The Remote Island

Celebrate Independence Day With Some TV Marathons

Posted by Ben Kallen

 

Yes, the Fourth of July is about parades and cookouts and fireworks. But you can't stay outside all the time... it's hot out there!  

Luckily, certain cable networks realize this, so they're playing marathons of your favorite (and not-so-favorite) shows from morning till night. Here's what you could watch all day long, if you really had a hankerin' to:

Sci-Fi: The Twilight Zone. For some reason, there's been a Twilight Zone marathon on some channel or other during every weekday holiday for as long as we can remember. Not that we're complaining... there's just something weird about watching those old black-and-white episodes when it's still light outside. But if you want to see a young Bill Shatner deal with a gremlin on the wing of an airplane, this is the time to do it.

FX: King of the Hill.  Nothing on TV portrays the heartland of America as well as this animated series from the creator of Beavis & Butt-Head. Except, maybe, Beavis & Butt-Head.

USA: JAG and NCIS. Really, USA Network, this is what you're going with? We get the military angle, but JAG was canceled three years ago, and no one can remember watching it even back then. At least NCIS has Mr. Shoop from Summer School.

MTV: America's Next Top Model. What won't these poor young ladies do for a Cover Girl contract? Let's hope this season-10 marathon includes one of the famous "makeover" episodes, in which Tyra forces all the girls to drastically alter their appearances, then lectures them about staying true to who they really are.

TLC: What Not To Wear. More makeovers -- but at least Stacey London is nicer about it. Remember, everyone, American-flag shorts may not be illegal, but they are tacky.

TNT: Law & Order Sure, every day's a Law & Order marathon on basic cable. But these are the episodes in which a passerby finds a body in New York City, and the detectives make a wisecrack about it, and it leads them to a completely different crime, and the person they think is the culprit probably isn't, and the prosecutors solve the case at the last minute by finding a piece of information they should have looked for right at the start. You know, unlike all the episodes where that doesn't happen.

Image: Fox 


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About Ben Kallen

Ben Kallen is an entertainment, health and humor writer who's been lectured to by Sidney Poitier, argued with by Lea Thompson and smiled at by Jennifer Connelly. He's the coauthor of The No S Diet and author of The Year in Weird, along with hundreds of magazine articles. He lives near the beach in Los Angeles, just like the gang from Three's Company.

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    Ben Kallen is an entertainment, health and humor writer who's been lectured to by Sidney Poitier, argued with by Lea Thompson and smiled at by Jennifer Connelly. He's the coauthor of The No S Diet and author of The Year in Weird, along with hundreds of magazine articles. He lives near the beach in Los Angeles, just like the gang from Three's Company.

    Nicole Ankowski has lived in Ohio, Oakland, and on the high plains of South Dakota, but is now proud to call Brooklyn home. She wrote for alternative weekly papers in the first two states, and tried to learn Lakota in the last. (The vowels can be tricky.) She just earned her MFA in Creative Writing and has been published in Beeswax literary journal. She is unable to resist good writing or bad TV.

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