The Twilight Zone Marathon

Since the last The Twilight Zone Marathon thread was in 2019, I thought I’d just open a new one.

It’s Fourth of July 2025, and I just can’t watch the news today. So I’ll return to my tradition of watching the annual TZ marathon.

‘Nightmare As A Child’ is playing now, and ‘The Hitchhiker’ is next. After that, there are eight astronaut-themed episodes in a row.

I just looked. They stuck 2 hours of ‘other’ right in the middle of The Marathon.

What’s up with that??

I guess they didn’t want to preempt Resident Alien.

It’s supposed to be a new episode of Resident Alien.

Why any TV network would schedule a new episode of any series on July 4 is a mystery to me.

Since I saw nearly all the Twilight Zone shows when they first aired and many times since, I’m a little burned out on TZ. So, we’re going to watch the Parks and Recreation marathon to avoid politics.

Not a thread-shit, but with TWZ and other shows on streaming, I don’t even bother with the marathons anymore. And that makes me sad, because they made Thanksgiving and New Years and other holidays more tolerable.

I did binge-stream TWZ over the past year, and it was every episode. I didn’t like that the marathons picked mostly the same episodes every year, even if they were among the best ones.

The ads are killin’ me.

Very short marathon today. SWMBO switched over to historical documentaries on The History Channel. We’ve been watching those all day. If I have to have a TZ Marathon, I always have the DVDs of the original series and the 1980s series.

There were actually two TZ marathons…one on SyFy and one on the nostalgia channel Heroes & Icons (which dubbed its marathon “Rod, White & Blue”). Strangely enough, both channels ran the hour-long gem “On Thursday We Leave For Home” at the same time. (That starred James Whitmore in his first role as a man who’d spent years toughing out a harsh environment, become a respected figure to those trapped with him, and cracked at the thought of leaving it because it was all he’d come to know.)

You and me both.

I can’t STANDS no more how, even worst than the incessant, same every episode commercials (I walked sic BLUCKS! I was soooo proud of myself!,plus the sad puppies, the sad elephants, the sad eastern Eurppean Jews, the sad soldiers with missing limbs and brain parts, and the sad exploited deformed children) , they butcher shows for time on these sub-channels. I had to quit watching Hogan’s Heroes because they cut so much, they even cut the setup to jokes, making the punchline hang there. In Emergency! they eliminate whole subplots. You can tell because there are actors listed you never saw.

Maybe I’ll pull out the discs and have my own marathon,. After all, “there’s room for one more, honey!”

Didn’t know it until now, but the Heroes & Icons marathon is still going on. And will until late Sunday. I just watched another underrated fave of mine, “In Praise of Pip” with Jack Klugman and Billy Mumy. (Notable for being one of the first, if not the first, time the Vietnam War was acknowledged in a prime-time scripted series.)

Up next: “Night of the Meek”, one of the few really good shot-on-video episodes. (There were a handful of them in the second season.)

I tried to find it, but could not find it where I expected to. I couldn’t find my channel lineup on Xfinity, so I just googled.

Heroes & Icons (H&I) is no longer available on Xfinity in many locations. It was previously on channel 116… but was removed without notice.

I’ve moved to Gilligan’s Island marathon on on Sundance.

Painfully bored. Svengoolie will save me. Well, maybe. :upside_down_face:

We’ve just started My Favorite Martian on DVD.

Can I just say how much I miss H&I specifically as part of the broadcast (antenna) lineup? Had it in Norfolk 6 or 7 years ago, but nowhere else I have lived since. How I miss its evening Star Trek programming…

Yes! Gotta have that Trek!

My favorite episode of The Twilight Zone is “A Game of Pool”. When SyFy runs it, they cut a particular line, and it really bothers me. That episode is just two guys talking. It’s so well written that taking out just one line upsets the rhythm.

They eliminate only two episodes out of the entire run, two of the few I’d like to rewatch. The Japanese sailor, and the follow-on Rashomon sequel. I haven’t seen them in 40 years.

I assume it is because Vito Scotti plays a cringeworthy stereotype Japanese man that would make Mickey Rooney cry “that’s true mruch!”

One of my faves.

Also “One for the Angels”.

Thought I’d put this here since it’s on topic.
If you’re a fan of the show I highly recommend Twilight Zone Companion, 3rd Edition (Expanded and Revised): Zicree, Marc Scott: 9781935247173: Amazon.com: Books
I have the first edition which I got back in the 80s. Great episode summaries with the Serling intros and outros and interesting trivia on each.