The Twilight Zone - Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?

I had mentioned in my review for Back There how it was one of my “Channel Ten episodes”, referring to a channel out of Alabama (I believe it was out of AL, but what do I know?) that I could pick up on my antennae receiver which showed Twilight Zone episodes at 10:30 at night. The biggest hit of the TZ episodes with me that I was introduced to on Channel 10 was Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up? The Howling Man was fantastic, just perfect for the time slot on Channel 10, but Real Martian was the shining star of the episodes I caught on there during the months I could pick up Ten. Not long afterward, the show would be showcased on Syfy (when it was Sci-Fi Channel) and continues until today (just at four in the morning or during the 4^th and New Years). All that said, Real Martian is a simple premise done so well. It has a treasure of faces, of actors. It has a fun mystery (who is the Martian / alien among a café, having walked from a saucer which landed in a pond nearby?) and the conclusion (although the special effect alien tricks are of their time, especially the third eye) is a nice surprise if you hadn’t seen it, as I have, a hundred times. The two police officers who are at the scene of the saucer, in the pond, follow the alien footprints to a café. The café is run by Barney Phillips, equipped with that friendly face and trustworthy smile (his reveal is great because of the comfortable qualities applied to his character). He tells the fuzz that there hadn’t been any customers into the café since eleven that morning until the bus with the passengers arrived. The bus driver (William Kendis) is certain there were six passengers; he did a head count. Two pairs of couples (one married for 20+ years, another a newlywed couple; both start to question whether or not their mates are in fact who they say they are!) would appear to rule them out, while the bus driver is quite sure a leggy dancer (Jean Willes) isn’t the Martian. Easily the scene-stealer is Jack Elam as the wild-eyed, playfully goofy Avery. He has the others giggling for the most part, except grouchy, griping, always-bossy John Hoyt. Hoyt wants the bus back on the road because, presumably, he has “business in Boston”. The bridge the bus will need to cross to get the passengers to their destinations is untrustworthy; the bus driver insists he will not drive until given assurance it is safe. Hoyt isn’t exactly happy about that, as he so dutifully complains over and over. The episode spends its time questioning who the Martian might be as the police eyeball each one of them inquisitively. Meanwhile, the Martian toys with all of them in the café, turning on the jukebox, cutting on and off the lights, and popping/exploding bottles of sugar and salt on tables. Waiting on confirmation about the bridge, the cops just hold tight all inside the café, knowing that once conditions are improved there is no choice but to let them leave.

The tragedy that results from “illusions” perpetrated by the “three-armed” Martian and what awaits mankind on Earth as colonization plans are underway (not just the Martians have such plans, Venus actually does, too!) certainly follow the model that Twilight Zone often left behind in many of its ominous conclusions…that Earthlings are fucked. That the Venusian heartily revels at the expense of the Martian who thought he had the last laugh while the people of Earth have no clue what awaits them has an irony all its own. And that this takes place in some café somewhere in the snowy mountains of an area far removed from active society—the fate of mankind being decided by two sets of alien species here—is quite a clever bit of sci-fi. There’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers in this story along with Ten Little Indians, but with a Twilight Zone spin. Ray Bradbury even has his name dropped. The identity of the alien not being solved spells doom for all involved…the sinister side of the Twilight Zone.

There is a reason Real Martian remains a holiday favorite during the show’s marathons on Syfy. It has the pedigree the show’s writing is known for, the actors that the 60s was gifted with, and the ending which leaves a lasting impression. Phillips, so friendly a face, doesn’t hold back his diabolical laughter as Hoyt tokes on his smokes defeated, both having acknowledged what they really are…the café of the Twilight Zone.