2023 Twilight Zone Marathon Pre-New Year's Eve -- All Day SYFY

 I almost got an entire day in. I woke up at 2 pm after a nice sleep, having missed the entire morning block. That's okay, because I just reached the 6:30 pm (Central Time), prime-time block (I did watch "King Nine Will Not Return" at 8 pm out of order, but that was it). Watching "The After Hours" at 11:30 pm instead when it came on at 6:30 pm still felt right. I am glad "The After Hours" made the prime time lineup this year, even if it was on the Eve to New Year's Eve. I hate that "The Hitch-Hiker" was in the morning, though. I still believe it belongs in prime-time, but it always seems to get lost in a forgotten morning lineup when everyone's asleep or buried in an early afternoon. One year, maybe SYFY will give "The Hitch-Hiker" its rightful place in the prime real estate when most TZ fans will be watching. Or maybe when it was shown is prime real estate. I watched it some time Saturday afternoon, but "The Fever" is such a silly followup to it. Today's viewing of "The Fever" had me rolling my eyes. Never has the episode been more cartoonish and exaggerated as it was watching it this afternoon. That one does belong on the Eve to New Year's Eve and not in a strong lineup of episodes when most TZ fans (or even newbies) might be watching. On the TZ Reddit board, we were discussing folks taking flights out windows and Franklin's come apart has to be top of the list in regards to how goofy that looks. A slot machine menace seems to fit alongside the runaway shaver chasing after Finchley in "A Thing About Machines".

I'll say this though: there was a fantastic run starting with "The Last Flight" that went until "Long Live Walter Jameson" with just one great episode after another. The first season had some real gems, for sure.

There are always those standout episodes you watch during the marathon that could fall under the radar until a fresh look when watching them all day, and I think "The Last Flight" is one of those episodes that popped back up again for me to further appreciate. Haigh as Terry Decker, the Royal Air Corps pilot who flew into a particular cloud and wound up from 1917 to 1959, really gives that character such vulnerability, sense of true reflection, and a newfound reason to go back where he came from, give his life for a pilot he left behind, and recover the courage he had lost. It truly takes "Old Leadbottom" to confirm what General Harper and Major Wilson found inexplicable.

I think one of the episodes I have failed to do a real assessment on is "Long Live, Walter Jameson". I've written about it, sure. But I don't think I have ever given it the episode's just due. I think the concept about an immortal McCarthy, now a professor of history (who has lived 2000 years since Plato!), letting the cat out of the bag to another professor (Stehli), planning to marry his colleague's student daughter, not anticipating an elderly wife from the past not willing to let him hurt another woman is absolutely fascinating. McCarthy's Walter wrestles with "ending it" but admits he's too much a coward to pull the trigger...so someone else does it for him!

These were Eastern time:

12:30pm – The Hitch-Hiker (never has a testament to an episode's power remained so locked with how I still feel chills after all these years by that ending. The shabby little scarecrow man looks so unassuming and nonthreatening, but to this day still pops up in Nan's backseat and I feel that creepy tingling up and down my arms...and I still remain in awe of Inger Stevens all these years.)

1:00pm – The Fever

1:30pm – The Last Flight

2:00pm – The Purple Testament (Reynolds had a quiet intensity and haunting quality I appreciated as the officer who had seen way too many men die, even more tormented by actually seeing a glow on the faces of officers "soon to die". What a fantastic cast including Barney Phillips and Dick York, both of whom are quite concerned about Reynolds' mental health. York, though, is born for comedy, so this is a rare dramatic turn for him)

2:30pm – The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

3:00pm – A World of Difference (Who could blame Gerald for wanting to escape into the life of Arthur Curtis considering he was in the midst of alcoholism, a disastrous divorce, and a Hollywood career on a death spiral? Duff's performance remains such an anchor for the episode. I feel such sympathy for him and anxiety when he rushes back to the set to return to the world of Arthur where he had fully committed)

3:30pm – Long Live Walter Jameson

4:00pm – People Are Alike All Over (this is one of the episodes I'm sure I thought was far more significant in the 90s when I was watching it as a teenager than I do today. It has a Mars with breathable air, featuring Martians wearing togas, and Roddy McDowell as a biologist who never wanted to leave Earth to begin with. And he's a zoo animal by the end. It feels like a cheesy 50s sci-fi movie today).

4:30pm – Big Tall Wish (I think Dixon is wonderful as the punchdrunk boxer with a good heart but quashed dreams who has lost faith in any hope of a successful life in the sport he initially had aspirations, unwilling to let a little boy he is dear friends with wish him into a win; I dunno: I just felt the ending is a bit of a downer, with the wish of the episode more or less diffused and nothing at all changed from the beginning to the end...everyone remains where they were, which is kinda of a bummer).

5:00pm – A Nice Place to Visit (another episode spent with Rocky Valentine in the easiest hell imaginable is another 30 minutes wasted during the marathon)

5:30pm – Nightmare as a Child (Janice Rule's "childhood voice" stirs up repressed memories...and the killer responsible for her mother's death returns to see how much she remembers and to silence her for good).

6:00pm – A Stop At Willoughby (this remains a BIG HIT with today's TZ fans. I notice that it pops up a lot with conversations about the show as a favorite. Its ending is such a tragedy, and Gart is just a heartbreaking TZ figure, crushed by the weight of expectations and pressures he is just not cut out for. I LOVE the depiction of Willoughby, though, and there is that part of me who truly hopes Gart found his spiritual escape, an escape his icy wife and belligerent boss failed to give him in life.)

6:30pm – A Passage For Trumpet (Gabe can sure blow that trumpet and Joey Crown could use some inspiration while in a state of limbo, needing to kick the booze and rededicate himself to the music that leaves a lasting melody)

7:00pm – Mr. Bevis (the episode's kooky personality might be embraced by fans of "Cavender is Coming", but I found the character too silly along with the episode's story. This does seem to be a cult classic).

7:30pm – The After Hours