The yearly tradition started back sometime around 1994. Give or take a year or two. This is just a rough guesstimation. Back when the New Years marathon was on Channel 11, not yet having relocated to the Sci-Fi Channel. The Twilight Zone had been one of those cool-sounding classics that my pops and uncles would chat about, one that always seemed like the quintessential "Matt Show," but I had been hesitant to watch. The reason: it all seemed like it'd go over my 12-year-old head. The images and suspense would register, sure, but from what my elders had been saying, it seemed like a show that went deeper than the bizarre and often chilling. Social issues were dissected, and considering that the show originally aired during the early '60s, the relevancy of the subjects and themes covered were decades of their time.
But all this changed the New Years party celebrating the arrival of 1995, a shindig at my parents house that ushered in several of their longtime friends. Plus myself, a pre-teen ready to ring in my 13th birthday in mere hours. Being a New Years Baby has its instant advantages, most notably the built-in party that comes along with it. This time, it was me and about 10 forty-somethings in attendance. One guest, my dad's sarcastically-arrogant friend Dennis, was a huge Zone head, and asked to have the television set switched to Channel 11's ongoing T-Zone onslaught. In a lucky twist of fate for Mr. Dennis, his favorite episode just happened to be on: "A Game of Pool," the one where Jonathan Winters plays a ghost who challenges Jack Klugman's hotshot pool-player into a life-or-death game of billiards. Dennis loved to play pool, so it made sense.
Sitting on the couch next to Dennis, watching as the great episode bobbed and weaved from funny to morbid in quick strokes, I was hypnotized. Unable to look away. Even as the ep ended, Dennis went back into the kitchen for some more grown-up sipping, but I remained fastened, hooked into the Zones. The only time I allowed the partygoers to change the channel was to watch the ball drop. Moments after the New Year officially began, I swiped the remote control from one of my mom's sloppily-drunken gal-pal's hands and put Channel 11 back on.
I stayed up 'til about 5am that night, and ten Twilight Zone gems later, I fell asleep on the couch, officially a Zone fanatic. And every New Years since, whether it be for hours in a row or merely a few episodes scattered, I've made it an ritual to watch some of the marathon. It's been on the Sci-Fi Channel for the past half-a-decade, maybe longer, but its just as magical as it was on Channel 11. The funny part is that I actually own all 168 Zone episodes on DVD, thanks to my awesome parents and their greatest-birthday-gift-giving-effort-ever a few years back, when they gave me the entire "Definitive Edition" DVD set. One of my prized possessions, it remains, far behind but not lost amongst the thoughts of my dog Zoey. No joke.
As I type this, I'm watching the sneakily sinister episode "Queen of the Nile," about a journalist sent to profile a beautiful, seemingly-ageless actress, who ends up being the actual Queen of the Nile, kept alive and gorgeous for centuries thanks to the evil deeds of Egyptian gods. Sweet. The roommate and I are having guests over later for some pregame drinks before we head on out to our NYE celebration, but please believe that I'll do my damndest to keep The Twilight Zone the tube for as long as humanly possible. If anything, I'll use the trusty old "....but its my birthday, man! I should get final say on what to watch, no?" That probably won't work, since Rock Band 2 will surely trump my sentimenal, imaginative ass. But its worth a valiant shot, I say.
Everything about The Twilight Zone connects with every side of my personality, my outlook, my imagination fascination. Even when decidedly heartwarming, the show was never too stuck-up or lunkheaded to totally skirt the unknown. The supernatural was always looming, a mindbender of an ending found within the majority. As somebody who cherishes superb storytelling and screenwriting, the show has never lost its touch; no matter when I turn on any particular episode, the pacing and ideas-beneath-peculiar-dressing impress. Often times, astonish. Some simply enjoy The Zone for thrills, genre-muffling entertainment of the most enjoyable caliber. Others, though, such as myself, can't help but dig deeper to uncover the high intelligence and topical relevance. It isn't just TV....The Twilight Zone plays like a one-of-a-kind 30-minute, sometimes hour-long, trip into your theater of the mind.
I'd love to write ad naus about my personal favorite episodes here, but I've got a busy day on the horizon. Time is a-tickin'. But fuck, how amazing are "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street," "The Hitchhiker," "Five Characters in Search of an Exit," "After Hours," "People are Alike All Over," "Nervous Man in a Five Dollar Room," "Eye of the Beholder," "Deaths-Head Revisited," "The New Exhibit," "The Howling Man," and "The Masks"? Just to cite a few.
New Years Eve/Day: not only significant and timelessly special because its my born-day, but also because it first introduced me to unbeatable, never-will-be-matched greatness of The Twilight Zone. It'll forever remain both my favorite television show of all time and my top source of narrative superiority. Rod Serling (creator, head writer, all around genius), my idol and endless supplier of inspiration and brain satiating.
The hardcover book volumes of original Twilight Zone episodes scripts, the entries into my reading-material collection I'm most proud of, and intend to put to the most career-beneficially use in calendars to come.
Now, back to the marathon, a wonderful birthday gift I'd like to think that Rod Serling and the good folks at the Sci-Fi Channel give to me once a year. If only it came encased in wrapping paper.
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