In case it wasn't made clear yet in various previous installments in "The Twilight Zone", one of creator Rod Serling's definite hobbyhorse-themes is xenophobia and his aversion for it. The theme features again here, in "The Gift", albeit now narrated through the life and via dolorosa of Jesus Christ.
An alien "savior" in human form lands his ship in the outskirts of a small Mexican town, near the border with Texas, but before he can properly make contact with the locals, he's violently shot at. Even later, when the alien repeatedly states that he comes with exclusively peaceful intentions, the villagers are still petrified and hostile. Only a young child, Pedro, is open-minded and hearty enough to welcome the stranger. Pedro receives a gift the whole of humanity would enormously prosper from, but then still our typically human ignorance ruins everything.
Vintage TZ-material and vintage Rod Serling; - the author who grabbed every possible opportunity to rub in our faces that we shouldn't fear the unknown so much, and learn to be a lot more tolerant towards other cultures and races. Sixty years after the series and forty-five years after Serling's passing, however, still not much has changed.
Well-made episode, though, with a couple of familiar faces like Cliff Osmond and Paul Mazursky. Vladimir Sokoloff also briefly appears, naturally. Ever since his role in "The Magnificent Seven" he became a piece of mandatory equipment in films that feature small Mexican villages, I guess.
An alien "savior" in human form lands his ship in the outskirts of a small Mexican town, near the border with Texas, but before he can properly make contact with the locals, he's violently shot at. Even later, when the alien repeatedly states that he comes with exclusively peaceful intentions, the villagers are still petrified and hostile. Only a young child, Pedro, is open-minded and hearty enough to welcome the stranger. Pedro receives a gift the whole of humanity would enormously prosper from, but then still our typically human ignorance ruins everything.
Vintage TZ-material and vintage Rod Serling; - the author who grabbed every possible opportunity to rub in our faces that we shouldn't fear the unknown so much, and learn to be a lot more tolerant towards other cultures and races. Sixty years after the series and forty-five years after Serling's passing, however, still not much has changed.
Well-made episode, though, with a couple of familiar faces like Cliff Osmond and Paul Mazursky. Vladimir Sokoloff also briefly appears, naturally. Ever since his role in "The Magnificent Seven" he became a piece of mandatory equipment in films that feature small Mexican villages, I guess.