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How to Watch SYFY's Super-Sized Twilight Zone New Year's 2023 Marathon To Ring In 2024
With this year's marathon spanning a total of three days, you have all the time in the world to catch the classic Rod Serling anthology.
Just as you can count on our planet making a full rotation around the sun every 365 days or so, you can also rest assured that SYFY will use the key of imagination to unlock its annual New Year's marathon of The Twilight Zone. The honored tradition of airing Rod Serling's groundbreaking anthology series won't be going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, the 2023-24 edition is super-sized, with the marathon spanning a total of three whole days — starting Saturday (December 30) and ending Tuesday (January 2).
Who needs to smooch someone at midnight when you've got Jason Foster (Robert Keith) teaching his wicked family members a lesson they'll never forget in "The Masks"? Fittingly enough, the classic episode — which revolves around a collection of vain and greedy individuals ordered to wear hideous masks until the stroke of midnight — will air about 40 minutes before the ball drops. If someone offers you a grotesque party favor along with that glass of Champagne, you might want to turn it down.
RELATED: George R.R. Martin on Why He Owes His TV Career to The Twilight Zone
How to watch SYFY's Twilight Zone marathon for New Year's 2023
The fun begins Saturday, December 30 at 8 a.m. EST and runs all the way through Tuesday, Jan. 2 at 1 a.m. with non-stop Twilight Zone. It all starts with Season 1's "The Lonely." Written by Serling and directed by Jack Smight, the poignant tale stars Jack Warden as Corry, a convicted criminal living out a lonely prison on a desert-like asteroid floating through space. The felon's aching desire for a modicum of human interaction is suddenly filled when one of the regular shipments of supplies from Earth includes an android named Alicia (Jean Marsh).
Things only heat up from there with "Time Enough at Last," an Uber-iconic episode starring Burgress Meredith (he'd go on to appear in three more installments) and featuring one of the show's most well-known conclusions. From there, the marathon continues into the wee hours of Tuesday, January 2 with five, hour-long episodes from Season 4: "Caesar and Me," "The Jeopardy Room," "The Parallel," "I Dream of Genie," and "No Time Like the Past."
What is The Twilight Zone?
Seriously, do we really need to answer that question? Okay, well, here goes... Created by Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone was an anthology that ran on CBS for a total of 156 episodes across five seasons between 1959 and 1964. Each episode explored deep human themes (fear, bigotry, avarice, corruption of power, nuclear annihilation, societal acceptance, etc.) through the lens of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. Considered to be a masterpiece ahead of its time by pretty much everyone, the series gained a reputation for not being afraid to explore weighty topics, or shock viewers with unforeseen twist endings.
"I hear from people who write me and tell me what an influence my dad had on them professionally. They became writers," Serling's daughter, Anne, told SYFY WIRE over Zoom back in 2020. "They would watch the show [as kids]. Many had tumultuous childhoods and would think of my dad as their father. It’s so touching and moving and surprising to hear these stories after all this time. Obviously, I feel this tremendous personal loss, but to hear other people expressing their loss, it’s just — what can I say? — it’s amazing."
The Twilight Zone has been revived for television three times, the most recent iteration hailing from executive producer Jordan Peele.
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Gear up for The Twilight Zone marathon with other SYFY shows like Resident Alien, Chucky, and The Ark — all of which are currently streaming on Peacock.
