Sadly, I just couldn't stay awake for the marathon in the wee hours at the start, and I was busy with a family get together during the day. I finally checked in at right as Static was ongoing (never been a favorite, to be honest, as I have documented here plenty of times), so I would say officially, Probe 7: Over and Out was really the first full episode for this marathon. The appeal of the 4th of July marathon has not always been as significant as the New Year's, since a lot of the time you will get two days plus to get in some mini-marathons if not outright blocks of hours on end. The 4th of July marathon was more important in the 90s for me when I would watch them with my deceased uncle before attending our family gathering later in the afternoon. I would record the marathon on VHS tapes and watch them during the next week.
Probe 7: Over and Out, like a lot of others, I have given so much writing to that I have very little left to say. I wish the content of the episode -- Colonel Adam Cook crashlands on a type of "Eden world" along with an alien humanoid woman, hoping to find a new world for his American government while a World nuclear war is about to threaten humankind -- was a relic and not as relevant today, but the threat of global annihilation remains just as prescient. I think I enjoy watching this episode as part of a marathon because it really seems to fit the format of coming and going episodes. It just doesn't hit with much punch except the tragedy of knowing that the earth Cook left is now enduring atomic war and endless suffering and death. Cook actually has a fresh start on a planet seemingly uninhabited much...at least from what we see.
A Hundred Yards Over the Rim is that episode, as I have mentioned before, I usually LOVE watching during the New Year's marathon during the day. I don't like it as much as a night showing as I do during the afternoon. It just feels like an afternoon episode. It's that inexplicable time travel episode where characters who should never meet doing so in an extraordinary way setting forth important events, especially the wagon train frontiersman Robertson and the penicillin he will take back with him to a dying son. Imagine being Joe and Mary Lou, just at their diner working a normal day, encountering Robertson's Christian Horn from 1847, then not long after meeting him, he's gone. Horn will remain that person they met, I'm sure they will never forget.
The Long Morrow, oh man, what a heartbreaking experience every time I watch it. I plan to review this episode in the coming week on its own. I will just say that this episode is like a jab right in the heart. Human sacrifice for love that demands decades of loneliness and forgoing a youth kept viable in cryogenic sleep if so inclined, on a mission that was important at the time of departure later rendered unnecessary.
The Rip Van Winkle Caper is one of those episodes I just always expect to show up early or mid morning right at the beginning of a New Year's Eve marathon. For me it's one of those fun let's get the party started marathoners. Not a favorite, though: Another cryogenics episode, except this go-around bank robbers fight over gold bars until no one is left to realize that in a hundred years their value is meaningless.
I am so glad I got to watch one of my sleeper gems during marathon time. One of those marathon goodies I always looked forward to back in the 90s, Stopover in a Quiet Town, exploiting the creepy vibes of Where Is Everybody?, has a couple, recovering from a drunk with a big hangover during an out-on-the-night in NYC, trying to figure out why they are all alone within a “facade town”. Everything is “stage”, nothing real, as if they were dropped right into a manufactured “doll town”. When the question shows up on the Reddit subreddit, Twilight Zone, what are the most underrated episodes? I always mention this one.
I love Buster Keaton but, if I'm honest, Once Upon a Time, about the time travel helmet, slapsticky humor as the emphasis has its place right in the early morning when I am asleep. Naw, that's mean. It's the perfect mid afternoon time waster after some intense episodes where its light-hearted nature might be more welcome.
My final episode of the marathon is often one of the last for the New Year's Day: The Fear. Very simple, often very dialogue heavy about dealing with fear and whether to combat it or hide from it, small aliens using technology to appear gigantic as scare tactics, The Fear used to be one of those episodes that is easily forgotten when Twilight Zone is discussed at large. It's a two performer, essentially one location, lower budget story seemingly made to save money.
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