An amnesiac man wanders around a town and finds he’s all alone. Or is he?
Episode Summary
A man arrives at a café with no memory of who he is, what he wants, or where he is going – he has amnesia. Unfortunately there’s no one to talk to because the café is completely empty.
The man wanders to a nearby town. Still no one. Where did they all go? Evidence suggests people were there not too long ago, so it was as if they suddenly disappeared (like on the Mary Celeste).
What happened? Is he the last man on Earth or is there someone out there, someone watching him?
He wanders around a bit more until he finally cracks. He just can’t take it anymore – he runs through the streets, screaming, then collapses.
The man, Mike Ferris, awakens in a sensory deprivation booth. It was all a dream. He’s really an astronaut undergoing a test to see whether he can handle the stress of a spaceflight to the Moon alone.
Thoughts
I wasn’t crazy about this one. While the episode did a really good job of showing isolation and loneliness, it got old pretty quickly. All it did was constantly reinforce the fact that the guy was alone, and you’re left waiting for the twist you know is coming to be revealed at the end.
But the dialogue was well-written, and Mike was a pretty likeable guy. I thought it was interesting to keep in mind that this episode aired about a decade before the actual Moon landing. If the episode was made now, Mike would be preparing for a trip to Mars.
There are better episodes than this. If you’re watching The Twilight Zone for the first time, don’t feel compelled to start on the first episode. The beauty of anthology shows is that you can watch the episodes in any order you want.
Rating
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