There might not be any better way of sending off the surreal year that was 2016 than by watching the ultimate in surreal television: The Twilight Zone. This year, Syfy will be airing the 22nd annual installment of its programming favorite Twilight Zone New Year’s Marathon from Dec. 31 through early morning of Jan. 3. Like many episodes of the show it honors, the 2016 Syfy Twilight Zone New Year’s Marathon will be featuring a surprise twist this year: For the first time in the marathon’s history, Syfy will let fans program the New Year’s Day primetime block. Ultimately, the 2016 Syfy Twilight Zone New Year’s Marathon will feature 128 classic episodes.
Episodes in the New Year’s Day primetime block airing from 8pm-11pm ET will be determined by fan voting beginning at 7:30pm ET. Viewers can cast their votes for one of two competing episodes by tweeting the specially created episode hashtags to the official Syfy Twitter handle, @Syfy (no, we don’t yet know what episodes will be up for voting, but I assume they are some of the more classic offerings from the series). In all, 12 episodes will be in contention for six slots, with the winning episodes airing immediately following a 15-minute voting window.
Beyond what’s airing in primetime on New Year’s Day, we do know what other episodes will be airing through the 2016 Syfy Twilight Zone New Year’s Marathon, including the fact that the marathon will kick off with the 1983 feature film Twilight Zone: The Movie. The film featured four vignettes: An original tale called “Time Out,” directed by John Landis; “Kick the Can,” directed by Steven Spielberg; “It’s a Good Life,” directed by Joe Dante; and “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” directed by George Miller.
It also looks like there are a number of lesser-seen episodes populating this year’s marathons; at least, episodes that I don’t recall having been in the marathon in quite a while, so that’s a nice change of pace.
2016 Syfy Twilight Zone New Year’s Marathon Episodes (All Times ET)
Saturday, Dec. 31, 2016
6am: Twilight Zone: The Movie
8am: One for the Angels
8:30am: Mr. Denton on Doomsday
9am: The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine
9:30am: Escape Clause
10am: Perchance to Dream
10:30am: Judgment Night
11am: What You Need
11:30am: The Four of Us Are Dying
12pm: Mirror Image
12:30pm: Execution
1pm: The Big Tall Wish
1:30pm: A Nice Place to Visit
2pm: The Chaser
2:30pm: A Passage for Trumpet
3pm: Mr. Bevis
3:30pm: The Mighty Casey
4pm: A World of His Own
4:30pm: King Nine Will Not Return
5pm: The Obsolete Man
5:30pm: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
6pm: Night Call
6:30pm: The Encounter
7pm: Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?
7:30pm: A Game of Pool
8pm: Number Twelve Looks Just Like You
8:30pm: Where Is Everybody?
9pm: The Hitch-Hiker
9:30pm: The After Hours
10pm: Long-Distance Call
10:30pm: A Penny For Your Thoughts
11pm: A World of Difference
11:30pm: Little Girl Lost
Sunday, Jan. 1, 2017
12am: The Long Morrow
12:30am: And When the Sky Was Opened
1am: The Man in the Bottle
1:30am: Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room
2am: A Thing About Machines
2:30am: The Howling Man
3am: Mute
4am: Jess-Belle
5am: Death Ship
6am: The Lateness of the Hour
6:30am: The Trouble With Templeton
7am: A Most Unusual Camera
7:30am: Dust
8am: Back There
8:30am: The Whole Truth
9am: Mr. Dingle, the Strong
9:30am: Static
10am: The Prime Mover
10:30am: A Hundred Yards Over the Rim
11am: The Rip Van Winkle Caper
11:30am: Shadow Play
12pm: The Mind and the Matter
12:30pm: Two
1pm: The Arrival
1:30pm: The Passersby
2pm: The Mirror
2:30pm: The Grave
3pm: Death’s Head Revisited
3:30pm: The Midnight Sun
4pm: Still Valley
4:30pm: Once Upon a Time
5pm: The Old Man in the Cave
5:30pm: The Odyssey of Flight 33
6pm: I Shot an Arrow into the Air
6:30pm: Person or Persons Unknown
7pm: The Bewitchin’ Pool
7:30pm: The Dummy
8pm: Viewers Choice
8:30pm: Viewers Choice
9pm: Viewers Choice
9:30pm: Viewers Choice
10pm: Viewers Choice
10:30pm: Viewers Choice
11pm: Nick of Time
11:30pm: Nothing in the Dark
Monday, Jan. 2, 2017
12am: A Stop at Willoughby
12:30am: The Shelter
1am: Miniature
2am: The Jungle
2:30am: A Quality of Mercy
3am: Valley of the ShadowZ
4am: He’s Alive
5am: Printer’s Devil
6am: One More Pallbearer
6:30am: Dead Man’s Shoes
7am: The Hunt
7:30am: Showdown With Rance McGrew
8am: Kick the Can
8:30am: A Piano in the House
9am: The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank
9:30am: The Fugitive
10am: The Gift
10:30am: The Little People
11am: Four O’Clock
11:30am: The Trade-Ins
12pm: I Sing the Body Electric
12:30pm: The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross
1pm: Black Leather Jackets
1:30pm: From Agnes, With Love
2pm: Spur of the Moment
2:30pm: Stopover in a Quiet Town
3pm: Queen of the Nile
3:30pm: What’s in the Box?
4pm: I Am the Night — Color Me Black
4:30pm: Sounds and Silence
5pm: Caesar and Me
5:30pm: The Jeopardy Room
6pm: Nightmare as a Child
6:30pm: Ring-a-Ding Girl
7pm: Third From the Sun
7:30pm: The Silence
8pm: TBD
8:30pm: TBD
9pm: TBD
9:30pm: TBD
10pm: TBD
10:30pm: TBD
11pm: The Lonely
11:30pm: People Are Alike All Over
Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2017
12am: The Fever
12:30am: In Praise of Pip
1am: The Thirty-Fathom Grave
2am: Mr. Garrity and the Grave
2:30am: The Brain Center at Whipple’s
3am: Come Wander With Me
3:30am: The Fear