People Are Alike All Over

"People Are Alike All Over"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 25
Directed by	Mitchell Leisen
Written by	Teleplay by Rod Serling Based on the Short Story by Paul W. Fairman
Production code	173-3613
Original air date	March 25, 1960
Guest appearance(s)
Roddy McDowall as Sam Conrad Susan Oliver as Teenya Paul Comi as Warren Marcusson Byron Morrow as First Martian Vic Perrin as Second Martian
Episode chronology

"People Are Alike All Over" is episode 25 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

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.

”

Plot

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 is critically injured. Knowing that he is dying, Marcusson pleads with Conrad to open the door of their ship so he can at least see that which he has given his life. Conrad refuses, still fearful of what may await outside, and Marcusson dies.

Now alone, Conrad hears a rhythmic sound reverberating upon the ship's hull. Expecting some unnameable evil, his apprehension turns to joy when he opens the hatch and sees Martians that indeed appear to be 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 precisely in the same manner as one on Earth would have been.

Conrad relaxes, but soon discovers that his room is windowless and the doors cannot be opened. One of the walls slides upward, and Conrad realizes that he has become a caged exhibit in a Martian alien zoo. Conrad picks up a sign that says "Earth Creature in his native habitat" and throws it on the floor. In the episode's closing lines, Conrad grips the bars and yells to the heavens "Marcusson! Marcusson, you were right! You were right. People are alike.... people are alike everywhere!"

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.

”

Production 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-like superior race whose apparent benevolence would make their climactic treachery seem even more shocking, as well as decrease the budget that would have been expended on costumes and makeup.

The Martian exteriors are taken from the oversize painted background dioramas seen in the 1956 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Forbidden Planet. Additionally, a set of four lights on the wall of the inside of the space ship are reuses of the Krell power gauges from the same film.

Marcusson is portrayed by Paul Comi, a frequent guest star in TV shows of the 1960s and 1970s, including Star Trek. 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".

Actor Byron Morrow twice appeared as an admiral on Star Trek. Actor Vic Perrin was later the "Control Voice" of The Outer Limits, and—like Oliver, Morrow and Comi—would also become another veteran of Star Trek.

Themes

Cat Yampell, comparing the show to other science fiction stories such as Planet of the Apes and Slaughterhouse-Five, wrote: "Alien caging of humans provides commentary on the barbarity of the practice of turning sentient beings into public spectacles."^[1]

Influence

The original pilot of Star Trek ("The Cage", later reworked into the two-part episode "The Menagerie") included plot points similar to that touched upon in this episode, particularly the aspect of humans being put on display for study. Coincidentally, that pilot also co-starred Susan Oliver in a similar role (Teenya, a female has the task of making the captive feel more at ease). The Star Trek animated episode Eye of the Beholder would also feature some of the crew of the Enterprise being placed in a zoo by the inhabitants of Lactra VII.^[2]

The band Space Monkey Death Sequence released their similarly-titled debut album, "People Are Alike All Over", containing many samples from the episodes, citing the installment as the influence for the album.^[3]

References

↑ Yampell, Cat (2005). "Animals and Zoos". In Gary Westfahl. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders, Volume 1. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. p. 36. ISBN 0-313-32951-6.
↑ The Eye of the Beholder (episode)
↑ Maximum Volume Music

External links

The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes

Season 1	"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"

Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "The Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"

Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"

Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"

Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"

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