Twilight Zone – People Are Alike All Over

★★★★ March 25, 1960 Season 1 Episode 25

If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.

***Special announcement Watch all you can this month on Netflix because Netflix is not streaming the Twilight after June 30th…Fellow blogger Blackwing666 posted this here. If there was ever a show you would think about purchasing… The Twilight Zone would a great one.

Roddy McDowall was one of my favorite TV actors. He normally plays caring, worried,  and vulnerable characters. This episode is another story on human nature…earth bound and Martians…are they the same all over? Sam Conrad will find out. It’s a good episode but doesn’t jump in the great category. 

SPOILERS Below

You can take this episode in many ways…is it a commentary on humans being a caged animal instead of its keeper? Possibly a prelude to the Planet of the Apes?  Does it comment on luxuries entrapping us when they become necessitates or just human nature? Its a very good episode of the Twilight Zone .

The living room set is the same one seen in The Twilight Zone: Third from the Sun (1960). It is a redressed version of George’s living room from The Time Machine

Rod Serling changed a couple of elements from the original source story (Brothers Beyond The Void, by Paul W. Fairman) for this episode. In the original story the protagonist is Marcusson and Conrad is only in the beginning of the story as Marcusson makes the trip to Mars alone. Serling also changed the climatic utterance from the story’s mundane “People are the same everywhere,” to his more poignant version. It isn’t clear why Serling changed the story and made Conrad the protagonist.

This show was written by Rod Serling and Paul W. Fairman

Rod Serling’s Opening Narration: 

You’re looking at a species of flimsy little two-legged animal 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.

Summary

Biologist Sam Conrad is scheduled to go on a mission to Mars and is genuinely concerned about what they will find there. The mission commander, Mark Marcusson, tells him there’s nothing to worry about as he firmly believes that God made everyone in his image; no matter what they find, he is certain that people are alike all over. They crash-land on Mars and Marcusson dies from his injuries. Conrad is happy to find that the people of Mars are very human-like, friendly and intelligent. They provide him with a home and promise him much more. Too late, however, he realizes that, just as Marcusson had said, people are alike all over.

Complete episode here

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.

CAST

Rod Serling … Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Roddy McDowall … Sam Conrad
Susan Oliver … Teenya
Paul Comi … Marcusson
Byron Morrow … Martian
Vic Perrin … Martian
Vernon Gray … Martian
Herbert Winters … Martian Observer (uncredited)

…

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

47 thoughts on “Twilight Zone – People Are Alike All Over”

  1. I have them all on DVD- thinking back I think it was the first television series I ever bought on DVD.. but I have been watching them from Netflix lately just for convenience sake…hate to hear its going off…… this was a great episode- I didn’t see the end coming the first time I saw it…

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    1. I know it’s going to stop some people from watching it which stinks. It will probably be on CBS’s streaming service…they own the rights.

      Me either and I like the episode and Roddy McDowall … That ending took me by surprise also. It’s an overlooked one to me….yep The Twilight Zone was my first DVD tv series bought.

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  4. Aaahhhhh! The scream you may have heard from somewhere over the Eastern seaboard is yours truly reacting to this news! I’ve been pacing myself in watching keeping a bit ahead of blog. Guess I need to accelerate a bit 😀. Yes I may need to just get the DVD set

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    1. LOL… CBS will probably switch it to their streaming service but yea…the best thing to do is to get them. The series is worth it as you know…that is why I dropped them because it seemed everytime I found something…they would drop it.

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      5. It’s one series that is worth it. It’s the first tv series I bought. I told Hans that I think the ones we are covering are probably the two best known by modern audiences. Maybe I Love Lucy would be one.

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  5. Yeah I didn’t see the twist coming at the end either. But I thought I was a nice foreshadowing of Planet of Apes – never knew Serling wrote that

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    1. He was a great actor…I remember him most for the debut episode for the Night Gallery…and of course the Planet of the Apes

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      2. I remember him in Columbo now! I think it was a requirement for actors of the 70s to be on the Love Boat lol

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  11. Roddy McDowell was fab, I liked him in everything he did, and he always whatever he was in much better by being in it, even if it was a bit of fluff. Susan Oliver was great too, she’ll always be Star Trek’s The Cage for me, iconic, but she was always good in other stuff too.

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    1. I agree….and my son is visiting Germany in a few months and he doesn’t know what to expect.

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  13. Roddy McDowell’s first role, I think, was in The Boy with the Green Hair. He’s always played high-strung characters. He’s been in his fair share of horror movies also. Humans are humans wherever they are, what a shame 😦

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    2. He was on the debut of the Night Gallery in probably it’s best episode. Serling must have liked him…and Serling’s Planet of the Apes.

      Yep they are the same where ever!

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  14. That’s too bad Netflix is dropping this great series. I don’t spend a lot of time there because it leaves me with the impression of a room of chimps at the helm.
    I didn’t know that about Rod Serling scripting The Planet of the Apes movie. I have the book, which was written by Pierre Boulle who also wrote Bridge Over the River Kwai, which became another great movie.

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    1. Yea that is why I didn’t stay with Netflix because as soon as I liked something they would switch. I just bought this one…I don’t buy many series at all but this one I did.

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  15. Pingback: Twilight Zone Season 1 Review – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

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