What is the title of the first episode of the original The Twilight Zone?
Answer
Where Is Everybody?
The first episode of the original The Twilight Zone is titled “Where Is Everybody?”.
It premiered on CBS on October 2, 1959, and introduced the anthology series’ habit of blending psychological tension, science fiction, and a striking twist. Earl Holliman plays Mike Ferris, a man who finds himself in an apparently deserted town with no memory of how he arrived there.
Ferris encounters empty streets, a diner, a telephone booth, a police station, and a movie theater. The unsettling details suggest that he may be the last person alive. The ending reveals that the town is a hallucination produced by sensory deprivation: Ferris is an Air Force astronaut candidate being tested in an isolation chamber for a possible solo lunar mission.
The episode was also important behind the scenes. Rod Serling wrote it after CBS rejected an earlier pilot concept, “The Happy Place,” which was considered too dark. Unlike most later episodes, “Where Is Everybody?” contains no supernatural event; its premise uses a speculative but comparatively scientific explanation. Bernard Herrmann wrote its original score, linking the premiere to season one’s orchestral musical identity.