Not What You Meant? There are 27 definitions for The Gift.

The Gift (The Twilight Zone)

About 2 pages (621 words)

Know this topic well? Help others and get FREE products!

“The Gift”

The Twilight Zone episode

Scene from "The Gift"

Episode no.

Season 3
Episode 97

Written by

Rod Serling (Based on his original script "I Shot an Arrow Into the Air".)

Directed by

Allen H. Miner

Guest stars

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

Original airdate

April 27, 1962

Episode chronology
← Previous	Next →
"The Trade-Ins"	"The Dummy"

List of Twilight Zone episodes

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

1 Synopsis
2 Allusions
3 Crew and cast
- 3.1 Cast
4 Twilight Zone Links
5 Source
6 External links

Synopsis

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."

Allusions

This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims.
Please improve the article by adding references. See the for details. (September 2007)

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.

Crew and cast

Writer - Rod Serling, based on his original script "I Shot an Arrow Into the Air" (not the first-season episode of the same name)
Director - Allen H. Miner
Producer - Buck Houghton
Music - Laurindo Almeida
Director of photography - George T. Clemens