A Land of Shadow and Substance watches The Twilight Zone: S1E1 “Where is Everybody?”

Like everyone else in California, I’ve found myself stuck at home as part of the COVID-19 quarantine measures.  Due to the need to stave off a horrific combination of boredom and overwhelming anxiety over the current state of the world, I decided to watch The Twilight Zone.  After all, perhaps surprisingly, I’ve actually never seen the entire series before.  And why not now, when we’re all living in a crappy episode anyways?

Since I’m watching the series, I thought I’d give a writeup of episodes I watch, as a sort of not-quite-liveblogging thing.  I might not go in order, or write for every episode.  I actually hope that I won’t get through writing about every episode, since that would mean quarantine has lasted THAT long.

For both convenience and thematic reasons, I started with Season 1, Episode 1.  Convenience, since it’s the very first episode, and thematic because it’s about the effects of isolation.  You know, that thing we’re all going through right now.  I’ve actually seen this episode before; it was the very first episode I watched when I borrowed the DVD set from the library back in 2002, when Tower of Terror spurred me to look up the original series.  So I knew the plot and the twist, but hadn’t seen it since then, and wanted to refresh my memory.

Official summary, according to Hulu: “A man finds himself in a town devoid of people and with no memory of who he is.”

Original airdate: October 2, 1959 (Hey, the permit number for the Hollywood Tower’s elevator!)

The episode begins with the haunting season 1 theme tune.  While less iconic than the later “do dee do dooo” theme song I mostly associate with the series, I can’t help but love the original theme.  It’s so dreamlike, it really matches the original opening narration describing the Twilight Zone thusly:

“There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man.  It is a dimension as vast as space and timeless as infinity.  It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge.  This is the dimension of imagination.  It is an area we call the Twilight Zone.”

Much like the music that accompanies it, this narration is less iconic than later opening narrations (such as the one that provided my blog title), but incredibly beautiful and poetic.

Also, I can’t help but have a soft spot for this music, since it served as the basis for DCA Tower’s exit corridor music.

Speaking of theme parks, given how accidentally connected the Twilight Zone became to general parks lore via SEA, I can’t help but chuckle at “dimension of imagination.”  Welcome to the Twilight Zone, Figment! (He is imprisoned in Mission Breakout, for what it’s worth.)

The opening narration specific to this episode gave me chills:

“The place is here, the time is now, and the journey into the shadows that we’re about to watch could be our journey.”

Well, Rod Serling-in-1959, given that this is a story about isolation and in 2020 everyone’s being required to be isolated, unfortunately this IS our journey.  Yay.

On another note, I’m fairly positive that “the time is now” was either spliced in to Tower’s pre-show narration, or the direction for the voice actor recording the narration was to match the exact cadence of the way the phrase was said here.  It sounds identical, either way, to the point that I did a double take upon hearing it in this episode.

In general, this is a great exercise in minimalist suspense and horror.  The majority of it is just one guy running around a mysteriously empty town, freaking out more and more in the process.  It does a lot with very little; a lot of the horror is accomplished by simple things like lights turning on and off, or some clothes fluttering on a mannequin in the background.  Camera angles and the soundtrack also cover a lot of ground in establishing the tense atmosphere.  Everything feels fresh and engaging, to the point where it’s surprising when obvious reminders of the episode’s age show up.  It all feels current until $2.88 is brought up as a significant amount of money, or the protagonist expects to talk to a human phone operator instead of a robotic one.  One obviously flimsy door the protagonists rushes through near the end is also unintentionally humorous.

Story wise, the majority of this episode reminds me of I Am Legend, but without the zombie vampires and with a very different ending reveal.  Interestingly, the original book I Am Legend was published by Richard Matheson in 1954.  While Matheson would become one of the most famous writers for The Twilight Zone, he didn’t write this episode; it’s credited to Rod Serling.  The emphasis on dreams, dreaming, and waking up also called Inception to mind.

Another thing that looks familiar—for good reason—is the town our unfortunate protagonist is trapped in!  Universal Studios Hollywood fans will recognize that as the Courthouse Square, used in many movies and shows throughout the years, but most famously associated with Back to the Future.  This is one of the few episodes not filmed on the MGM studios lot.  The “Battle Hymn” on the movie theater marquee is the title of a Universal Studios movie.

Of course, the ending reveal is that the protagonist is not in fact stuck in an abandoned town, but instead has begun hallucinating after over 2 weeks in isolation as part of a military experiment to see if man can make it to the moon (yet another sudden reminder of the episode’s age!).  The official overseeing the test asserts that, despite all the entertainment they can provide, any person will start to crack if they’re denied contact with others for too long.  Still, our protagonist remains determined to actually complete that moon trip.

The closing narration is thus:

“Up there in the vastness of space, in the void that is sky, up there is an enemy known as isolation.  It sits there in the stars waiting, waiting with the patience of eons, forever waiting… in the Twilight Zone.”

Ah, so isolation is the enemy.  Great…that’s just great to hear right now.  Uh, welcome to the Twilight Zone everybody!

Yeah, this episode hit closer to home than I expected, even though I remembered the subject matter and plot.  Honestly, part of my concern with the current world situation is what the state of the survivors will be when the pandemic eventually abates.  What kind of world will it be if all of us have gone stir crazy in the meantime?

Here’s hoping video chat and cell phones can fulfill that “human interaction” thing.

One last fun fact for the road: This episode had an Easter Egg in the DCA Tower that I believe went undiscovered until after DCA Tower was dismantled!  On the bulletin board in the boiler room was an advertisement for casting a play titled “Where is Everybody?”.  I discovered this when I viewed the board at the Van Eaton Gallery.  I’ve actually never seen anyone else mention this Easter Egg, so I take pride that I might have been the first to discover it!

The DisneySea Tower of Terror: Part 1 Intro, Surrounding Area, and Fastpass Stand

This, as you may recognize, is a Disney Tower of Terror attraction.

However, it is not a Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attraction.  Well, at least unless you dive deep into the increasingly intricate lore connecting Disney's parks, at which point a distressing amount of attractions actually take place in the Twilight Zone.

The Tokyo DisneySea version of the Tower of Terror seems to be somewhat famous now for having a different story than the other incarnations.  Therefore, I figured, it probably served the purposes of this project best to start by introducing the story and lore of this version before getting to the actual walkthrough.

That, it turned out, was a really bad idea.

The DisneySea Tower of Terror (Tokyo Tower for short, despite the fact that that's the name for a completely different Tokyo landmark) is one of the cornerstone attractions for Disney's ongoing Society of Adventurers and Explorers (SEA) timeline.  And, now spanning all of Disney's parks around the globe, SEA has a lot to explain.  Maybe too much to explain.  An overwhelming amount to explain that caused me to procrastinate on writing this for nearly a year.  It doesn't help that, given SEA and this attraction's location in the Tokyo parks, a lot of promotional material is in Japanese, and I had to rely on translations and summaries of varying quality.  So, as a disclaimer at the start here, I'll state that I tried to focus just on the story affecting this attraction (for my sanity's sake), did my best to find reliable-seeming translations, and I'll direct you to this Laffite's Landing article for a summary of the larger SEA lore instead of trying to explain it myself.

Also, like with previous walkthroughs, everything will be written in past tense for consistency purposes, despite this version not only still operating, but being the version LEAST likely to ever shut down.

Information will be as accurate as possible to April 2019.

And now, on to the walkthrough:

The official attraction poster, on a ticket booth outside DisneySea

DisneySea's Tower of Terror was located in the American Waterfront section of the park on [insert street names here].  The American Waterfront represented the hustle and bustle of early 1900s New York: a thriving, rapidly growing urban area with a busy port, elevated streetcars, and the glitter of the theaters.  However, just beyond the idyllic Waterfront Park, there loomed an imposing reminder that not everything was well in this land--the abandoned Hotel Hightower.  After a fateful New Year's party to celebrate acquiring yet another stolen artifact, its owner met a terrible fate in an elevator crash, and the building was spared by the New York Preservation Society, which now runs tours of the structure.

View of American Waterfront from across DisneySea's central lake

Built by Harrison Hightower as a testament to his own ego, and as a place to house his massive collection of stolen artifacts, it dominated the American Waterfront skyline.  Its architectural style was best described as "eclectic", and featured a lot of "exotic" details such as middle-eastern style arches.  Hightower didn't just steal artifacts, he stole architectural styles!

Overall view of the exterior, showing the building shape.

A closer-up overall view.

The very Moroccan-inspired gift shop exterior, on the right side of the building, with a bit of the fastpass stand on the right side of the image.

In front of the Tower stood Waterfront Park, an idyllic spot with benches under pavilions with words like "Art", "Dance", and "Theater" engraved on them.  It looked like there was usually fountains in the center of the park, but since I visited at Easter time there was a large, garish, theme-breaking Easter Bunny/Chickens display filling the space instead.  I did my best to crop that out of my photo.  Anyways, I found it notable that the primary front-facing approach to the looming Tower went through an idyllic park with inscriptions celebrating humanity's positive creative endeavors, while the Hotel Hightower was a testament to plunder and ego.

View from Waterfront Park

In front of the ride was a warning sign, written in three languages: Japanese, English, and what I believe is Chinese (please correct me if I am wrong).

Warning sign

Canonically, this was the oldest hotel in the Tower of Terror universe.  Having been constructed in the 1800s (it was dedicated in 1889, as per an inscription on a brick near the fastpass entrance), it featured details such as having "hansom cabs only" painted on the curb in front of the entrance and having the fastpass stand be horse stables or a carriage house.  Florida Tower's signage indicates that it also had horse stables at some point as well, but Tokyo's prominent display of the actual stables, in a location convenient for theoretical hotel guests, really drove home the point that we're in an era where horses are still the primary transportation.

The dedication plaque, inscribed one one side of the fastpass entrance arch.

Painted curb in front of the hotel entrance.  Hansom cabs are horse-drawn taxis, in case anyone was wondering.

Sign on the fence outside of the fastpass courtyard indicating that this is a carriage entrance

Fastpass stand/stables exterior

Overall view of the fastpass stand interior

Fastpass distribution machine

Fastpass stand rear wall, with a cast member.  This wall is behind you as you face the ticket machines.

Those rectangular plaques on the rear wall of the fastpass stand confirmed the structure's former use as a stable/coach house.  They read "Coachmen must be responsible for their carriages at all times", and had the hotel's name and logo at the top.

That "HH" logo (Hotel Hightower, of course; no need for it to be "HTH" here) also appeared on emblems on the columns of the fastpass stand.

HH logo plaque on one of the columns of the fastpass stand

Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea still used the original paper-based Fastpass system.  The tickets had blue monochrome artwork at the top (much like DCA Tower, albeit a less saturated blue),  displaying the "Tower of Terror" logo with an illustration of Shiriki Utundu's head and lightning emanating from the top of the Tower.

A "not a fastpass" ticket I got specifically so that I'd have an example of the art.  I don't have examples of actual tickets because I, well, used them.  Apologies for the photo quality; there were technical difficulties with my scanner, so a phone pic had to suffice.

There was one more noteworthy feature of this fastpass courtyard, besides the gift shop entrance/exit.  Across from the fastpass stand was a wall with stained glass doors, and an alternate set of entrance/emergency exit doors.  This was the exterior of one of the lobby walls, with the alternate entrance/emergency exit doors being used for what appeared to be the child switch pass system.  As a result, a copy of the ride's warning sign was posted to the left of them.  Interestingly, guests using that door would find themselves walking through one of the lobby show scenes, which I'll elaborate more about when discussing the actual lobby.

The wall with the stained glass door and alternate entrance/emergency exit

Cast member exiting the side door, plus a look at some of the further architectural details

On the stained glass doors was a sign reading:

CLOSED

By order of the city of New York 

Department of Building Safety

NO ADMITTANCE

Asmuth Sign Company, Delancy Street

The "Closed" sign.  I assume the Asmuth Sign Company and/or Delancy Street is a reference to SEA lore, given how absolutely lore-dense this attraction is, but cannot confirm that assumption.

The fastpass courtyard was also on the fastpass entrance side of the main entryway.

Archway/side view of the fastpass entrance from the fastpass courtyard

Detail of gryphon carving and HH logo in the arch

Overall view of the fastpass entrance, with a convenient clock.  The actual entry arch is that small one on the right; the larger central one was for standby.  Furthermore, the two CMs (in black dresses) are flanking the date plaque.

Detail of the clock, showing the HH logo in place of the 12

You might have noticed that this building shared its main shape with the Paris and California versions of the Tower.  However, you may also have something odd about the placement of the gift shop relative to the main building.  Whereas Paris and California had the gift shop and exit to the left of the main building, Tokyo placed it on the opposite side, with an extended standby queue garden going along the left side.

The central entrance had a marquee reading "Hotel Hightower", with the address of One Park Avenue.  Periodically, this sign would light up with hidden green lights spelling "Tower of Terror".

The overall front entrance with the marquee in unlit mode.  Note how standby enters under the marquee but fastpass enters through the right arch.

Front entrance with the marquee lit with "Tower of Terror"

Along the standby queue enclosure along the building on the left (before the gardens), there were signs advertising tours of the hotel by the New York Preservation Society.  In addition to hyping the tour as a celebration of the legacy of Harrison Hightower, these signs also established "Tower of Terror" as being an in-universe nickname for the building.  The side of these signs facing the queue had displays full of lore, but I'll cover that when I cover the standby queue.

Click to enlarge the photo if you want to read the individual signs!

The gate enclosing the standby queue gardens also had another "Closed: No Admittance" sign, same as the one found in the fastpass courtyard.

Garden fencing and gates.  Note the HH logo plaques on the columns.

The Tower had two different types of unique trashcan designs; the New York Preservation Society designs dotted the exterior and surrounding areas, while Hotel Hightower ones were within the bounds of the attraction itself.

New York Preservation Society trash and recycle cans

At night, the exterior lit up a dramatic saturated blue, thus following the Tower of Terror tradition of using blue to signify the supernatural.

However, this was not the most prominent lighting effect present on the exterior.  One of the most dramatic aspects of this version was how animated the exterior was at all times of the day.  With the exception of the name-changing marquee that shared an effect found at other Towers, the rest of the exterior animation was unique to Tokyo.  When any of the ride vehicles reached the top and the doors opened for that dramatic exterior view, green lightning crackled from the top penthouse window to the appropriate drop shaft, timed perfectly so that the car dropped when "struck" by the electricity.  The appropriate sound effects also accompanied this effect, and it was done at all times of the day, not just at night as one might expect.

Note that, given the difficulty of capturing such a fast sequence on photo, I had to use pictures from different "lightning strikes" to show each stage of the effect, hence the inconsistency of which shaft is lighting up.

The Tower at night, from across the lake

Lightning emanates from the cursed penthouse

Lightning from the penthouse strikes a drop shaft

Another unique aspect of Tokyo Tower was just how much lore got dropped on you before you could even get in the queue.  Without even getting into the finer details of the larger SEA lore and how it tied into details of American Waterfront, there's a whole newspaper display about Harrison Hightower and his hotel, placed near the fastpass entrance.

DEFINITELY click to enlarge and read!

Every clipping in that display is readable and lore-relevant.  And that display was the abridged version!  This display case was for the benefit of fastpass riders, or for times when the standby queue was too short to pass the full lore display (on the back of the three signs advertising tours) in the standby queue.

This is in stark contrast to the Twilight Zone versions.  Those three all let the atmosphere alone do the talking; there's lots of very detailed spooky hotel stuff going on, telling the story of glamorous resorts suddenly abandoned after a disaster.  However, none of them started off by introducing specific names or events; that didn't even begin to be revealed until the pre-show.  Even then, throughout the ride, the Twilight Zone Towers remained coy about specific details (you had to watch the dubiously canon TV movie to even know the ghosts' names); everything started as an enigma and ended only slightly less so, and that was a deliberate part of the spookiness.

Instead, Tokyo starts off your experience with a ton of specific detail, which is just a small part of the downright overwhelming SEA lore.  Throughout the ride guests know exactly what is happening to them, why, and by whom.

Neither approach to lore is necessarily better than the other (as I'll attempt to convey in the rest of this series, Tokyo certainly doesn't skimp on atmospheric detail), but they are incredibly opposite each other.

Faced with that wall of information about whose hotel this was and why us guests are supposed to be there, let's get in the queue!