The Twilight Zone

Episode 1:

Where Is Everybody?

 Debuted: 10/2/1959

Written by: Rod Serling

All still images from the episodes are courtesy of CBS Corp.

“Where is a voice to answer mine back?

Where are two shoes that click to my clack?

I’m all alone in the world.”

From the song I’m All Alone in the World, in

the TV special Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol

 
Serling’s Prologue

The place is here, the time is now. And the journey into the shadows that we’re about to watch, could be our journey.

Review

It’s quite appropriate that Rod Serling defined The Twilight Zone so perfectly in this debut episode and in its prologue, for every episode is a “…journey into the shadows…” And at one point or another in our lives, we may take a similar journey, knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or unwillingly. The journey, depending on the people and circumstances involved, is full of adventure, mystery, wonder, amazement, bizarreness, fascination, drama, suspense, edification-but it also can contain darkness, terror, fear, desolation, trepidation, fright.

A man (Earl Holliman), about thirty, dressed in jumpsuit and black boots, is ambling down a dirt road, occasionally hitting the ground with a twig that he’s carrying in his right hand. It’s a rustic scene, with the only sign of life being a small café playing loud, bouncy jazz music, situated just off the road. As he enters the café-symbolic of the quaint eateries of 1950s’ America-he hears and sees signs of life, but there are no people. The juke box plays, cooking smells come from the kitchen; but there’s no counterman, no cook, no waitress.

The man calls out a food order, declaring he’s a customer, and he’s hungry. When no one appears or responds, he decides to help himself. He passes the counter, enters the kitchen, and pours himself a cup of coffee. Once again he calls for service, and he again says he’s hungry. While drinking coffee and munching on some food, he stops to say, thinking someone is somewhere around: “…there’s some question about my identity…I’m not sure who I am.” He adds, “I don’t seem to remember who I am.” He returns to the counter, leans on it, drinks coffee, and says to himself that this must be a dream and he’s going to wake up.

He leaves the café and starts down the road, eventually entering a small town with all the basics: town square, drug store, police station, bakery, etc. But just like the café, there are no people. He scans the square, looking at it through a fence and through the glass of a phone booth. As he walks about, he gets tantalized with the appearance of a populated town: a store mannequin, a lit cigar in an ashtray, a phone directory. The directory even gives the name of Oakwood-a town just south of Dayton, Ohio and not far from Serling’s college town of Yellow Springs. Coincidence? The traveling man then almost gets locked inside the phone booth and then a jail cell, and winds up in a drug store (a 1950s’-era drug store, that is).
He proceeds to make himself an icecream sundae and starts a conversation with (Who else?) himself in the wall mirror behind the counter. Again he ponders: Is this a dream? A nightmare? Who am I? Where am I? What’s going on here?