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{{trope}}
[[File:magiccountdown.jpg|link=Cracked.com|
{{quote|''If I ever MUST put a digital timer on my doomsday device, I will buy one free from quantum mechanical anomalies. So many brands on the market keep perfectly good time while you're looking at them, but whenever you turn away for a couple minutes then turn back, you find that the countdown has progressed by only a few seconds.''
|Rule #216 of The [[Evil Overlord List]]}}
Any kind of stated time limit or countdown in fiction seems to know when it's [[Being Watched]], and will cheat accordingly for maximum drama. This phenomenon tends to occur especially as a countdown starts approaching zero.
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For instance, the large digital readout on a [[Time Bomb]] may show thirty seconds to detonation, but after cutting to and from a climactic two-minute fight between [[The Hero]] and the [[Big Bad]], the clock somehow has ten seconds left for [[The Hero]] to defuse it before it goes off.
This can be done subtly, to stretch things out a bit without the audience really noticing, but in most cases it's pretty
Sometimes the reverse effect takes
This doesn't have to involve an actually displayed timer. Sometimes a character will just yell that "There's only ten seconds left!" and the heroes will prevent the calamity 25 seconds later.
A variation is the fuse or a trail of gasoline which burns slower or faster when the camera's not on it. Another common visual equivalent is the falling object or descending gate which is accelerating down at something.
This can be [[Hand Wave|handwaved]] by arguing that part of the fight scene (since rarely are there splitscreens showing the fight ''and'' the timer) started when or before the last shot of the timer was shown, thus, the fight and the countdown are happening at the same time chronologically but are shown separately to build tension and suspense (an editing technique known as [
When applied to a [[Timed Mission]] in [[Video Games]], it becomes [[Always Close]] (and when applied to non-timed missions in video games, [[Take Your Time]]). See also [[Exact Time to Failure]], which may give us the countdown in the first place, and [[Instant Cooldown]] or [[Magic Antidote]] for the miraculous events that occur when it is stopped. May be also applied to a [[Descending Ceiling]] or when [[The Walls Are Closing In]] - the crusher keeps conveniently moving back between shots.
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Often occurs because [[Talking Is a Free Action]].
{{examples|Examples}}▼
== Anime and Manga ==▼
== Played Straight ==
▲=== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ===
* In the ''[[Naruto]]'' OVA ''Battle at Hidden Falls. I Am the Hero!'', Shibuki is told he has 10 seconds to reveal his location before Suien kills a villager. Naruto's short speech about bravery takes considerably longer.
** During her fight with Sasori in ''[[Naruto]] Shippuden'', Sakura counts down the time left before her antidote wears off. Apparently one entire episode is just under two minutes.
* On ''[[Dragonball Z]]'', during the final fight between Goku and Frieza during the Namek saga, the planet Namek was minutes away from collapse for ''[[Inaction Sequence|10 episodes]]''. Ridiculously, one episode actually says "two minutes" at the beginning and "one minute" at the end.
** Lampshaded later by the fact that Freiza flat-out admits he screwed up the whole "destroying Namek" thing, and it was supposed to explode '''instantly'''... [[I Meant to Do That|he just made up the "five minutes left" thing to not look like an idiot]].
*** In ''[[
** A lot of this sort of thing on the show is implicitly explained as the fight being slowed down so that the audience can actually follow it. As early as the battles with the Saibamen, the already superhuman Gohan expresses trouble following the action, implying that every major fight that happens afterwards would be too fast for the human eye.
** In a later episode, they even comment on this when Goku needs time to regather his energy and asks Vegeta to stall Kid-Buu for one minute. Vegeta comments that this is a really long time for a fight against Buu and the minute does last at least an episode.
* In episode 139 of ''[[
* Factoring in all ecstatic collapses, dramatic slow-motion door-opening, and lengthy yet vital inner expository monologues, the forty seconds in the ''[[
** In the anime at least the inner expository of Light is justified, as every other movement is shown to stop. So his thoughts actually happen "instantly". Although I don't care how smart Light is, you'd have to be on all kinds of crap to be thinking that fast.
* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' lives by this trope. Whenever an Eva gets disconnected from it's "umbilical cable", huge digital timers show up to indicate how much internal power is left. The amount varies with the activity: at full-blown battle, it only lasts one minute - in theory. In practice, battles always last longer than one minute - especially if the Eva goes berserk. For example, in episode 19 Shinji topped the minute with a good 14 seconds and he was fighting like a madman. Once he ran out of power, the Eva had gone berserk, curbstomped {{spoiler|and ate}} the Angel in another three minutes.
** Partially justified - Berserk is stated multiple times to allow an EVA to act on it's own without any power supply. Don't ask how does that work, we're talking about pilotable giant cyborg alien clones here, that's not the weirdest thing EVAs can do.
* In ''[[One Piece]]'', during the Alabasta arc, we have a bomb. Not just any bomb, but one to destroy the entire town and everyone inside of it. The countdown read 5 minutes... For two episodes.
* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!
** Furthermore, at one point, the timer says 1:40. 2 minutes later, it says 1:30.
* Also occurs in the original ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' series, during Yugi and Jounouchi's (Joey) duel, while Malik (Marik) has Jounouchi brainwashed. The duel is set to take no more than 40 minutes or both would be [[Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?|dragged to the bottom of the ocean by the anchor to which they are tied]], but it actually takes 3-4 episodes of non-stop [[Yu-Gi-Oh!:
=== [[Comic Books]] ===
== Comics ==▼
* ''[[DC Challenge]] #2'' (1985). The bomb, which is far away, is about to detonate in 8 seconds. Batman is confronting the villain at a power plant. [[Talking Is a Free Action|The following exchange takes place:]]
{{quote|
'''Batman:''' You lousy little maniac!! You're going to tell me how to stop that bomb, or I swear I'll--!
'''Villain:''' Really, Batman -- wasting what precious little time you have left on empty threats? Frankly, I had thought you above such childish displays!
'''Batman:''' ''(thoughts)'' He's right... can't afford to lose control now... have to focus... have to think... there has to be some way to disarm that device... }}
::At this point we see the bomb again, and it's down to 5 seconds left. (Batman does disarm the faraway bomb, by cutting the power at the power plant.)
=== [[Film]] ===
== Films ==▼
* The inverse variety occurs in the movie ''[[Apollo 13]]''. The loss of communications during re-entry is said to last 4-1/2 minutes, but actually takes about 3 minutes of movie. Given how tense that scene is watching the movie, [[Foregone Conclusion|knowing how it comes out]], one can imagine how tense it was in real life, taking half again as long.
** But the 14
* ''[[
** ''[[
** ''[[
** ''[[The World Is Not Enough]]'': The needle on the reactor at the end is moving towards the red zone... as long as the viewer is watching. It even moves back when out of sight.
* ''[[
* The film ''[[Stargate (
* ''[[Star Trek II:
* ''[[Star Wars]]'': From "The Rebel base will be in range in thirty minutes" (not seconds as visibly ''seen''), through the power-up of the Death Star's superlaser, to the destruction of the Death Star at least ''feels'' like it takes five
** This was because the Death Star had to orbit the planet Yavin in order to destroy the moon of Yavin IV, and a gas giant was likely too large for the Death Star to destroy(and would have not been able to destroy Yavin IV without recharging anyway).
** [[Retcon]]: As of the ''[[Death Star]]'' novel, the [[The Atoner|gunner]] was [[Heroic Sacrifice|stalling with "stand by... stand by... stand by..." hoping someone would destroy the Death Star before he was forced to destroy Yavin 4]].
* The opening credits of the ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' animated movie have Cobra attempting to [[Monumental Battle|blow up the Statue of Liberty]]. Duke moves the bomb from the statue to their airship, taking about 20 seconds longer than the clock should have allowed.
* Happens in ''[[Van Helsing]]'': it sure takes that clock a long time to strike twelve.
* ''[[The Mask (
* The 30 seconds that Grandpa Seth freezes time for in ''[[Troll 2]]'' must be some of the slowest seconds in the history of the world.
* The "one minute" it takes for the DeLorean in ''[[Back to The Future]]'' to reappear is actually about one minute and twenty seconds.
** Also, in the third movie time runs very slowly after the engine and time machine crash through the sign marking the last half mile of track. Covering the remaining distance at 88
* Played both ways in ''[[Indiana Jones and
* ''[[Flash Gordon (
* In ''[[Star Trek III:
* In ''[[The Manhattan Project]]'', a nuclear bomb's timer is damaged by radiation, causing it to start the timer... With 999 hours until detonation. It seems the army have more than a month to deal with it, until they discover that {{spoiler|the timer counts down exponentially, to the point that it eventually counts down several hours per second}}. Might be a [[Justified Trope|justification]] or outright parody.
* The second ''[[Mission: Impossible (
* ''[[Future War]]'' is probably the only example where the countdown goes faster than reality ''on screen''.
* ''[[
* Averted purposefully for ''Nick of Time [1995]'' starring Johnny Depp. The entire movie unfolds in real-time.
* In ''[[Minority Report]]'', an officer says they have 51 minutes and 28 seconds to stop Tom Cruise from {{spoiler|committing a murder. Since the murder occurs much sooner in the movie}}, this appears to be a reversal of this trope, until one realizes that the time period mentioned was [[Fridge Brilliance|the exact amount of running time left in the movie.]]
* Inverted in the movie ''[[Space Camp]]''. The accidentally launched shuttle is low on air, so the cadets fly to the partially assembled space station, where there is a cache of oxygen tanks. Ignoring the fact that the movie compresses the transit time to a few minutes, if you take the estimated amount of air left when they start the trip, and subtract the estimated transit time, the answer is considerably larger than the estimated amount of air left in the shuttle when they arrive. What were they doing to use up all that extra air?
* Demonstrated brilliantly in the [[Mystery Science Theater 3000|MST]] rendition of ''[[Time Chasers]]'':
{{quote|
'''Servo:''' "Ten... Nine... Eight... Seven..."
''(Cut away to Nick and J.K. fighting over a gun)''
'''Servo:''' "S-''Seven''... Six... Five... Four..."
''(Computer warns of low altitude)''
'''Servo:''' "Three... Two... One... ''Zero... F-Four...'' Three... Two... One... Th-''Three...'' Two... One... ''Two...''"
''(Plane crashes)''
'''Servo:''' "''One.''" }}
** Related, in the episode Soultaker, they mock the movie for continuing to show the clock ''after'' the midnight deadline has passed:
{{quote|
* In ''[[Time Cop]]'', there's a bomb in the protagonist's house with a mere 10 seconds left on the clock. Even though the scene is going in slow motion, he somehow manages to make it from the second story to the outside the house while carrying his wife in both arms. He isn't even running down the steps, either.
=== [[Literature]] ===▼
* A ''literal'' example in the climax of ''[[
===
* Funnily enough, ''[[
▲* A ''literal'' example in the climax of ''[[Artemis Fowl (Literature)|Artemis Fowl]]: the Lost Colony''. Due to the decaying of a spell that kept an island of demons out of time in Limbo, the timer on a bomb in a suitcase moves forward at differing speeds for different periods of time and at one point goes ''backwards'' a short time, all on a constant loop. {{spoiler|Artemis is able use this indicator to save Holly's life by [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|firing a bullet into the past and preventing her death from happening in the first place.]]}}
** The title screen, [["Previously On..."]] segments, and "The following takes place..." take about 2 minutes. Only once in Season 1 (1:
== Live Action TV ==▼
▲* Funnily enough, ''[[Twenty Four|24]]'' has some examples of this: sometimes an episode ends with something important (like an explosion) and the next episode begins with the timer exactly following, but the events ahead -- the emergency units have already arrived, etc.
▲** The title screen, [[Previously On]] segments, and "The following takes place..." take about 2 minutes. Only once in Season 1 (1:00am-2:00am aka episode 2) does it show the clock immediately after "The following takes place...".
** Also don't forget the credits for the previous episode as well, which take about 30 seconds
* In the first episode of ''[[Power Rangers in Space]]'', Dark Specter has captured Zordon in a jar, which gradually fills up with a lava-like substance. When it is full, Dark Specter will have drained all of Zordon's power. At the rate that jar is filling up, Zordon ought to be history before that episode was up, yet somehow he held out until the end of the season.
** ''In the last episode,'' Zordon's tube goes from half-full at the beginning to ''empty'' at the end.
** That was a plot point, {{spoiler|Dark Specter had been killed by [[The Starscream|Darkonda]] and it apparently reversed the energy drain.}}
** In ''[[Power Rangers Ninja Storm]],'' the rangers have a more agile alternate mode for their [[Humongous Mecha]] which can only be maintained for sixty seconds. The first time it's used, it stays transformed for precisely sixty seconds in the end, though Cam's countdown is often wildly off. Almost every use ''after'' that, though, had battles carry on for much longer than one minute.
** In ''[[Power Rangers RPM]],'' one [[Monster of the Week]] throws bombs as his whole schtick. The bombs have no visible timer but beep faster and faster leading up to kaboom. At one point, when the monster throws a bomb, the beeping accelerates... and then ''stops'' when a Ranger catches the bomb. It ''starts over'' when the Ranger [[Hoist
* The Makai Knights in ''[[Garo]]'' can only remain in armour for 99.9 seconds. This is enforced in most episodes, but once in a while it is blatantly broken with no explanation.
* In the ''[[Lost]]'' episode "The Other Woman", Daniel is attempting to neutralize poison gas. "Forty seconds to contamination," the computer says. Forty seconds later, it says, "Twenty seconds to contamination."
* ''[[
** Also, in "The Daleks", a Dalek suddenly stops counting down when it became clear to the director that the action sequence would take much longer than the countdown.
** Despite being averted in ''42'' (see below), this was played straight in ''Last of the Time Lords'', which is ironic, as the countdown was critical to {{spoiler|the Doctor}}'s plan.
* Lampshaded by the cast of ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' in the episode ''Time Chasers'':
{{quote|
* On the children's TV show ''[[The Big Comfy Couch]]'', one of the usual devices employed in every episode was that Lunette would look around for items inside the couch while making a mess, and then at the end of the episode she would clean the mess up in a "ten-second tidy". Usually these would last over a minute. Very likely this was done under the assumption that [[Viewers
* ''[[Knight Rider]]'' (2008) "Knight Fever": Trying to abort the destruction of a recently nanovirus-infected command center, Carrie and Alex find that the security device has malfunctioned and won't read their handprints. It repairs itself just in time to stop when the countdown reaches 1 second.
* In the ''[[Scrubs]]'' episode "My 15 Seconds", the timer which displays during the "15-second visits" with Nicole Sullivan sometimes visibly slows to half speed.
* [[Sci Fi]] once ran a marathon of the ''[[
* Occurs during the autodestruct sequence in the ''[[Star Trek:
* An odd inversion: The Japanese [[Game Show]] ''[[
* ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]'' episode "While Gotham City Burns". Batman and Chief O'Hara have only a minute to drive to a church and save Robin from being killed in the Bookworm's [[Death Trap]]. The minute is shown on a clock dial on the screen, with a series of scenes showing their progress. There's no way that they could have done it within a minute. Batman even takes time out to explain something unimportant to Chief O'Hara.
=== [[Theatre]] ===
* In the recent Met performance of ''Doctor Atomic'', about Dr. Oppenheimer and the Trinity nuclear test, a voice announces five minutes to the test firing. Eight minutes later, the two minute buzzer sounds. Eight minutes later, the bomb goes off.
=== [[Video Games]] ===▼
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' has a truly bizarre example. All the gameplay countdowns do this, but during one of them, there's a codec conversation in which {{spoiler|a bomb is announced to have less than thirty seconds left on the clock. Twenty-odd seconds later, it blows up, averting the trope}} while the other countdown is frozen until you reach the next area.▼
▲== Video Games ==
▲* ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2]]'' has a truly bizarre example. All the gameplay countdowns do this, but during one of them, there's a codec conversation in which {{spoiler|a bomb is announced to have less than thirty seconds left on the clock. Twenty-odd seconds later, it blows up, averting the trope}} while the other countdown is frozen until you reach the next area.
* In the first mission of ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', the bomb timer is set at 10 minutes. Now, the timer keeps perfect time through battles, menus, and passages from one area to the next. The magic countdown effect becomes present right as your party reaches the exit. [[Always Close|No matter how much time is left on the timer when it's last displayed, the bomb explodes right as your party leaves the reactor]].
** It ''is'' possible that the timer was simply a failsafe, and Avalanche had a trigger switch they set off as they escape. That's just [[Fan Wank]], though...
* The final battle in ''[[Time Crisis]] 2'' pits you against the fanatical Ernesto Diaz and the prototype of his nuclear satellite, with the real one just seconds from being launched into space. How many there are supposed to be is unclear, because no matter how long this battle takes, Diaz ''always'' goes down just as the rocket is about to launch, wherupon the ruined prototype smashes a hole in the rocket, causing it and the entire launch pad to dramatically get blowed up real good. Presumably the Namco staff wanted to maintain a semblance of the [[Artifact Title|every-second-counts tension of the first game]] but didn't feel like making three endings.
* The 5th and 6th levels of ''The [[House of the Dead]] 4'' have the AMS agents racing to reach Goldman's computer to deactivate his nuclear missiles before they launch. At three points, they note how much time is left, none of the three figures even remotely corresponding to how much time has passed in-game.
* Zig-zagged in ''[[
** A more traditional example occurs when Shadow reaches the bomb. The bomb bleeps to incidate when a second passes, even when the camera isn't facing it. There are more bleeps than there are seconds on the clock.
* Occurs in the [[Final Boss]] fight of ''[[
** Of course, this being Aperture, the second timer<ref>
* The timer until the ship's engines explode in ''[[Halo: Combat Evolved]]'' seems precise... but when it disappears for a scripted event, the timer actually pauses and doesn't restart until it appears on screen again. This is probably to let the player watch the scripted event without feeling the need to just drive straight past it (since driving past the event triggers the timer to restart earlier), but it's still a case of this trope.
=== [[Western Animation]] ===
* A variant of the fast burning fuse is seen in ''[[Batman:
** And furthermore, the timer beeped with every passing second, even when it was offscreen, but the beeps didn't correspond to how much time had passed. At the 20-seconds mark, it plainly beeped more times than there were seconds remaining.
* In the episode of ''[[Batman:
* Happens in an episode of ''[[The Fairly
** Happens again in another episode while Mark contemplates whether or not to destroy the Earth with a Time Bomb. He's clearly taking more than a few seconds to do this, while the timer counts down about 5 seconds. Of course, being [[Fairly Oddparents]] and all, the timer in question might have actually been magic.
* This happens all the time in ''[[Code Lyoko]]'' Season 2 and 3 with the countdown before hitting the key to avoid the reconfiguration of Sector 5. It is supposed to be 3 minutes, but it jumps forward, and sometimes backward, quite haphazardly.
** And in episode "The Secret", where a detonator for a series of charges set to destroy the Factory has a digital clock. Once, it advanced only 15 seconds while almost 2 minutes went by. Afterward, it seemed to have hurried back and caught up exactly with the lapsed time... but then it jumped forward 45 seconds ''while William and Ulrich were speaking'', that is with no jump-scene in-between, only a change of focus.
* In the ''[[Captain N:
** In [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1266644/1/If_Samus_Was_Around_03_Mr_and_Mrs_Mother_Brain this fanfiction parody of the episode], Samus Aran (who wasn't in the series) [[Lampshade
* An episode of ''[[Total Drama Action]]'' has the contestants being given the task of escaping a building set to blow up in 30 seconds. After 1 minute and 13 seconds, the timer is at 15 seconds. When the countdown ends, a total of 2 minutes and 10 seconds has passed.
** Some possible [[Fridge Brilliance]] : since that season's challenges were based on movies, of course it would follow this.
* [[Played for Laughs]] in a ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' [[Three Shorts|short]], "One Minute Till Three", which has a ten minute running time. There's one minute left in the school day, and Granny is asking all the students impossible questions and assigning increasingly large amounts of homework as punishment for wrong answers. The focus is on Plucky Duck, as he desperately hopes that the clock will reach 3:00 before Granny calls on him. Highlights include Plucky saying "This must be the longest sixty seconds in the history of Acme Acres" and the clock (which has no second hand) moving ''backwards'' while Plucky watches.
* In the "Our Neighborhood Festival" episode of ''[[
* In the opening of ''[[Sonic
* In ''[[The Simpsons]]'', when [[It Makes Sense in Context|Homer is waiting to deliberately take a cannonball to the stomach that he knows will kill him]], the fuse on the cannon is shown burning most of the way from beginning to end several times between shots of something else.
* In the first episode of ''[[My Little Pony
=== [[Real Life]] ===▼
▲== Real Life ==
* Attempt any file transfer in any version of Windows and watch the time remaining jump about like a nervous salmon in a particularly fast river. ''[[Lucky Star]]'' poked at this.
** Also parodied by [http://xkcd.com/612/ this] ''[[
** The same principle applies to file downloading, especially a torrent, since the estimate for time remaining assumes that the current speeds will remain constant, which is almost never true.
** And let's not forget the
*** Similarly, the "less than a minute" at the very end of the installation usually takes a couple of minutes.
** While Windows is pretty much a poster-child case, almost any OS can be guilty of this because predicting a transfer time is, for the most part, nondeterministic. The initial guess the OS gives you may just be how fast the files are transferring now with how big the total transfer is. However, file transfer times are not based on how fast the hard drive can actually work, but how many files it has to write. It's actually '''much''' faster to transfer a 4GB file than 10,000 files that equal 4GB. Coupled with the fact that the hard drive you're using is probably the only one and it's constantly in use because of things like swap file and caching etc., it's basically a good idea to never trust any file transfer timer regardless of the OS, file system, etc.
* While not ''
== Exceptions ==
===
* Averted in one ''[[Fist of the North Star|Hokuto no Ken]]'' episode, in which Kenshiro used the Zan Kai Ken on the [[King Mook]] [[Monster of the Week|of the Week]]. After explaining the Mook he would die seven seconds after being released (3 in the manga ITTRC), he removes his thumbs from the mook's temples. A counter appears on the bottom on the screen, and the mook suffers a painful and gruesome death at the near-exact moment the counter reaches zero. [[Badass]] indeed.
* On ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', in the episode "Both of You, Dance Like You Want To Win!", the timer that counts down until the EVA units run out of power is actually shown on screen as the action sequence is played out.
** The timer counts down starting from 30 milliseconds, though.
** Seems to be averted again in the Ramiel fight in [[The Movie|Rebuild]], if the subtitles I've seen are accurate: they say there's 20 seconds remaining until the [[BFG]] is ready to fire again, and Shinji pulls the trigger almost exactly 21 seconds later.
* In the ''[[Digimon]]'' (a kids' show!) movie "Our War Game", a virus called Diaboromon has launched a missile somewhere in the world. Diaboromon sends a menacing but childish email to them, asking, "which one has the clock?". They then have ''ten minutes'' to destroy him and the '''million''' copies he's made of himself. Despite not actually showing the clock constantly, it keeps counting with perfect accuracy. When the missile crashes in full view of their ''window'', they find that they prevented the detonation of a '''[[Nuclear Weapons Taboo|nuclear warhead]]''' by less than a second. Justified because it took ten minutes for the missile to reach ''Odaiba, Tokyo'' from the US.
=== [[Film]] ===
* Notably averted in ''[[Alien (
▲* Notably averted in ''[[Alien (Film)|Aliens]]''. When the computer announces how much time there is until the place goes up, that's ''exactly'' how much in-movie time it takes for the place to blow up.
* Somewhat averted in ''[[Virtuosity]]'', because Sid's last bomb speeds up the countdown whenever it detects countermeasures... and then breaks down.
* Its averted in ''[[Fight Club]]'' although it does not seem to be at first. In the final sequence waiting for the bombs to go off Tyler states "Two minutes" but {{spoiler|its two minutes later that he shoots himself (non fatally) in the head}}.
* In ''[[Kick-Ass (
* The last hour before the train arrives in ''[[High Noon]]'' is done in real time, there being a number of clocks visible to confirm this.
* In ''[[Star Trek]] First Contact'' Picard sets the auto destruct for a fifteen minute, silent countdown. It is deactivated by Data after about 11 minutes.
* Averted in ''[[Battle Beyond the Stars]]'' by having [[Sapient Ship]] Nell malfunctioning due to battle damage, so she keeps messing up the [[Self
=== [[Live
* Averted in the ''[[
** Mostly averted in the episode "42" of the new series. After the initial setup scenes, the counter and the depicted events happen in real time, as much as possible.
* Played with in an episode of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', where the bomb does this, but it's because of a time dilation field.
** Also mentioned in the 200th episode ("200") in which a movie writer proposes a scene in which SG-1 has to escape a situation in ten seconds and debates on how long the time should be.
{{quote|
'''Marty:''' That's brilliant!
'''Daniel:''' That's ridiculous... }}
* Also averted in the ''[[
** The whole "38 minutes to Gate shutdown" thing is [[Lampshaded]] in "200" as well, where they go on to discuss how the countdown timer can be set to something completely arbitrary.
* Averted in the ''[[Chuck]]'' episode ''Chuck vs the Third Dimension'', which kept a digital timer in the corner of the screen throughout the (hilarious) disposal sequence.
* In the ''[[Babylon
=== [[Puppet Shows]] ===▼
▲== Puppet Shows ==
* Nicely averted in the ''[[Thunderbirds]]'' episode "The Perils of Penelope". Near the end, it is said that 3 minutes are left until Penelope is hit by the monorail. It takes exactly 3 minutes for the train to come (they save her at the last second).
=== [[Theatre]] ===
* Very subtly averted in [[Stephen Sondheim]]'s ''Into the Woods''. If you check the complete vocal score, you'll discover that there are actually twelve chimes that lead up to each midnight, and that they're timed and written into the underscore.
=== [[Video Games]] ===▼
▲== Video Games ==
* Averted in ''[[Super Smash Brothers]]: Brawl'' with the first Subspace bomb. When the picture cuts away from the bomb, it has 7 seconds to go. Exactly 5 seconds later, the timer is at 2 seconds.
** On the other hand, there are several situations where, within moments, it will jump from almost 3 minutes to ''less than 5 seconds.''
* Averted in ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'': during the final escape scene, the three minutes countdown takes cinematics into account. Skipping said cinematics will
* Averted in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater]]''. After Snake {{spoiler|plants the C3 to blow up the Shagohod}}, a timer starts which can be checked in the following cut-scene by looking at a hidden countdown. It's promptly played straight, though for the mid- and post-{{spoiler|Volgin}} battle cutscenes.
* Mostly averted in ''[[Paper Mario:
* Many sports games will have a clock that starts with the same amount of time as a real life game, but the clock will run at very fast speed ''except'' at the beginning of each play, and for the last minute or so. This results in oddities in some games, such as EA's line of NHL games that, on top of the above examples, also slows down during penalties (so the speed of the penalty clock matches that of the game clock); a game with more penalties will actually last longer.
* The ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' short "79 Seconds Left", which indeed takes almost exactly 79 seconds from start to finish.▼
===
▲* The [[Homestar Runner]] short "79 Seconds Left", which indeed takes almost exactly 79 seconds from start to finish.
▲== Western Animation ==
* Played with heavily in ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'': In "Wild Cards" the Joker has hid 25 bombs throughout Las Vegas and he's televising the Justice League's attempts to stop it. He even has the timer in the lower right corner that stays consistent throughout the episode. Subverted when Batman disables the first bomb. The timer stops, then drops to 3 seconds and starts again (it was a fake bomb).
* Averted in the ''[[Batman:
** It ''better'' be accurate. The timer runs on a metronome!
* In the ''[[Space Ghost Coast to Coast]]'' episode "Waiting For Edward", Moltar pulls a lever to initiate the destruction of the planet, mostly because he just feels like it (and he's holding a sale!). The timer appears on his viewscreen and is visible any time the action cuts back to him. This being Space Ghost, it's all but forgotten until the end of the episode when the planet blows up exactly when the timer said it would, in real time.
* A segment of ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'', named appropriately "Five Minute Warning," has Garfield needing to avoid eating for five minutes to receive a cake. When the countdown starts, a timer appears in the corner of the screen and counts down in real time.
* In ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
===
▲* Spoofed in ''[[Bobobo Bobobobo]]'': Denbo-Chan can only stay for... two hours.
** Played straight, however, with Mr. Bo-Jiggler and Patchbobo.
* Spoofed in ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]'' episode 23. Kururu shows a countdown that shows Keroro has 72 minutes until [[
=== [[Film]] ===
* Spoofed in the film ''[[
▲* Spoofed in the film ''[[Spaceballs (Film)|Spaceballs]]'', with the countdown on Mega-Maid's [[Self Destruct Mechanism]]:
▲{{quote| '''Computer:''' Ten... nine... eight... six...<br />
▲'''President Skroob:''' Six? What happened to seven?!<br />
'''Computer:''' Just kidding! }}
** Also averted, since the actual three-minute self-destruct countdown only runs ten seconds too long, even with the argument over "seven".
* Invoked in the movie ''[[
* Parodied in ''[[Monsters vs. Aliens]]'' when the countdown ends with nothing happening. The computer starts saying that it must have made a mistake... then the spaceship blows up anyway.
* In ''[[Toxic Avenger|Citizen Toxie:
* In ''[[Monty Python and
* The second ''[[Austin Powers]]'' film has Dr. Evil stopping Frau from the usual ten second countdown to his rocket blasting off, as he won't be able to get inside in time. He has her start over at thirty, but this leaves quite some time to go after everything's ready. Finally he tells her to just say "Go" when the doors close.
=== [[Literature]] ===
▲== Literature ==
* Parodied in the book and game ''[[Starship Titanic]]'', wherein a nuclear bomb (voiced by John Cleese) can be made to forget its place during the countdown, at which point it starts counting down from one thousand again.
* Brutally subverted in the ''[[Freehold]]'' novel. A trainee is trying to disarm a bomb with a timer. He takes a moment of respite, as there's plenty of time left... then the (fake) bomb goes off. [[An Aesop]] on how bad guys in the ''Freehold'' future have read the [[Evil Overlord List]].
* In one of ''[[The Destroyer]]'' novels, since there's no time to get anyone remotely qualified, Chiun ends up making an attempt to disarm a nuclear bomb and the timer just keeps on ticking down to zero (causing everyone else to become rightly worried) and then nothing happens...
{{quote|
* Subtly spoofed in an episode of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', where Xander is having a [[Circling Monologue]] with the bad guy as a nearby bomb timer is counting down. It switches between them and the bomb, and the timer seems to jump around at random, gaining and losing time, until it is of course stopped at 1 second left.
* Each installment of the ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' sketch ''MacGruber'', a parody of ''[[MacGyver]]'', involves a countdown (usually of twenty seconds) before a bomb goes off. The twenty seconds tend to last about a minute.
* In the ''[[
* Parodied on ''[[The Ben Stiller Show]]'', where [[Unfortunate Names|Andy Dick]] seems to find plenty to do while [http://www.ifc.com/videos/the-ben-stiller-show-bomb-squad.php trying to defuse a bomb].
=== [[Puppet Shows]] ===
* ''[[Sesame Street]]'''s parody of ''[[
===
▲* ''[[Sesame Street]]'''s parody of ''[[Twenty Four]]'' was supposedly a program that took place in 24 seconds per episode, but the counter which appeared on-screen throughout clearly counted down at a rather slower rate than one per second.
* Spoofed in ''[[Ratchet and Clank Up Your Arsenal]]'':
{{quote|
'''Dr. Nefarious:''' Lawrence, engage the teleporter.
'''Lawrence:''' Would you care to specify a destination sir?
'''Dr. Nefarious:''' Who cares? Just get us out of here!
'''Biobliterator CPU:''' Time's up!
'''Dr. Nefarious:''' What? That wasn't even ''close'' to 60 seconds!
'''Biobliterator CPU:''' Bye-bye! ''(explodes)'' }}
* In the timed bonus levels of ''[[Gauntlet (1985 video game)|Gauntlet]]'' (the original), the narrator's voice (you know, the [[Wizard Needs Food Badly]] guy) would count down the last ten seconds before you failed to clear the level and get the bonus. Sometimes he'd [[Unreliable Narrator|mix up the numbers]] as a joke.
* ''[[Starship Titanic]]'' had a bomb that, once armed, would audibly count down, get distracted, and have to start over repeatedly. The player could also distract it, annoy it, and even make it break down in tears.
▲=== [[Web Comics]] ===
* ''[[Evil, Inc.]]'' has time bombs with oversized LED countdown [http://evil-inc.com/comic/geoffrey-barnes-6/ for sale]. There's a twist...
=== [[Western Animation]] ===
* Spoofed in the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode "A Tale of Two Santas", in which Bender, arrested
** [[Truth in Television]]. The [
** Also spoofed in the episode "A Big Piece of Garbage": The crew is sent to destroy a giant ball of garbage heading directly towards the Earth along with an explosive set to detonate after 25 minutes. Once they activate it, the digital timer counts down "25:00...15:00...05:00...6h:00" to the crew's surprise. The reason? The timer was ''upside down'' and thus set to ''52 seconds''. Way to go, Farnsworth.
*** The same episode featured a count down for a rocket launch:
{{quote|
'''Leela:''' Just fire the damn thing. }}
* Parodied on ''[[South Park]]'' in the episode "The Snuke": In a parody of ''[[
* Subverted in an early episode of ''[[
{{quote|
'''Sqidward:''' Four... Three... Two... ONE!
[[Beat]]
'''Spongebob:''' I guess we started too early. Let's go again!
'''Squidward:''' 5... 4... 3...
'''Squidward:''' [[Crosses the Line Twice|Twooooooo]]! }}
* [[The Simpsons (animation)|FIVE-hy-ay-ay, FOUR-hy-ay-ay...]]
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[[Category:Just in Time Tropes]]
[[Category:Bomb Disposal]]
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