SyFy New Year’s Marathon 2012

It’s that time again. This time around SyFy is airing a whopping 45 hours’ worth of classic Twilight Zone (half an hour more than last year!). Here’s the schedule, color-coded for your convenience (all times are Eastern).

Season 1 = blue (28)

Season 2 = red (18)

Season 3 = green (21)

Season 4 = N/A

Season 5 = purple (23)

Dec. 31, 2012

08:00 am: “The Fever”
08:30 am: “Perchance to Dream”
09:00 am: “One for the Angels”
09:30 am: “The Prime Mover”
10:00 am: “Death’s-Head Revisited”
10:30 am: “What You Need”
11:00 am: “The Jeopardy Room”
11:30 am: “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine”
12:00 pm: “Long Live Walter Jameson”
12:30 pm: “A Piano in the House”
01:00 pm: “What’s in the Box”
01:30 pm: “Black Leather Jackets”
02:00 pm: “A Nice Place to Visit”
02:30 pm: “The 7th is Made up of Phantoms”
03:00 pm: “King Nine Will Not Return”
03:30 pm: “Mr. Denton on Doomsday”
04:00 pm: “The Shelter”
04:30 pm: “Night of the Meek”
05:00 pm: “It’s a Good Life”
05:30 pm: “Probe 7, Over and Out”
06:00 pm: “A Kind of Stopwatch”
06:30 pm: “Little Girl Lost”
07:00 pm: “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”
07:30 pm: “Eye of the Beholder”
08:00 pm: “The Invaders”
08:30 pm: “Where is Everybody?”
09:00 pm: “The Hitch-Hiker”
09:30 pm: “To Serve Man”
10:00 pm: “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”
10:30 pm: “Living Doll”
11:00pm: “The Masks”
11:30 pm: “I Sing the Body Electric”

Jan. 1, 2013

12:00 am: “The Midnight Sun”
12:30 am: “Stopover in a Quiet Town”
01:00 am: “Long Distance Call”
01:30 am: “The Old Man in the Cave”
02:00 am: “The After Hours”
02:30 am: “Mr. Bevis”
03:00 am: “Twenty Two”
03:30 am: “The Grave”
04:00 am: “Night Call”
04:30 am: “Judgment Night”
05:00 am: “Nightmare as a Child”
05:30 am: “The Four of Us Are Dying”
06:00 am: “The Silence”
06:30 am: “I Shot an Arrow into the Air”
07:00 am: “In Praise of Pip”
07:30 am: “Uncle Simon”
08:00 am: “Queen of the Nile”
08:30 am: “A World of His Own”
09:00 am: “Mr. Garrity and the Graves”
09:30 am: “A Thing About Machines”
10:00 am: “The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank”
10:30 am: “Hocus-Pocus and Frisby”
11:00 am: “A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain”
11:30 am: “The Arrival”
12:00 pm: “Escape Clause”
12:30 pm: “And When the Sky Was Opened”
01:00 pm: “The Hunt”
01:30 pm: “People Are Alike All Over”
02:00 pm: “Caesar and Me”
02:30 pm: “The Odyssey of Flight 33″
03:00 pm: “A Penny for Your Thoughts”
03:30 pm: “Third from the Sun”
04:00 pm: “The Little People”
04:30 pm: “Nick of Time”
05:00 pm: “Number 12 Looks Just Like You”
05:30 pm: “A Hundred Yards Over the Rim”
06:00 pm: “A Most Unusual Camera”
06:30 pm: “Five Characters in Search of an Exit”
07:00 pm: “A Stop at Willoughby”
07:30 pm: “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street”
08:00 pm: “The Howling Man”
08:30 pm: “Time Enough at Last”
09:00 pm: “The Bewitchin’ Pool”
09:30 pm: “Kick the Can”
10:00 pm: “The Obsolete Man”
10:30 pm: “The Dummy”
11:00 pm: “Dead Man’s Shoes”
11:30 pm: “A Game of Pool”

Jan. 2, 2013

12:00 am: “The Rip Van Winkle Caper”
12:30 am: “I Am the Night — Color Me Black”
01:00 am: “Walking Distance”
01:30 am: “Ring-a-Ding Girl”
02:00 am: “Mr. Dingle, the Strong”
02:30 am: “The Lonely”
03:00 am: “Two”
03:30 am: “The Brain Center at Whipple’s”
04:00 am: “The Last Flight”
04:30 am: “The Purple Testament”

Thoughts:

Oh look, they’re showing “The Midnight Sun” at midnight again… cute.

Like last year, the eighteen hour-long episodes from season 4 aren’t represented at all, which is a goddamned shame, given that January 3^rd marks the 50^th anniversary of season 4’s premiere!  Way to go, idiots.

SyFy has actually assembled (or, more likely, thrown together blindfolded) a fairly equal sampling from the four seasons (all half-hour episodes); however, their choices are somewhat baffling.  They’ve included offensive crap like “Mr. Bevis” and “Mr. Dingle, the Strong” while leaving out classics like “Shadow Play” and “Mirror Image.”  Dumb, dumb, dumb. 

I’m sure my tone belies my true feelings: these marathons are largely bullshit.  I continue to report on them because… well… why exactly do I bother?  I never watch them, since I have the entire series on blu-ray, uncut and complete, in pristine high-definition (I also have high-def rips of all 156 episodes on my laptop; how else do you think I get my screen captures?).  I guess I feel obligated to pass on the information, and I guess it’s nice that SyFy does these marathons at all.  I guess if one person stumbles across this blog, sees the schedule and tunes in, and subsequently becomes a TZ fan for life, then it was worth it.*

*If you’re reading this and you've never seen The Twilight Zone, and your interest is sufficiently piqued to tune in and sample a few episodes, drop me a line in the comments section and let me know.  I’m still waiting for that rare opportunity to change somebody’s life….