Probably repeating myself here, but back in 1994 I bought one of those compilation videos that had a few episodes on(Five Characters, People Are Alike and some others).
My friends and I spent the entire night watching them back to back until the early hours and I was hooked. I sought episodes where I could, watched the ill-fated film and now watching them again, I'm loving it all over again.
On an related note, the podcasts are wonderful; are you planning on doing every episode?

Thank you :)

Yes I'll be doing every episode of the original series for sure. I'm undecided about the newer ones. On the one hand it would be good to do them for completeness. On the other hand, there's not as much in the way of trivia for the newer ones, so it really would be just reviews. Which might not be so bad. I could probably put them out a lot quicker with less research to do. We'll see in 3-4 years when I've done the originals!

Thanks again for the kind words!

My first introduction to the zone was when I was young and used to live in the United States. I was probably around 12 years old. If I remember correctly the tv station was WPIX 11 of New York. I would catch it on friday nights at around 1 Am. I still dont think Ive seen all of them when reading episode guides. Maybe seen half of them. 1 thing is for sure, I dont think Ive ever seen any of the hour long zones. Not to get too off topic here, but that WPIX 11 New York had a killer late night lineup back in the 80s. 11.30pm The Honeymooners, 12.00am Classic Star Trek , 1am Twilight Zone.:)

It's funny how many of us caught it by watching it in syndication in the small hours. Perhaps the perfect time for The Twilight Zone....

My intro to the Twilight Zone
 

Hi, all. I shared my "origin story" re: The Twilight Zone on the podcast forum back when Tom started the show, but thought I'd repeat it here, because I certainly came to the show a roundabout way!

The first episode I ever saw was "A Certain Kind of Stopwatch" on our local PBS station when I was about 11 years old, circa 1983. I think I was up late being sick, and my mother happened to have the TV tuned to that station. I watched the episode and was really enjoying it -- and then it just stopped, with the guy and his broken stopwatch! I asked my mom, "Was it supposed to end that way?" "Yes." "Do they all end like that?" "Most of them, yes."

Well, this was fascinating! But this was before we had a VCR, and the show was on much too late for me to stay up to watch on a regular basis. At about that time, though, one of my friends at school was reading Marc Scott Zicree's TZ Companion (then newly published, I suppose). He'd read aloud the episode summaries to me, and I was so taken by them, I got my own copy. I devoured the book several times straight through, so much so that to this day there are still episodes I feel like I've seen, even though I haven't - I just know them from those summaries and still photos!

I even used to write my own 2-page scripts inspired by the episode summaries - sometimes inventing new characters, taking things in a different direction, etc. (I remember writing a version of "The Gift," but beyond that I don't recall which episodes I "made my own"!)

I gradually saw more episodes as I could stay up later (!), and finally, I'm now working my way through the series in sequence, following along with Tom's podcasts) -- and having a lot of fun doing so.

I love that part :)

Good to see you again Bibliomike!

It's great to hear some memories on here especially the USA ones. I remember late night showings on BBC2 in the early 80's along with The Outer Limits. The attraction for me apart from the great stories was the whole 'Americana' aspect of them. Diners, long bars, cool cars, ice cream parlours, jukeboxes, white picket fences etc. Growing up in the port of Liverpool I was always being regaled with stories by older seafaring relatives about 50's and 60's American cities, the likes of New York, Boston and Houston. So the TZ really brought these places to life for me. I only wish they would bring back late night showings of the likes of TZ and Outer Limits, also the likes of Hammer classics and Universal horror so a new generation can see them.

I started watching the show in the 1980s, again on late night repeats in the UK. The show that I remember the most clearly is The Shelter, because I genuinely thought that nuclear war was coming and we were all going to die. The 1960s had not been that different, and Serling cleverly played on that fear in so many episodes of the show.

My first exposure to Twilight Zone was the bedtime stories my dad would tell me. Eventually when I was a little older he'd let me watch the episodes he'd been taping on BBC2 and then I actually fell in love with the 80s series first. Maybe because it was in colour and I could relate to it because it was the 80s at that time.

Then when I got older I rediscovered the original series and fell in love with it all over again.

The best ever!
 

Been a fan since the early 80's seeing it only during 'zoneathons' that
were held on local stations around Halloween growing up.

It wasn't until I moved to New York, that I gained access to the show
every night through cable tv (channel 11).

My earliest memory of the show would probably be 'Eye of the Beholder'
because that one seemed to be shown twice as much as any of the others!

..."needle please!"