Where Is Everybody?

Episode aired Oct 2, 1959
TV-PGTV-PG
25min

8.0/10

S1.E1

Mike Ferris finds himself alone in the small Oakwood town and without recollection about his name, where he is or who he is. Mike wanders through the town trying to find a living soul. The t... Read allMike Ferris finds himself alone in the small Oakwood town and without recollection about his name, where he is or who he is. Mike wanders through the town trying to find a living soul. The tension increases and Mike has a breakdown.Mike Ferris finds himself alone in the small Oakwood town and without recollection about his name, where he is or who he is. Mike wanders through the town trying to find a living soul. The tension increases and Mike has a breakdown.

8.0/10

5.6K

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A man finds himself walking down a country road, not knowing where nor who he is. He comes across a diner with a jukebox blaring and hot coffee on the stove - only there's no one there. A little further down the road, he comes to the picturesque town of Oakwood, and finds, it too, seems deserted. The only sounds he hears are a clock tower, and a pay phone ringing. At the local movie theater, an ad for Battle Hymn (1957) leads him to believe he's in the Air Force. In spite of no people to be found, he can't shake off the feeling, he's being watched. —garykmcd

mannequin sensory deprivation tank deprivation town 38 more

Trivia
When Mike leaves the mannequin factory building and looks around, the shoot is of a very familiar town square. The set has been used for decades - it was later used in Bye Bye Birdie (1963) (during the number, Honestly Sincere), Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969), the Back to the Future (1985) films, and TV shows too numerous to count or mention as well as films. The courthouse was also used in the Academy Award winning movie "To Kill a Mockingbird", and the town set was known as Mockingbird Square before it became associated with the "Back to the Future" series.

Goofs
When Ferris is in the phone booth and hangs up the phone, a man with dark hair and glasses can be seen in the reflection of the door glass.

Quotes
Air Force General: You see, we can feed the stomach with concentrates. We can supply microfilm for reading, recreation - even movies of a sort. We can pump oxygen in and waste material out. But there's one thing we can't simulate that's a very basic need. Man's hunger for companionship. The barrier of loneliness - that's one thing we haven't licked yet.

Connections
Featured in American Masters: Rod Serling: Submitted for Your Approval (1995)

Soundtracks
Turkish Delight
(uncredited)
Music by Eric Cook

Top review

8/10

Where is everybody? Where have all the people gone?

Alright, I confess I consider myself to be a die-hard fan of horror, Sci-Fi and cult and yet I've never watched the original "Twilight Zone" series. Shame on me, I know, but I plan to correct this as from now since I purchased the entire series. This very first episode quickly made me realize that I will soon discover that many of my personal favorite movie titles were inspired by – or even blatantly copied from – "The Twilight Zone". One movie that truly struck me as original and frightening, for example, was the made- for-TV movie "Where have all the people gone?" released in 1974 and starring Peter Graves, but it's only just now that I'm discovering that this great movie is pretty much identical to the pilot episode "Where is everybody" (including even the title!) It's a very powerful and clever pilot episode with a solid screenplay and a brooding atmosphere of tension. Earl Holliman is also fantastic as Mike Ferris, a man that we meet as he is drifting around a remote little town and looking for his own identity and recollections. The entire town is forsaken but it seems as if all human beings just vaporized and left behind everything they were doing. "Where is everybody?" is unsettling and compelling, and the climax comes as a complete and unpredictable surprise – at least to me it did – that works quite effectively. Very good start to a legendary TV-series, I'm sure I'll enormously enjoy the rest of the big fat DVD-box

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