The titular gold watch is not used for its time stop ability until 49 minutes into the film.
The author of the original book (of the same name) was John D. MacDonald, who also wrote the Travis McGee series of suspense novels. This is one of the most famous series of action/mystery novels. Writers from Lee Child to Sue Grafton have credited this series with heavily influencing their own writing.
At the time of this film's TV debut, it had been 13 years since one of its stars, Jill Ireland, had divorced her first husband David McCallum, and it would be seven years after this film that its female lead Pam Dawber would marry her current husband Mark Harmon (as of March 2023), those two actors later working together as long-time co-stars on NCIS (2003).
Peter Brown and MacDonald Carey were on TV'S Days of our Lives together.