Classic Films for ESL Learners.
Where is everybody ?
A man finds himself alone walking towards a diner. Inside he finds a jukebox playing loudly, and coffee hot on the stove, but no one else. He inquires for some breakfast, but no chef or waitress is to be found. He is dressed in an Air Force jumpsuit, but he does not remember who he is or how he got there.
After leaving the diner, he walks to a nearby town. The town seems deserted, but everywhere the man goes, he seems to find proof that someone had been there recently: food is cooking on a stove, water dripping in a sink, and a cigar is burning in an ashtray. He grows more and more unsettled as he wanders through the empty town, looking for someone—anyone—to talk to, all the while having the strange feeling that he is being watched.
Special Episode information
Prior to this episode, Rod Serling had written an episode called "The Happy Place" as the pilot for his new series. It was rejected, because the story — centered on a society where people were executed when they turned 60 due to their inability to contribute to society — was considered too depressing by network executives. This premise was later used, slightly modified, in the novel Logan's Run and adaptations of the novel as well as an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation ("Half a Life").
Once the episode had been given the green-light and filming had concluded, it originally featured narration by announcer Westbrook Van Voorhis. As Voorhis was unavailable for subsequent episodes, however, Serling himself recorded the narration (for both the episode and the introduction) for consistency; his presence later became a hallmark of the series. This is when the Twilight Zone became the fifth dimension rather than the sixth in the original pilot narration. When the opening credits were re-recorded, the series logo was also changed to the familiar typeface.
Several years later, Serling adapted this and other episodes into short stories for a book, Stories From the Twilight Zone. Reportedly dissatisfied with the lack of science fiction content, he added an additional twist to the end by having Mike Ferris discover a movie ticket in his pocket after being carried away on the stretcher.[citation needed] A variation on this twist was later used in "King Nine Will Not Return".
The haunting score composed by Bernard Herrmann for this episode would be reused for several episodes of the series, most notably "The After Hours" and "The Last Flight".{[fact}} Several record albums of original soundtrack music from the series were released, some having alternate theme music for the series that was never used. One of the alternate themes is a cue from the episode.
This was the only Twilight Zone episode filmed at Universal Studios, the rest of the entire series was filmed at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The centerpiece of the episode is the Courthouse Square set, most well-known for being used as the town square of "Hill Valley" in the Back To The Future series of films over 25 years later.