The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

“The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” is strictly an ensemble piece. However, Steve Brand (Claude Akins) is this episode’s rough equivalent to a protagonist. Throughout the events of the story, he is vocally suspicious of what he calls the neighborhood’s “monster kick.” This attitude is framed as reasonable and ethical in that Steve is consistently calm, logical, and nonviolent throughout the crisis. He only loses his composure when Charlie kills Pete Van Horn, but even then he refrains from suggesting that Charlie is anything other than human: “Charlie, there’s a dead man on the sidewalk and you killed him! Does this look like a gag to you?” (14). His final lines and directions in the screenplay depict him begging his neighbors to calm down, for which he is punched in the face.

At the end of the episode, it is revealed that Steve is partially wrong about the aliens: They are indeed real and preying on Maple Street, but they aren’t secretly living there. Despite being wrong about the aliens’ existence, Steve’s prudent and cooperative approach to problem solving would have been an effective defense against them. The aliens’ strategy relied upon humans turning against each other in a crisis.