The New Year's Day Twilight Zone Marathon

Running out the clock on the year every holiday season is always only about one thing, The New Year’s Day Twilight Zone marathon. It’s a day spent not only with one of the greatest shows of all time, but it’s the perfect detox from the previous year (and perhaps also the previous night), and just a wonderful way to start the new year. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. In your pajamas, inevitably eating leftovers, and spending time with some amazing golden oldies. Seasoned marathon veterans will know that the real classics don’t usually start to air until around 6pm. That’s when ‘Time enough at last’, ‘Nightmare at 20,000 Feet’, ‘Eye of the beholder’ and ‘Five characters in search of an exit’ start to show up in the schedule.

Further down the list of favorites in a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind, and airing in the mid-afternoon slots, are some of the real gems though, the deeper cuts, especially from some of the earlier seasons. The wonderful ‘A Stop at Willoughby’, ‘A Hundred Yards Over the Rim’ and my all-time favorite, ‘Nick of time’, with a barely-out-of-diapers William Shatner losing his mind thinking a diner’s fortune teller machine is actually telling the truth.

These days it might feel like real life is more like an episode of the Twilight Zone (we’re looking at you, Black Mirror), but starting every January 1st spending all day with these old friends, who never truly seem to age, and are always just as compelling and expertly-written as they were 60 years ago, always seems to be the perfect way to ease into the new year.

The Twilight Zone New Year’s Day marathon airs on  SYFY on New Year’s Day

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