People Are Alike All Over

In 1959, the Apollo program to send a man to the moon was only two years old, while the public was just starting to realize that space exploration was no longer a mere comic book fantasy. I suspect that is one reason a bold science fiction concept like TZ was finally picked up by sponsors long wary of how such themes would play with unchallenged 1950's audiences.

This episode is an average one among the exploration themes. It's basically a one gimmick plot, moving toward an ironical ending. However the spaceship interior comes across as an impressively complex and cavernous one, while the director holds interest with some imaginative camera angles. The mysterious pinging on the ship's hull also adds a nice dollop of suspense.. Nonetheless, the fey Roddy McDowell makes for an unconvincing astronaut, while the half-togas worn by the supposed Martians made me think the ship had crashed in ancient Greece. Even so, the many nice touches, along with the haunting mood music, add up to a very watchable half-hour's entertainment.

Roddy McDowell and Paul Comi play two Earth astronauts on a spaceship mission to Mars that goes wrong when the ship mysteriously crash lands, killing Marcusson(Comi) and leaving Conrad(McDowell) alone and at the mercy of the seemingly friendly human-looking inhabitants who try to help Conrad by giving him food and shelter, and the promised visitations of a beautiful native woman(played by Susan Oliver) who has taken pity on him, though the reason why will become obvious to him when he draws back his window curtain.... Fine performances by the three leads make the difference in otherwise unsurprising tale, though the irony of the title is well put across.

Sam Conrad (Roddy McDowall) and Mark Marcusson (Paul Comi) go to Mars as imagined in 1960. Now we know that the planet could not have anyone like Susan Oliver on it so perhaps Barack Obama is right not to bother with going there.

I like the way the start prefigures the end of the story (visually too) with the question of whether people are the same everywhere? McDowall plays the reluctant adventurer of the two astronauts, well aware that he will have to make his home on Mars. The Martians are attired in an ancient Roman looking way and have a pleasant appearance (especially Susan Oliver).

One of the odd and enjoyable episodes but not one of the greatest. The contrast between the two astronauts is good. Well played by both actors. Rod Serling wrote the teleplay based on a story by Paul W Fairman, whose other writing credits are for z rated sci-fi films and TV. Serling went on to co-write the screenplay for 'Planet Of The Apes'. Will he make a monkey of Roddy McDowall in this?

The subtlety of the episode is well crafted for those times I am sure most of the message is wasted on the similar plot like "The Cage" in Star Trek. The story, on the other hand, has a message about people and how we find any reason the isolate and ostracize others who look like us but have some unique distinction. Whether color, religion, or origin, we tend to keep people categorized when in fact we are all human beings. this message was boldly presented with McDowall's last lines. Many of the staff writers for TZ were victims of McCarthism and Nazism. The world was also turning upside down with equal rights emerging as a social concern. Writers like Roddenberry and Serling knew change was coming. They wrote these concepts of a world where everyone was considered equal and people accepted you as a peer based upon you and not what you looked like. On the other hand, the fact that the astronaut thought they were speaking English and instead he was speaking their language, maybe they only looked like humans from his point of view. Great episode which speaks volumes.

This Twilight Zone episode features Roddy McDowall and Paul Comi as the two men on the first mission to Mars. Sad to say it is one of many stories on the big and small screen that have become dated with the knowledge we now possess about the red planet.

It's an optimist and a pessimist on the trip. McDowall is skeptical, but Comi says if there's life there they'll be like us because people are alike all over which is as the Deity intended.

Comi is killed in a crash landing but it's McDowall who finds out the truth of that proposition.

This is one good story and sadly one cynical view of humankind.