People Are Alike All Over

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The Twilight Zone original series Season one (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5) Fall 1959 – Summer 1960 List of The Twilight Zone episodes
Episodes: Where Is Everybody? One for the Angels Mr. Denton on Doomsday The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine Walking Distance Escape Clause The Lonely Time Enough at Last Perchance to Dream Judgment Night And When the Sky Was Opened What You Need The Four of Us Are Dying Third from the Sun I Shot an Arrow Into the Air The Hitch-Hiker The Fever The Last Flight The Purple Testament Elegy Mirror Image The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street A World of Difference Long Live Walter Jameson People Are Alike All Over Execution The Big Tall Wish A Nice Place to Visit Nightmare as a Child A Stop at Willoughby The Chaser A Passage for Trumpet Mr. Bevis The After Hours The Mighty Casey A World of His Own

“People Are Alike All Over” is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

[edit] Details

Episode number: 25
Season: 1
Original air date: March 25, 1960
Writer: Rod Serling (story by Paul W. Fairman)
Director: Mitchell Leisen
Producer: Buck Houghton
Director of photography: George T. Clemens
Music: none credited

[edit] Cast

Sam Conrad: Roddy McDowall
Teenya: Susan Oliver
Marcusson: Paul Comi [first of three TZ appearances—see "Episode notes"]
First Martian: Byron Morrow
Second Martian: Vic Perrin [first of two TZ appearances—see "Episode notes"]
Third Martian: Vernon Gray

[edit] Rod Serling's opening narration

"You're looking at a species of flimsy little two-legged animals with extremely small heads whose name is Man. Warren Marcusson, age thirty-five. Samuel A. Conrad, age thirty-one... They're taking a highway into space, Man unshackling himself and sending his tiny, groping fingers up into the unknown. Their destination is Mars, and in just a moment we'll land there with them."

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A rocket piloted by two astronauts heads out on a mission to Mars. One of them, Marcusson, is a positive thinker who believes that people are alike all over, even on the Red Planet. The other astronaut, Conrad, has a more cynical view of human interplanetary nature. The impact of landing on Mars is so severe that Marcusson dies. Now alone, Conrad is consumed by fear when he hears a rhythmic sound reverberating upon the ship's hull. Expecting some unnameable evil, he finds his apprehension turning to joy when, upon opening the hatch, he sees Martians that indeed appear human, have mind-reading abilities and give the impression of being most amicable, especially the beautiful Teenya, who welcomes and reassures him. The hospitable locals lead their honored guest to his residence—an interior living space furnished in the same manner as one on Earth would have been. Conrad briefly relaxes, but soon discovers that his room is windowless and the doors cannot be opened. Momentarily, a wall slides upward, leading to Conrad's realization that he has become a caged exhibit in a Martian zoo.

Martian kindness? No, Martian treachery!

[edit] Rod Serling's closing narration

"Species of animal brought back alive. Interesting similarity in physical characteristics to human beings in head, trunk, arms, legs, hands, feet. Very tiny undeveloped brain; comes from primitive planet named Earth. Calls himself Samuel Conrad. And he will remain here in his cage with the running water and the electricity and the central heat as long as he lives. Samuel Conrad has found the Twilight Zone."

[edit] Episode notes

This episode was based on Paul W. Fairman's Brothers Beyond the Void, published in the March 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures and also included in August Derleth's 1953 anthology collection Worlds of Tomorrow. In this renowned short story, Sam Conrad remains on Earth and it is the lone pilot Marcusson who has the too-close encounter with smaller, more alien Martians. In adapting the tale, Serling made key changes that would deepen the irony and heighten the impact. He installed the apprehensive, defeatist Conrad as the protagonist, easing his fears, only to have them ultimately confirmed, and he presented the Martians as a human-sized, handsome, superior race whose apparent benevolence would make their climactic treachery seem even more shocking.

The original pilot of Star Trek (The Cage, later reworked into the two-part episode The Menagerie) had a plot which bore a striking resemblance to People Are Alike All Over. Perhaps not coincidentally, Susan Oliver was chosen to play a character ("Vina") remarkably similar to her role in this story.

Vic Perrin, who plays one of the Martians, provided voices in his lengthy career for hundreds of characters, including "The Control Voice" on the 1963-65 Outer Limits. He also supplied the resonant tones of "The Keeper", the alien-faced overlord played by Malachi Throne in the same The Menagerie episode indicated above. His other TZ appearance, also in a relatively minor role, was in the fifth season's Ring-a-Ding Girl.

Marcusson is portrayed by Paul Comi, a frequent guest star in TV shows of the 60s and 70s, who was busy during this period with regular roles in two short-lived syndicated series, the 1960-61 western Two Faces West and the first seventeen episodes of the 1961-62 skydiving adventure Ripcord. His other TZ work was in the second season's The Odyssey of Flight 33, where he played the co-pilot, and the fourth season's The Parallel.

The planet exteriors are taken from the oversize painted background dioramas seen in the 1956 MGM film Forbidden Planet (Interesting to note that a number of Twilight Zone episodes were filmed at MGM's movie studios).