User Reviews

On the surface this is a tale about the fear of the unknown, but Rod Serling was deft at layering his stories with subtlety and innuendo in a way that conveyed deeper meaning. Almost at the outset I viewed this episode as a parallel to the life of Christ, come to Earth as a benefactor and savior, but met with uncertainty and hostility. The village doctor calls Manolo a 'Judas' for calling the authorities, and there's the overt symbolism of the stranger's outstretched arms as he attempts to speak to the crowd and approach young Pedro. In death, the alien would have given the world an unimaginable gift but for the blindness of the citizens of Madeiro. Perhaps the older we get, the less sensitive we become to the intuition of children wise beyond their years. 'The Gift' can teach us about tolerance and humanity provided we keep an open mind, along with a healthy respect and appreciation for things we don't yet understand.

There are a couple interesting actors in this episode of "The Twilight Zone". Vladimir Sokoloff plays a very typical role for himself as a Mexican--even though he was Russian by birth. He is one of those familiar faces from TV whose name you don't know. Another interesting one is the police officer. This is Paul Mazursky--who, though an actor with many credits, is more famous as a director of such moves as HARRY AND TONTO and MOSCOW ON THE HUDSON.

The episode is a minimalistic episode to say the least. Although it's about an alien landing on the Earth, you never see a space ship and he looks like a normal person. However, because the folks in this Mexican village are people, they are scared and stupid--and respond to the alien with anger and fear. Despite being attacked, he gives a gift to a little boy that he wants to give the world--but, given that people are REALLLLY stupid, the gift is destroyed.

All in all, the episode does a good job of illustrating how stupid mankind is and how a real alien landing might occur. It's pretty cynical but I can definitely see the point! The only problem is that the episode is good but not one of the better ones--just pretty ordinary for the show.

This has a sort of Day the Earth Stood Still quality to it. It's about a stranger who is pursued in a superstitious Mexican village. He is an alien and has come to earth to give us a gift. Unfortunately, he is confronted by one of them and in the struggle, the gun fires, killing one of the police. It then involves the connection forged between a lonely little boy and the "man." Of course, brutality has a way of rearing its head and things get mucked up. The wonderful gift the man has is seen as a work of the devil and the knotheaded populace react. Twain put this forth in Connecticut Yankee. I've always wondered how this would have faired in the religious community. It's a bit on the cynical side.

A stranger from another world (Geoffrey Horne) makes a mysterious appearance after claiming that he was accidentally involved in the death of a local man, and only local doctor Nico Minardos and young Edmund Vargas (as an orphan that nobody wants) believe in him, and after he presents Vargas with a beautiful gift, the townspeople arrive with weapons to arrest him. Vargas and Minardos beg the townspeople to accept Horne's gift which they believe is a gift from Satan. Stupidity, paranoia and prejudice take over, and when all is said and done, the townspeople truly feel as if they've been taken over by the twilight zone...and cursed.

There have been many analogies of the life of Jesus Christ. Some say that Frankenstein's monster was a gothic variation of Jesus, which certainly makes Tim Burton's character, Edward Scissorhands, very Christ-like as well. Of course there's room for debate on that as well, but it is very apparent that Sloane's character here, thanks to thegift which would have kept on giving, but that is rejected and those other fictional characters, the fictional variation must be sacrificed. Only a medical man and a small child show faith, ironic considering that these characters are supposed to be of a strong faith. How many times does a return from the son of God get rejected? It's a profound message and a moving episode.

Serling was never one to try shy away from religious themes, and this is an example of such. It's not so much a science fiction story as a veiled retelling of the story of Christ: a mild-mannered man comes to Earth to bring a message of peace, but, instead, he is seen as a threat and killed, with a crowd calling for his death. One character is even called Judas for betraying his whereabouts to authorities. It's fascinating to see, as you watch this and other episodes of the Twilight Zone, just how much faith Serling put into religion and belief in God. One has to wonder what he would have been inspired to write today in the face of so many religious fundamentalists -- of a variety of religions -- with messages of hate and intolerance. This is also an interesting episode for featuring Paul Mazursky, who went on to become a well-known director and screenplay writer, wonderful character actor Cliff Osmond, and young Edmund Vargas with the most soulful eyes ever (whatever happened to him?).

This is Serling at not only his worst, but his dullest too. The dialog is preachy, full of corny moralizing, hence it's fitting that the story is preachy and corny as well. Cardboard characters with goofy accents talk and talk and talk some more.

The boy looks bizarrely unmoved by all of this, so in that sense he is like the viewers. He is one of us, a victim of this script. In a rare scene where something does happen, a man hits another man with a bottle on the head - yet the kid shows zero reaction. Serling seems to believe that children have no fear, or at least a lot less than adults. So from what planet is Rod?

Let's face it, the boy must be autistic. This is literally how an autistic child behaves. (Or a bad child actor.)

The alien is so very dull, so let's assume he's from planet Boring. This dialog is worse than most pulp fiction comics. It is plastic, cliched and completely uninteresting.

The guitar-strumming "soundtrack" is reminiscent of Ed Wood's "Jail Bait", just very cheesy and dreary.

Why didn't these Boring aliens simply send humankind their damn gift by post, with a nice little video or letter explaining everything? You gotta love these dumb, clueless aliens who botch every attempt to be do-gooders - and then Serling predictably blames everything on the humans! As if being fearful is unnatural or evil. Fear is normal, it's what protects us from danger, and these stupid left-wing Boring aliens should have known this in advance. But then again, left-wingers must be the same all over the universe - bloody confused and clueless.

These "superior" aliens know all about human literature (the Latino alien quotes from "Of Mice and Men") yet they're too stupid to bring their "gift" directly to a medical institution rather than land in a primitive village full of illiterate peasants. Truly dumb.

***SPOILERS**** Crashing in the Mexican desert the soul survivor of the space craft, Geoffrey Horne, soon finds his way to the nearest town not only seeking help for his injuries but offering a gift to mankind to prove to the inhabitants his good intentions. It's only 9 year old Pedro, Edmund Vargas, and the town blind man guitarist Vladimir Sokoloff, who aren't afraid of the clean cut and human looking alien but the rest of the population except the town doctor,Nico Minardos, are terrified of the stranger from outer space.

It's the greedy and butt-kissing, for anyone in authority,bar owner Manolo,Cliff Osmond,who drops a dime on him and calls the local police to come and arrest the barley alive from loss of blood Alien. That for the measly 30 silver pesos' reward that Manolo was paid off to do his dastardly deed. Seeing that he's about to be arrested by the police and trying to escape the alien is trapped in a police dragnet and his only hope to stay alive is to reveal the gift, that he gave to Pedro for safe keeping, that he brought to humanity!

****SPOILERS**** It's a sad end to the story or "Twilight Zone" episode when instead of receiving the gift that the alien brought to the human race he was blasted to Kingdom Come by the trigger happy police and as for the gift itself it was set on fire by the both stupid and mindless Manolo after all the smoke cleared. The gift was in fact a show of faith by the alien in it having a formula for a cure to all forms of cancer that was now gone forever. And it was the fear an ignorance of that great unknown, by the people of the town,that caused the people in it not to be able to look a gift horse in the mouth when it was standing right in front of them!

He is an incredible actor who should do more! I saw him and asked myself, "Is that Wonder from Gunsmoke?" Yes, I found out. In this episode he is even better as an actor!

Seeing how afraid the villagers are of "Mr. Williams," is that not the way each wave of immigrants is viewed? That each is treated with an air of Nativism? Signs reading "No Irish need Apply" greeted Irish immigrants fleeing starvation back at home. The Italians, the Japanese, the German, the Vietnamese, the Mexican have all had their trials assimilating. Even the innocent unborn and those with disabilities are rejected. Can we do better as a society? Absolutely! Will we? I believe so.

And the gift was to bring great healing of suffering. How tragic! 😔

Gentle and benign alien Williams (a fine performance by Geoffrey Horne) crashes his spaceship nearby a small remote Mexican village where the frightened residents are apprehensive about Williams despite his claims that he comes in peace.

Director Allen H. Miner relates the engrossing story at a steady pace as well as offers a flavorsome evocation of the south of the border setting. Rod Serling's biting script makes a chilling central statement about the dire damaging consequences wrought by fear and superstition, with some interesting parallels to the story of Christ and an especially devastating surprise bummer ending. The sound acting from the capable cast rates as another substantial asset: Nico Minardos as a helpful doctor, Cliff Osmond as mean and selfish bar owner Manolo, Edmund Vargas as sweet orphan boy Pedro, and Vladimir Sokoloff as a compassionate blind guitarist. An excellent episode.

Gentle alien Williams (a fine and moving performance by Geoffrey Horne) crashes his spaceship nearby a small isolated Mexican village where the frightened residents are apprehensive about Williams despite his claims that he comes in peace.

Director Allen H. Miner relates the engrossing story at a steady pace as well as offers a flavorsome evocation of the south of the border setting. Rod Serling's biting script makes a potent and provocative statement about the dire damaging consequences wrought by fear and superstition, with some interesting Christ-like references and an especially devastating surprise bummer ending. The sturdy acting by the capable cast rates as another significant asset: Nico Minardos as a helpful doctor, Cliff Osmond as huffy bar owner Manolo, Edmund Vargas as sweet orphan boy Pedro, and Vladimir Sokoloff as a compassionate blind guitarist. An excellent episode.

The acting is horrible and wooden - especially the poor child. The depiction of Mexicans is less nuanced than a Speedy Gonzalez cartoon. The twist ending is eye-rollingly bad. This is strictly a paint-by-numbers effort. It looks like at this point, Serling had already thrown in the towel. As it turns out, the mysterious stranger was, in fact an alien. And his "gift"? Turns out it was a cookbook. (Just kidding, it was much, much worse than that). .

In The Gift we have an alien being in the form of a human again / Jesus. Horribly acted, with an awful plot. It does have something going for it though, the music. Sounds like I'm playing Diablo.

I saw the Gift years ago in a hotel room as a teenager while on vacation in Iowa. Well being a 14 year old The Gift had a hard time keeping my attention. Well a stranger comes to a small Mexican town. In true Serlling fashion, the town folks are paranoid, suspicious, and mod mentality. There is a gift so it has to be the Devil. Well the gift is the plot twist. I get it people are stupid. This tragic play is preachy, slow, overly wordy. I remember going to coke machine, come back and watch. Read some of my Mad comic then watch! Well lets say I would skip this episode if I catch this one channel surfing.