Happy Merry Twilight Zone Day!

It’s more like a week for me.

New Year’s Eve is when we settle in to binge watch the classic “Twilight Zone” series. These New Year’s marathons predate even the concept of “binging.” Arlen Schumer at Den of Geek wrote in 2018:

The origins of The New Year’s Eve Twilight Zone marathon are in bit of a twilight zone of their own; no one knows which regional TV station syndicating Twilight Zone reruns started them – New York’s WPIX (Channel 11) or Los Angeles’ KTLA?—or whether they even began on that holiday at all. “The first one we did was on Thanksgiving in 1980,” said KTLA program director Mark Sonnenberg in a 1991 article in the LA Times. In a 1981 cover story, “The Great Twilight Zone Revival: Why Rod Serling’s TV Classic Lives On,” Alternative Media magazine noted that this first Thanksgiving marathon, only eight hours long, received a 16% share.

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The Sci-Fi Channel (now SyFy) started airing “Twilight Zone” marathons over the Fourth of July holiday during the mid-1990s. (It still does sporadically.)

The marathons also offered the chance to watch the hourlong episodes from Season Four, which had seldom aired in syndication.

I prefer the New Year’s marathons because “The Twilight Zone” is the perfect accompaniment to long winter nights and inclement weather. Series creator Rod Serling was born on Christmas Day (his 100th birthday is next year) so the holiday timing is especially appropriate.

SyFy butchers “The Twilight Zone” to pack in more commercials — something Serling might’ve satirized at the time. Although Serling died far too young in 1975 at the age of 50, he’d already resented the fate of his show in syndication.

“You wouldn't recognize what the series was,” he told the Detroit Free Press.
”Full scenes deleted. It looks like a long, protracted commercial separated by fragmentary moments of indistinct drama.”

Yet, “The Twilight Zone” still endured, even in bowdlerized form. That’s how I first discovered the series, during late-night airings in the 11:30 p.m. timeslot after the news. (Serling sold CBS the rights to the show, so he never profited from its syndicated success.)

Fortunately, the series is no longer exclusive to the cable channel. Netflix offered complete episodes until 2021 (although without Season Four). You can also watch “The Twilight Zone” on Amazon Prime Video. Yes, you’ll have to sit through ads but the episodes are otherwise intact.

I’ve long since acquired the complete series on iTunes. I started by own marathon this morning, but alas, that’s yet another way that our curated media experiences can isolate us. There was a comforting communal aspect to “Twilight Zone” fans across the nation watching the same episodes simultaneously. SyFy has released its schedule so you could follow along at home if you wish.

I’m not going to offer a “Must Watch” list or anything so “bro-ish.” The joy of the marathon was that you could happen upon an episode you’ve never seen or hadn’t fully appreciated.

I will say that the Season One intro is my favorite. Bernard Herrmann’s score is mesmerizing, but the network executives had poor taste and ditched it for the next season.

The replacement theme is certainly catchy and what everyone hears when they think of “The Twilight Zone,” but its history is hardly a creative triumph.

Matthew Dessem at Slate wrote:

The problem is that the music we all know as the theme from The Twilight Zone isn’t, in fact, the theme from The Twilight Zone. It’s two pieces of music spliced together from a stock library CBS built as part of a cost-saving and union-busting campaign. Marius Constant, the original composer, was unaware for years that he’d accidentally written the theme to a popular television show, and for decades was paid nothing beyond his original fee, even as the show lived longer than Walter Jameson in syndication.

Dessem dismissed the second Season One intro as “half-assed.” I disagree, but I’m admittedly strange.

Enjoy this year’s trip to the Twilight Zone, however you choose to celebrate.

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