The Twilight Zone Review & Trivia: Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up?

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By William Kozy

Counting down the Top 25 Favorite original Twilight Zone Episodes according to Facebook voters and writers in the genre, we now come to Number 13, with 145 votes.

So…WILL THE REAL MARTIAN PLEASE STAND UP?

Opening narration:

“Wintry February night, the present. Order of events: a phone call from a frightened woman notating the arrival of an unidentified flying object, and the check-out you’ve just witnessed with two state troopers verifying the event, but with nothing more enlightening to add beyond evidence of some tracks leading across the highway to a diner. You’ve heard of trying to find a needle in a haystack? Well, stay with us now and you’ll be part of an investigating team whose mission is not to find that proverbial needle, no, their task is even harder. They’ve got to find a Martian in a diner; and in just a moment you’ll search with them, because you’ve just landed in the Twilight Zone.

The PLOT:

This one is a very unique twist on the whodunit format in which someone in the room is the culprit…but who?

Two state troopers follow footprints from a pond in which something has landed, and they lead to a diner. And here are our cast of characters: the counterman, a bus driver and his seven passengers. Seven passengers?

The driver says that there were only six passengers on his bus. The troopers interrogate the suspects, but they keep getting distracted by electrical disturbances and by some randomly flying items tossed about as if by a poltergeist. So, who is the odd one out? There are two married couples, so it couldn’t be them right?—because there is only one person who doesn’t belong, right? Mwah ha ha haaa.

Maybe it’s Ross, the cranky businessman, or the curvaceous dancer (the only passenger the bus driver DID notice, wink wink), or is it the wild-eyed old man (so obvious a candidate for the Martian that he becomes the only one you figure it CAN’T be). But soon the call comes through that the bridge ahead is safe and the bus can continue its journey. Whenever I watch this episode I do find that it’s a bit of a stretch to believe that none of the passengers can remember who the odd man out is. There were only six of them after all, so come on! When that simple question is raised by the state trooper, one of the diners, the older married man gives a rather unconvincing explanation that when they disembarked they all sort of kept their heads down to avoid the wintry wind. But even if so, what about their whole trip prior to arriving at the diner? No one looked around the bus during the ride while they were all nice and cozy? There are only SIX of them! It’s too much of a plot hole. But the whole premise of the episode is still so much fun that I almost don’t mind.

The troopers escort the bus on its way. AND THEN…AND THEN… SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU WANT TO WATCH IT (SEE LINK BELOW), SKIP AHEAD TO THE TRIVIA TIDBITS BELOW.

Okay, so then what happens is, it turns out that the phone call was a phony created by the Martian. And that Martian is the businessman who returns to the diner a short while later. The bus had plunged into the icy waters beneath the unsafe bridge. But Ross isn’t even wet at all, a fact that the counterman points out to him. Ross asks, “Wet? What is wet?” So with all his mastery of the Earth’s English language, the word “wet” has somehow escaped his vocabulary? Um….no.

He is a scout for the invading Martian forces. And we learn this as he tells the counterman, and reveals his third arm from underneath his draped overcoat, the better to simultaneously stir coffee and light up a ciggie with.

But here comes the double reverse twist. The counterman tells him that Earth will be invaded all right, but not by the Martians. Instead it will be the Venusians, and he laughs revealing his third eye under his cap!

Gotta love the double reverse twist! But in watching that denouement scene, I’m always puzzled by the Martian’s performance by John Hoyt. Whenever the camera cuts to his close-ups the character/actor seems so oddly disengaged from hearing the bad news as it unfolds from the counterman/Venusian played with a jolly wryness by Barney Phillips. I just can’t connect with how Hoyt is acting his part—it’s almost as though they’re editing in nonchalant shots of him from some takes where he was told, “Okay John just sit there and drink some coffee and sit and listen just so we can have something to cut to here and there while Barney talks.” But then even in an over-the-shoulder shot where we see the two men together, Hoyt still doesn’t have much of a reaction to the revelation. At the very end he does give a half-hearted sort of wince of a reaction, but his whole performance in this scene belies his otherwise solid performance in the rest of the episode. So I don’t get it. But he is a Martian after all so what the heck, I guess that’s just the way they react to bad news.

Nevertheless I’d have to put this one in the Top 10 of my own favorite Twilight Zone episodes. I give it a 9.5 out of 10!

Closing Narration:

“Incident on a small island, to be believed or disbelieved. However; if a sour faced dandy named Ross or a big, good-natured counterman who handles a spatula as if he’d been born with one in his mouth, if either of these two entities walks onto your premises, you’d better hold their hands all three of them or check the color of their eyes all three of them. The gentlemen in question might try to pull you into … the Twilight Zone.”

Trivia Tidbits:

When Serling wrote the initial notes outlining the story, his original twist ending was going to be that the alien was revealed to be a stray dog.

The special effects regarding the alien physicality were easily depicted in one case, with a crouching person simply wearing the same fabric as the character in question. But the other special effect surprise reveal is a little cheesy looking–they tried various ways, one being double exposing the image, but that didn’t work. So in the end, despite it looking like a dime store gag item, the surprise was what counted here, and viewers loved it.

Watch it here for FREE.

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