Are TV Marathons Passé?

For many people, the SyFy channel’s annual July 4 Twilight Zone marathon is a summer tradition. They binge on their fifth-dimension favorites, enjoy a cookout, and watch fireworks. Having been tagged in quite a few tweets by excited fans, I know firsthand how much people look forward to it.

The same dynamic plays out on an even larger scale when SyFy shows a longer TZ marathon over New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Everyone, it seems, becomes a kid again as they watch episodes that somehow seem as fresh today as they were 50 years ago.

So I was surprised to read the article “We Come to Bury the Fourth of July TV Marathon” by Gilbert Cruz, which appeared on Vulture.com. It begins:

Cast your mind, if you can, back to a time before streaming. To the time in which most popular movies and TV shows weren’t readily available on Netflix or Hulu Plus or iTunes or Amazon Prime or any of the other myriad Internet-based services that populate your Xboxes and Blu-Ray players and Apple TVs and Roku boxes. To the time of the holiday TV marathon, a tradition that all this streaming has effectively killed.

Killed? More than a few TZ fans would beg to differ, myself included. But before you assume this sentiment is based more on nostalgia than reality (a tricky concept when it comes to the Serling-verse, we can all agree), let me explain why I think Mr. Cruz’s analysis at least partly misses the mark.