Hell, Serling gave us scarily powerful psychic kids on TV well before Stranger Things made that hip! Want something spookier? There’s like three episodes about creepy dummies and dolls. Too melancholy for you? What about a computer that falls in love with its programmer? If you’d prefer to feel stressed out, then discover what would really happen to a society in panic, as told through the eyes of a single suburban street. Not sold on a story about a retirement home sipping from the fountain of youth? That’s ok! Wait till you see the one about the alcoholic department store Santa who may get the job opportunity of a lifetime. Nothing was too fantastical or off-limits in The Twilight Zone, and there was always something for everyone. Serling stretched the boundaries of what stories we could – and should – be telling in mid-century television. Through the lens of sci-fi and horror, the show was able to tackle everything from global anxiety over nuclear war and emerging technologies to themes of racism and authoritarianism to something as simple as asking the question, “What lies beyond the stars?” Each new episode of The Twilight Zone is filled with wonder and impossibilities that oftentimes rear too close to reality for comfort. These marathons let you get a true sense of how Serling used the trappings of genre to tell stories that were informed by what was happening in the world in the late ‘50s and early 60s. Sounds a lot like what you probably did last weekend, am I right?īy getting a chance to watch back-to-back episodes, The Twilight Zone didn’t just become a flash in the pan classic show that the modern viewer caught and forgot on the local stations.
What else are you to do as a 10-year-old indoor kid in 1998 on holiday break with nothing but syndicated television and basic cable to watch? Check out 8 hours of TV that will absolutely melt your mind. The earliest memories I have of the show – outside of a particularly haunting pinball machine – are through tuning into these day-long marathons. While the genesis of these holiday marathons is contested from coast to coast, what they did was breed new generations of fans long after its cancellation in 1964. Who among us hasn’t spent a holiday – Independence Day, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, New Year’s Eve – watching a marathon of The Twilight Zone? Tried and tested for over the last thirty years, the annual holiday tradition of marathoning Rod Serling’s classic showcase of bold genre entertainment is as synonymous with the show as Serling’s famous narration and that iconic opening title sequence. Follow along with here for updates and on Twitter, keep tabs with #OnePerfectBinge. This article is part of our One Perfect Binge bracket project.
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