Ring in 2025 with SYFY's Annual Twilight Zone Marathon: Everything to Know
The weather outside is frightful, but The Twilight Zone is... also frightful.
The weather outside is frightful, but The Twilight Zone is... well, also pretty frightful on occasion. But we can't think of a better way to ring in 2025 than with SYFY's annual New Year's marathon featuring three uninterrupted days of back-to-back episodes from Rod Serling's classic and groundbreaking anthology series between December 31 and January 2.
"It’s interesting, because The Twilight Zone has never been off [the air]. It's always been there. It's never died," Rod's elder daughter, Jodi Serling, told SYFY WIRE while speaking about her father's lasting impact. "It's because the message that he's sending is so apparent today. Everything that he predictively wrote about is coming back to us. It's just an honor to know that his legacy will continue to live on forever. He was such a humble kind of guy, I don't think he realized what an impact that he was going to make on our society."
"When the original Star Trek debuted, when I was 10, I recorded it on reel-to-reel audio tape in case it never aired again. You couldn't watch a show whenever you wanted to. There was no way to revisit the shows you loved unless they were in syndication and then they'd be cut up," adds Marc Scott Zicree, author of The Twilight Zone Companion, during a separate conversation. "We live in a blessed age where you can watch anything you want, anytime you want. I really love these marathons, because I've heard from so many people that they just leave the TV on and glance over. It's like, ‘Oh yeah, that's the one with Talky Tina! That's The Howling Man!’ The great thing about Twilight Zone, is that it’s also a family show. You can literally sit down with your kids, and it may scare them, but you know that they're not going to see something inappropriate. They know what they’re signing up for. I really love the fact that there are Twilight Zone marathons. I think it's terrific."
How can you watch SYFY's Twilight Zone marathon for New Year's 2024/25?
SYFY's The Twilight Zone marathon begins next Tuesday, December 31 at 1:00 a.m. ET with Season 1's "The Chaser."
Adapted from the short story of the same name by John Collier and directed by Twilight Zone mainstay Douglas Heyes, the episode centers around Roger Shackleforth (George Grizzard), a lovesick young man desperate to win the affections of the disinterested Leila (Patricia Barry). Roger ultimately gets his wish via a powerful love potion sold to him by the shady Professor A. Daemon (John McIntire). "The Chaser" was the second episode of the first season (after "Escape Clause") to involve a Hell-adjacent deal of supernatural proportions.
The marathon will come to a close in the wee hours of Thursday, January 2, 2025 at 3:30 a.m. ET with the airing of "Uncle Simon." Written by Serling and helmed by Don Siegel, the Season 5 installment follows Barbara Polk (Constance Ford), a greedy young woman forced to cater to the whims of a mechanoid (Forbidden Planet's Robby the Robot) built by her late uncle.
What is The Twilight Zone?
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.
The Twilight Zone has been revived for television three times, the most recent iteration hailing from executive producer Jordan Peele.
The Twilight Zone regularly airs on SYFY. For more scheduling info, click here.
