What’s your favorite holiday? Some people say Christmas, while others might say Thanksgiving or Valentine’s Day. But for me, the best holiday is New Years’. Not because I go out partying or anything. I can drink heavily any day of the year, especially after a year like 2017. No, New Years’ is fantastic for one glorious reason: The SyFy Twilight Zone marathon.
The Twilight Zone has been one of my favorite TV shows ever since I first encountered it as a kid on the Sci-Fi Channel back in the 1990s. And I never get tired of re-watching it.
Below we have the complete schedule for this year’s Twilight Zone marathon, complete with links if you want to cheat and watch on your own time via Netflix or Amazon streaming. And if you’ve never seen the show, I can’t recommend it highly enough. Tune in for just a couple of episodes and you’ll be hooked instantly.
A lot of shows these days get compared to the greatness of The Twilight Zone, and while the comparison is sometimes apt, there are too many times when it doesn’t make any sense. It’s not fair to compare something to The Twilight Zone just because something strange or supernatural happens. The thing that binds every Twilight Zone episode is the theme of morality.
Every episode is grounded by questions of morality and force us to confront our own definitions of right and wrong. I believe that every person’s morality is fundamentally defined by what we do when there are no external negative consequences for our actions. The best episodes of the Twilight Zone start with that premise and then force the protagonist to finally stare those consequences in the face.
Happy New Year, and enjoy the marathon, however you watch it this season.
Sunday, December 31st, 4:00 AM ET: The Howling Man
The one where there’s this dude that howls to be let out of his prison cell but you probably shouldn’t let him out of his prison cell.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 4:30 AM ET: Where is Everybody?
The one where a test pilot doesn’t remember where he is and has no idea why the town he’s wandering is vacant.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 5:00 AM ET: The Thirty-Fathom Grave
The one where a US Navy crew from the 1960s think they might have found a sunken submarine from World War II.
Sunday, December 31st, 5:30 AM ET: Mirror Image
The one where a woman waiting for a bus starts seeing her doppelganger at the bus station but she’s not sure what to do about it.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 6:30 AM ET: The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank
The one where a man wakes up at his own funeral which is super confusing because everybody thought he was dead.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 7:00 AM ET: A Piano in the House
The one where a theater critic buys a player piano and the theater critic has a creepy beard so you can tell he’s a bad dude.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 7:30 AM ET: The Bard
The one where TV sponsors literally rewrite Shakespeare and Rod Serling takes some not so subtle jabs at both hack TV writers and the advertisers who want to dictate what he gets to put on the air.
Sunday, December 31st, 8:30 AM ET: The Rip Van Winkle Caper
The one where criminals steal a bunch of gold and then put themselves in suspended animation so that they can spend their gold in the future and give it to Ron Paul 2012.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 9:00 AM ET: Escape Clause
The one where a man sells his soul to the devil in exchange for an incredibly long life which will not backfire on him at all.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 9:30 AM ET: Shadow Play
The one where a guy keeps having a nightmare that he’s on Death Row.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 10:00 AM ET: The Obsolete Man
The one where a librarian in a futuristic totalitarian dystopia goes on trial.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 10:30 AM ET: The Mirror
The one where a guy who looks an awful lot like Fidel Castro discovers that a magic mirror can tell him where his next assassination attempt might be coming from.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 11:00 AM ET: The Little People
The one where two astronauts land on a planet of tiny people and one astronaut decides to rule them as a god which goes about as well as you’d expect.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 11:30 AM ET: A Quality of Mercy
The one where a ruthless white American soldier finds himself on the other side near the end of World War II.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 12:00PM ET: Valley of the Shadow
The one where a reporter stumbles upon a small town where everybody is acting weird and they’ve all got magic healing and duplicating technology that they won’t share with the outside world.
Sunday, December 31st, 1:00PM ET: The Prime Mover
The one where a compulsive gambler goes gambling with a friend who can change things with his mind.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 1:30PM ET: Back There
The one where an accidental time traveler has an opportunity to stop the Lincoln assassination.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 2:00PM ET: The Lateness of the Hour
The one where a woman is horrified by her father’s humanoid robot servants, but it’s all cool because you get to hear Rod Serling pronounce “robot” all funny like they did in the 1960s.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 2:30PM ET: The Fever
The one where a gambler becomes obsessed with a particular slot machine.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 3:00PM ET: The Midnight Sun
The one where the sun never sets and the heat is unbelievably oppressive but there’s a twist and I bet you can’t guess what it is.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 3:30PM ET: The Arrival
The one where a plane lands at an airport without any pilots, passengers or crew.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 4:00PM ET: The Grave
The one where an old lawman visits a grave of an old baddie but really wishes he hadn’t.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 4:30PM ET: Five Characters In Search of An Exit
The one that clearly inspired Saw but without all the super gross stuff, but it does have a creepy clown so there’s that.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 5:00PM ET: Nothing in the Dark
The one where an elderly woman worries that Robert Redford might be Death, finally coming for her.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 5:30PM ET: The Lonely
The one where a prisoner living on an asteroid falls in love with a robot woman.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 6:00PM ET: The Bewitchin Pool
The one where two kids can access a magical land through a portal in the bottom of their swimming pool.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 6:30PM ET: Person or Persons Unknown
The one where a guy wakes up but no one — not even his wife — seems to know who he is.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 7:00PM ET: Hocus Pocus and Frisby
The one where a pathological liar gets abducted by aliens who think he’s the smartest man on Earth.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 7:30PM ET: Stopover in a Quiet Town
The one where a couple wakes up in a strange town and try to figure out what they did last night after partying too hard.
Sunday, December 31st, 8:00PM ET: It’s a Good Life
The one where children are again shown to be history’s greatest monsters.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 8:30PM ET: A Kind of Stopwatch
The one where a man has a watch that can stop time.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 9:00PM ET: I Sing the Body Electric
The one where a robot grandmother is written by Ray Bradbury.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 9:30PM ET: The Invaders
The one where a rural woman is terrorized by alien invaders that definitely aren’t from Earth.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 10:00PM ET: The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street
The one where everybody turns on each other when mysterious things happen and it’s probably aliens or Communists or something.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 10:30PM ET: The Dummy
The one where a ventriloquist thinks his dummy is alive which seems to be a recurring theme in the Twilight Zone.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 11:00PM ET: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
The one where Captain Kirk starts seeing something on the wing of a plane that’s probably just a teddy bear that’s come to life oh god why is he shooting at it oh god why.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Sunday, December 31st, 11:30PM ET: The Masks
The one where greedy people must wear ugly masks for a night to claim their inheritance.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 12:00AM ET: Of Late I Think of Cliffordville
The one where an evil old business tycoon sells his soul to go back in time, return to his hometown, and build his empire all over again, but nothing works out quite the way he thought.
Monday, January 1st, 1:00AM ET: The After Hours
The one where a woman tries to return something to a department store but discovers a floor where the mannequins are creepier than usual.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 1:30AM ET: A Hundred Yards Over The Rim
The one where a man from olden times leaves his wagon train to go find help for his son but he slips into the future and what he finds is that future people aren’t so bad after all.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 2:00AM ET: The Silence
The one where a really chatty guy takes a bet that he can refrain from talking for a full year which doesn’t backfire at all.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 2:30AM ET: The Gift
The one where a possible alien comes bearing a gift but the people don’t want it.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 3:00AM ET: Mr. Garrity and the Graves
The one where a man blows into town promising to resurrect the dead.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 3:30AM ET: A Most Unusual Camera
The one where some crooks get ahold of a camera that can see the future.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 4:00AM ET: One More Pallbearer
The one where an eccentric and bitter millionaire’s nuclear war scare might be all too real.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 4:30AM ET: Judgment Night
The one where a man finds himself on a ship in 1942 and doesn’t know how he got there.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 5:00AM ET: He’s Alive
The one where Dennis Hopper is a neo-Nazi whose only real friend is Jewish and survived the Holocaust, but Hopper’s hate is driven by an overwhelming fear and a shadowy figure that looks an awful lot like Hitler.
Monday, January 1st, 6:00AM ET: The Old Man in the Cave
The one where people in a post-apocalyptic world worship an unseen man in a cave, which you shouldn’t read anything into at all.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 6:30AM ET: The Sixteen-millimeter Shrine
The one that’s basically a rip-off of Sunset Boulevard but still not a bad little episode.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 7:00AM ET: Cavender is Coming
The one where an incompetent guardian angel tries to redeem himself by helping Carol Burnett.
[Netflix - Hulu - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 7:30AM ET: A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain
The one where a man who’s much older than his wife gets injected with a youth serum in an attempt to keep up with his wife.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 8:00AM ET: A World of His Own
The one where a writer can alter reality through his dictation machine.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 8:30AM ET: Ring-a-Ding Girl
The one where a movie star is getting warnings from her ring.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 9:00AM ET: Twenty-two
The one where a woman is having nightmares, a nervous breakdown, or both.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 9:30AM ET: A Stop At Willoughby
The one where a big city business man falls asleep during his commute and dreams of a small town community of the past, then gets a chance to go there if he wants.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 10:00AM ET: Nightmare As A Child
The one where a creepy little girl reminds a young woman about her mother.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 10:30AM ET: Sounds and Silences
The one where a guy isn’t allowed to make any noise when he was a kid so he overcompensates as an adult and it super noisy and stuff.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 11:00AM ET: Probe 7 Over and Out
The one where a man stranded on a distant planet meets a stranded woman from a different planet.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 11:30AM ET: What’s in the Box
The one where a guy cheating on his wife starts to see weird visions on his TV set.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 12:00PM ET: In Praise of Pip
The one where a bookie tries to make amends to his son.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 12:30PM ET: The Brain Center at Whipple’s
The one where the boss fires everyone in favor of computers until there’s nobody left to make everything more efficient and the company lives happily ever after.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 1:00PM ET: From Agnes With Love
The one where a programmer’s computer, Agnes, falls in love with him and becomes quite jealous.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 1:30PM ET: The Trade-Ins
The one where an elderly couple goes shopping for new bodies.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 2:00PM ET: The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross
The one where a dude can make supernatural trades with people and everything doesn’t go as planned.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 2:30PM ET: The Mighty Casey
The one where a robot baseball player suddenly feels empathy because he’s given a heart and the heart is apparently where empathy comes from.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 3:00PM ET: Long Distance Call
The one where a young boy can talk to his dead grandma through a toy phone.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 3:30PM ET: Walking Distance
The one where a man accidentally travels into the past and talks with himself as a young kid.
Monday, January 1st, 4:00PM ET: The Hitchhiker
The one where a woman keeps seeing the same hitchhiker over and over again.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 4:30PM ET: The Encounter
The one where an American WWII veteran and a Japanese-American played by George Takei fight in an attic and it’s pretty racist and weird.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 5:00PM ET: People Are Alike All Over
The one where a man crash-lands on Mars and discovers a strange race of people.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 5:30PM ET: Little Girl Lost
The one where a man’s daughter goes missing but he can hear her cries for help.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 6:00PM ET: A Game of Pool
The one where a guy plays pool against a ghost to prove that he really is the best of all time but even if he wins he’ll have to say that he beat a ghost which is a hard thing to prove when you think about it.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 6:30PM ET: Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up
The one where some local cops try to find out which stranded bus passenger is actually a Martian.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 7:00PM ET: The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms
The one where soldiers travel back in time to Little Big Horn.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 7:30PM ET: The Odyssey of Flight 33
The one where a commercial plane travels back in time and there’s dinosaurs and stuff.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 8:00PM ET: Nick of Time
The one where Captain Kirk and his new bride play a fortune-telling machine at a diner and get spooked.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 8:30PM ET: Time Enough At Last
The one where a book nerd survives a nuclear apocalypse only to get bullied by God, who apparently hates people that are near-sighted.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 9:00PM ET: The Shelter
The one where a dude builds a nuclear fallout shelter and his neighbors make fun of him but then of course they all want to use it because shit’s about to go down.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 9:30PM ET: Living Doll
The one where a father goes to war with his daughter’s doll.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 10:00PM ET: To Serve Man
The one where an alien race lands on Earth to help humans out and nothing else happens and everybody lives happily ever after.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 10:30PM ET: A Penny For Your Thoughts
The one where a man can read people’s minds and learns that literally everybody is terrible.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 11:00PM ET: Eye of the Beholder
The one where beautiful people learn that they’re super ugly or something.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Monday, January 1st, 11:30PM ET: Number Twelve Looks Just Like You
The one where “old” people take new bodies in a utopian future where nobody ever gets old which sounds awesome because in reality we’ll all be dead really soon.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Tuesday, January 2nd, 12:00AM ET: The New Exhibit
The one where a museum curator asks to keep the wax figures of serial killers from a wax museum that’s closing.
Tuesday, January 2nd, 1:00AM ET: Night Call
The one where a woman keeps getting mysterious calls. At night.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Tuesday, January 2nd, 1:30AM ET: And When The Sky Was Opened
The one where three astronauts blast into space in an experimental rocketship but their return timelines are all mixed up.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2:00AM ET: I Shot An Arrow Into The Air
The one where astronauts crash land and go at each other’s throats.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2:30AM ET: The Long Morrow
The one where a guy is about to go on a 20-year space mission in suspended animation but falls in love with a woman so he makes plans to make sure they’re the same age when he comes back.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Tuesday, January 2nd, 3:00AM ET: Spur of the Moment
The one with horses and flashbacks and regrets and stuff. Spur. Get it? Spur of the moment. Do you get it? You get it.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]
Tuesday, January 2nd, 3:30AM ET: Four O’Clock
The one where an average busybody is obsessed with exposing Communists and deviants in his spare time.
[Netflix - Amazon Prime]