Twilight Zone episode review — 2.28 — Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?
Episode 2.28 “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”
Original air date: May 26, 1961
Writer: Rod Serling
Director: Montgomery Pittman
Rating: 10/10
“Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?” is one of the best episodes of the series. It plays upon human paranoia just as “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” but in a more comedic way.
The episode has a wonderful setup, with two state troopers going to investigate something that landed in a pond. They find footsteps leading into a diner where a bus is parked. Inside the diner, the bus driver says that he is certain he had six passengers, though excluding the cook, the driver, and the troopers, there are seven people there.
The rest of the episode, they try and determine who was actually on the bus. There’s a beautiful female dancer that the bus driver assures was there because she was the only one he noticed. There are two couples — a younger one and an older one — which seem to not be a problem. The other two are a businessman (John Hoyt) who insists he needs to be in Boston in the morning, and a loud, brash old man.
The troopers admit why they’re investigating, and suspicions begin to be aroused amongst the passengers, even within the couples. Some strange things start happening, with the jukebox playing and turning off, and the lights coming on and off.
There is a phone call, telling the troopers that the bus ahead has been cleared. The troopers let them leave, since they don’t have enough to hold anybody. The troopers promise to go out ahead of them on the bridge.
Later in the night, the businessman arrives back at the diner, getting a strange look from the cook. He serves him his coffee, and asks about what happened on the bus. The businessman says that the bus wasn’t safe, and that both the bus and the police car went down.
“You’re not even wet,” the cook says. The businessman doesn’t know the word wet, and explains that it’s all an illusion, just like the jukebox playing, which he turns off with his mind.
He lights a cigarette with three arms, and explains that he’s not really a businessman on his way to Boston. He says he was sent as a scout from Mars, as they’re beginning to colonize.
The cook then admits he’s also not who he says he is. He’s an alien sent from Venus. He removes his hat to reveal a third eye, and says that the other Martians have been intercepted, and the only colonizers coming are from Venus.
It’s a great, memorable ending to an excellent episode overall. It’s a lot of fun. It’s very suspenseful, and darkly comedic. It’s science fiction at its best.
