worlds Enough and Time, edited by Gary Westfahl ()
Cited in Time Machines by Paul J. Nahin ()
The Twilight Zone (multiple TV series): The Twilight Zone (v1s02e10)
The Twilight Zone (franchise)

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

From a scene right in front of the boxy camera, 5 minutes in the future ⋙ to a photograph, in the present. Multiple trips. Note: in this episode, the camera takes five photos of the future.