The first of many great episodes. This episode stars Earl Holliman as Mike Davis, and the episode mainly revolves around him until the very end.
Rod Serling’s opening narration
“The place is here, the time is now, and the journey into the shadows that we’re about to watch could be our journey.”
The Story
Mike comes into a cafe and the jukebox is playing. He has $2.85 and he is an American and he is hungry. The problem is that he doesn’t know where he is. He thinks that he is simply dreaming. He leaves and turns the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. He now goes to wander through the town. The streets are desolate, but everything looks as it should, just no people. The church bell is ringing, so that’s a good sign. He sees a parked car with a lady in the passenger seat. She is looking sexy. He approaches her and he is telling her that he thinks that he has amnesia. He opens the door, and the lady was just a mannequin. A sexy mannequin! This won’t be the last time that the Twilight Zone deals with mannequins.
I am currently eating Froot Loops with marshmallows. Supposedly, all the Loops are the same flavor, just differently colored. I don’t want to believe it, but it makes sense.
A telephone booth rings, but nobody is there. Get used to that. Instead of the normal operator, he gets a special operator, which is a recording. If you think about it, most movies can be remade, but not Phone Booth. I know, random thought. Some of these episodes are very simple concepts, so there won’t be much to write about. He is currently locked in the phone booth but eventually gets out easily enough. He goes to the Police Department. Nobody is there, but he feels like somebody’s watching him. He calls all cars on the radio and then notices a lit cigar in the ashtray.
He checks the jail cells and sees that there is a sink with the water running. The cell door almost closes and he anticipates waking up anytime now. He runs back outside and says “Where is everybody!” That’s the name of the episode. Wooooo! I love these older shows and seeing how inexpensive items are. A 40 cent banana split! Don’t pretend like that doesn’t sound amazing. Now he is talking to his reflection and quoting Ebenezer Scrooge talking to Jacob Marley. I once got to play Jacob Marley in a theatrical production of A Christmas Carol. It was amazing, but I drank too much and didn’t always know my lines. There are a bunch of books and one spinning rack is nothing but a book called “The Last Man On Earth”. That way you’d get all the women! Imagine the jealousy.
At night, he plays some tic tac toe and goes to a theater playing “Battle Hymn”. The guy on the poster is a member of the air force and he realizes that he is also in the air force. Now he wonders if there was a bomb. The film begins. Instead of enjoying the film, he wants to know who is in the projector room. Alas, you guessed it, there is nobody up there. He runs around, right into a mirror. SIr, you could see yourself coming right at you. What the hell? Now he’s outside running, definitely in a panic, like a girl in a forest getting chased by Jason Voorhees. He trips, then trips again. He sees a big eye, which is the logo for the optometrist, or Cyclops if you watched HBO’s Watchmen. He keeps screaming for someone to help him.
We see a room of like 10 military men watching him panic in a test area where he has been locked in total seclusion. They undo the wires attached to him. All the data has been recorded. He had been in there for 484 hours and 36 minutes. That’s a little more than 20 days. You’re welcome. Now the press seeks answers. This is considered a success. It was about the length of time to fly to the moon, do several orbits, and then return. Bet you didn’t know that. The General states that toward the end, he cracked, had delusions. The General gives him props for being locked in a 5-foot square box for that length of time. Ferris apologizes for how it ended. He doesn’t want to go back. They can simulate so many things in that space, but nothing for companionship, for loneliness. If you think about it, they didn’t have internet porn at the time. The next time, Mike will actually be in space.
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration
“Up there, up there in the vastness of space, in the void that is sky, up there is an enemy known as isolation. It sits there in the stars waiting, waiting with the patience of eons, forever waiting… in the Twilight Zone.”
Final Thoughts
This one is still beloved. It was incredible the first time that I saw it. There are little bits and pieces to pick up on in multiple viewings. In later episodes, you will see how space travel and loneliness are in so many other episodes. This set the bar quite high. What I liked about it is that it wasn’t really a dream. More of a delusion, which is similar, I just didn’t want him waking up in bed as the ending, and in that regard, it didn’t disappoint. It all made perfect sense. That’s something that needs to be considered. Nowadays, how many sci-fi or horror films have nonsensical endings to them? By and large, this show tried to make sense of everything by the end.
Final Rating: 6.8 (I get why this is rated an 8.0 on IMDB, but I genuinely feel that is a bit high due to it being the very first episode. It is very good, but not 8.0 good.)
Make sure to check back at the Twilight Zone section of 9 Deuce. There will be lists and rankings and other fun facts as we progress throughout the year. Find everything that I write about Season 1 right here. Also, please share this with friends and leave a comment. I always love to hear from you.