The Day Time Ended 1980

Grant Williams, Jim Davis, and Ana Williams, Dorothy Malone, return to a gleaming, state-of-the-art home tucked into the Sonoran Desert after an extended vacation, inviting the rest of the family back to a fresh start far from the bustle of Los Angeles.

Though headlines report a spectacular triple supernova and their granddaughter Jenny, Natasha Ryan, has glimpsed a glowing alien construction behind the barn, the mood inside remains calm at first. Yet as evening deepens, overhead UFOs drift across the sky and appear to land in the nearby hills, hinting that the cosmic event has opened a rift in space and time.

Subtle disturbances begin to ripple through the house: power flickers, the granddaughter experiences a telepathic pull from an extraterrestrial, and the grandmother glimpses one of the tiny beings beckoning before it vanishes.

Outside, the grandfather notices a strange creature approaching as he tries to start the car, and he rushes inside to warn the family. Moments later, two horrific reptilian or amphibious monsters battle just beyond the house, while a small camera-like probe breaches the perimeter. The threats are suddenly teleported away, seemingly through a time warp, leaving the family stunned and suddenly isolated from the normal passage of time.

Through the night, the family—grandfather and grandmother with their younger son Steve, daughter-in-law Beth, and granddaughter Jenny—grapple with the unfolding danger. The elder son Richard, who has been rushing back from the city, crashes his car as UFOs streak by, further scattering the group.

As the evening wears on, Beth meets up with her father, mother, and brother-in-law, letting them know that all is well and that she has been reunited with her husband and their daughter. A moment of partial reunion gives way to the realization that safety lies in numbers as a distant domed city comes into view, and the family decides to move toward it. The grandfather sums up the moment with a quiet sense that there must be some larger purpose to everything they’re experiencing as they tread toward the approaching shelter.