Rod Serling's 'Twilight Zone' marathons: A nostalgic journey for the July Fourth weekend

What could be more nostalgic than a trip through "The Twilight Zone," the great Rod Serling series that aired from 1959 to 1964, and has never been far from our TVs (or hearts) since? Yet the irony is that Serling — who died 50 years ago on June 28 at the age of 50 — was an anti-nostalgist, or at the very least, a nostalgia skeptic. Going back to a "better time," or time travel in general, were Serling obsessions. For the record, he endorsed neither.

Serling was tempted by nostalgia, but at the same time felt it was detrimental, says Ronkonkoma native Nick Parisi, president of the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation, which will hold its annual "SerlingFest" in Serling's hometown of upstate Binghamton later this summer (Sept. 19-21). Parisi, author of "Rod Serling: His Life, Work and Imagination" (2018), explains that the writer "constantly addressed the idea of going back in time and reliving it but he also saw the danger in not engaging with the present, and Rod was always about engaging with the present. The idea of living in the past is not going to do you any good, or as he said, it's like a graveyard — OK to visit but you don't want to take lunch there."

With two "Zone" marathons arriving this holiday weekend (on Syfy and Heroes & Icons), here are three classic examples of that beautiful obsession:

"Walking Distance" (Season 1, Episode 5; airing 1 p.m. Thursday on Heroes & Icons)

New York ad exec Martin Sloan's car breaks down just outside the small town where he grew up, Homewood (believed to be a proxy for Serling's Binghamton). After wandering its bucolic byways, Sloan (Gig Young) is pleasantly bewildered to learn that he has gone back in time to his own boyhood. Suddenly, an idea grips him — he must find his younger self. But the young Martin Sloan is horrified when this stranger approaches, and hurts himself falling off a merry-go-round. A moral belatedly occurs to the adult Martin: "We only get one chance. Maybe there's only one summer for one customer."

"The Trouble with Templeton" (Season 2, Episode 9; airing 6:30 p.m. Friday on H&I)

Aging stage actor Booth Templeton (Brian Aherne) is left with just one cherished memory — that of his wife, Laura (Pippa Scott), who died 30 years earlier. One day he exits the stage door to another dimension, or a place and time (1927) where Laura is still alive. He's overjoyed to see Laura, but she rebuffs him, calling Booth a stuffy old man. Cue this particularly poignant scene: As Booth returns to the future, Laura fades into the silence and darkness, her face framed by an ineffable sadness.

"A Stop At Willoughby" (Season 1, Episode 30; airing 7 p.m. Friday on H&I)

Gart Williams (James Daly), another hard-bitten New York ad exec — or in Serling's colorful phrasing " a suit of armor held together by one bolt" — is failing at work and marriage. On the commuter train home every night, he has a recurrent dream of Willoughby, an Americana 1880s town. Williams vows to himself that when he dreams of Willoughby again, he'll get off the train. Gart does, and in the next scene, police are recovering his lifeless body from the side of the tracks. (Daly was the father of Tyne and Tim, and star of the long-running CBS drama "Medical Center.")