"Where Is Everybody?"

The Twilight Zone

The original Twilight Zone premiered on October 2nd, 1959 with the episode "Where Is Everybody?" It starred Earl Holliman as an amnesiac who wanders into what seems like a deserted town. He begins to feel as he's being watched as he notices things going that suggest that there once were people or people are still around. It's one of my favourite episodes, but it's no classic by any means. I'll include some screenshots of the episode below.

(Property of CBS)

Remake

The teleplay I wrote is a remake of the original episode, but it begs the question: Why did I want to want to remake this episode? As I said before it's one of my favourites, but's it's no classic by any means. I saw it as a good episode that could be remade into something great, that and the themes of isolation and loneliness are universal themes. With all good remakes they changed certain aspects from the original to do 2 things:

1. Not just do the same thing again
2. There were certain aspects that could be further expanded upon

Now, I will go through what I changed when I wrote this remake compared to the original.

• The protagonist no longer has amnesia. He knows he's Mike Ferris, a Pilot in the US Air Force from the beginning of the episode.
• Mike's Flight Suit now has patches made to resemble an actual Air Force Flight Suit.
• Mike is coming to his hometown (named Oakwood just like the original) for a family reunion.
• Mike watches the 1964 Vincent Price film "The Last Man on Earth" rather than finding a book titled "The Last Man on Earth"
• I changed the twist ending to involve the supernatural as I thought the ending of the original episode was rather dated and didn't have a connection to science fiction or the supernatural like most Twilight Zone endings

I've noticed with the recent trailer that most episodes have references to the original episodes sprinkled throughout such as the same gremlin appearing on the beach in "Nightmare at 30, 000 Feet" and the Mystic Seer appearing in "Replay". Jordan Peele's appearance in that episode is very similar to Rod Serling's in "Nick of Time". 

(Property of CBS)

In keeping with this theme, I'll list off the references I put in my remake that call back to the original "Where Is Everybody?"

• The Giant Eye in the window of the Optometrist's shop.
• The opening narration "The place is here, the time is now...."
• Mike's dialogue during his nervous breakdown is lifted right from the original.
• I want Mike's Grandfather to be played by Earl Holliman, who through his dialogue is implied to be Mike Ferris from the original episode.

The original episode has the premise of "How would someone react to be isolation and loneliness?" vs the remake has the premise of "How do isolation and loneliness affect somebody?" "What would it does to them?"

Logline

An air force pilot wants to end his loneliness after finding himself in his deserted hometown where his isolation takes it toll.

Synopsis

After coming to his hometown of Oakwood for a family reunion, Mike Ferris finds himself alone despite the signs of humanity that once was or is still there. He then decides to find out whether he is truly alone or not, all the while his isolation takes a toll on him physically, mentally, and emotionally. 

Teleplay

I have included a link below to the PDF version of my original writer's draft:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OUUOuAQtEMvOsF7nCfMjI8SuVgoFyraq/view?usp=sharing

Here is a second link to the PDF of the revision of my writer's draft:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1enMaJowHIaf89PoRXm8M4411RgpZ2Qq_/view?usp=sharing

Playlist

I also created a playlist in Spotify. I included songs that tie back to the themes and scenes in the episode and the link is below. I made this playlist so that people could listen to it after reading my teleplay and see how the lyrics tie back to the episode, or they could listen while reading and the playlist enhances the mood of the episode. 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1UNo9vj8bOhnjq6Vhwbmgq

Conclusion 

Thank you for reading my blog post. If you did read my teleplay, I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it. Feel free to leave your thoughts below.