The Gift (The Twilight Zone)

Infobox Television episode
Title = The Gift
Series = The Twilight Zone


Caption = Scene from "The Gift"
Season = 3
Episode = 97
Airdate =April 27, 1962
Production =4830
Writer =Rod Serling (Based on his original script "I Shot an Arrow Into the Air".)
Director =Allen H. Miner
Guests =Geoffrey Horne : Williams
Nico Minardos : Doctor
Edmund Vargas : Pedro
Cliff Osmond : Manuelo
Paul Mazursky : Officer
Vladimir Sokoloff : Guitarist
Vito Scotti : Rudolpho
Carmen D'Antonio : Woman #1
Henry Corden : Sanchez
Lea Marmer : Woman #2
Joe Perry : Man #1
David Fresco : Man #2
Music = Laurindo Almeida
Episode list = List of Twilight Zone episodes
Prev = The Trade-Ins
Next = The Dummy

"The Gift" is an episode of the American television anthology series "The Twilight Zone".

Opening Narration

ynopsis

A humanoid alien crash-lands outside a mountain village just across the Texas-Mexico border. He accidentally kills a police officer and is wounded by another. When he reaches a village bar, he collapses. A sympathetic doctor operates on him, removing two bullets from his chest.

The alien (who refers to himself as "Mr. Williams") becomes friends with Pedro, an orphan whose job is to clean the bar. Pedro receives a gift from Williams, who tells Pedro that he will explain it later.

Meanwhile, the bartender notifies the army about Williams' location. Williams attempts to escape, but soldiers and villagers corner him. He tells Pedro to show the gift, but it is taken from him and set on fire, and Williams is shot and killed. The doctor picks up the remains of the gift from the fire. He reads it aloud: "Greetings to the people of Earth: We come.... in peace. We bring you this gift. The following chemical formula is.... a vaccine against all forms of cancer..."

The rest is burned away. As the doctor states, "We have not just killed a man; we have killed a dream."

Closing Narration

Preview for Next Week's Story

Allusions

There are definite references and allusions peppered through the episode in reference to Christ, where the alien is a supposed picture of Christ. Pedro and the alien speak of God and how He sent Christ down onto the world once. When the doctor finds out that the bartender has alerted the army of the alien's presence, he claims that at the bartender's baptism, they improperly named him and should have called him "Judas." After the claim, the bartender continues to count his coined money, a probable reference to Judas selling out Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Also, the alien's vaccine book to cure cancer could be seen as a parallel to Christ coming to cure spiritual death.

"Twilight Zone" links

* The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)
* Episode list
* [http://www.cbs.com/classics/the_twilight_zone/video/video.php?cid=649562032&pid=gV2TrEg_HRng9453VyG1kpx5bl5cnmmA&play=true&cc=2 Full video of the episode at CBS.com]

References

*DeVoe, Bill. (2008). "Trivia from The Twilight Zone". Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1593931360
*Grams, Martin. (2008). "The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic". Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0970331090
* Zicree, Marc Scott. "The "Twilight Zone" Companion", Bantam Books, 1982. ISBN 0-553-01416-1

External links

*imdb title|id=0734642|title=The Gift