{"id":103726,"date":"2021-05-13T20:37:36","date_gmt":"2021-05-14T01:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=103726"},"modified":"2021-05-13T20:38:59","modified_gmt":"2021-05-14T01:38:59","slug":"the-twilight-zone-review-the-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=103726","title":{"rendered":"The Twilight Zone Review: The Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- RSR AD 1 --><br \/>\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1545664804358300\" data-ad-slot=\"7759247395\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script>\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=103726\" rel=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=103726\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-103727 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/the_twilight_zone_the_gift_tv-765430526-msmall.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"220\" \/><\/a>By William Kozy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When the popular question of \u201cworst Twilight Zone episode\u201d comes up on fan sites, we have become used to hearing the same episodes bandied about: \u201cCavender is Coming\u201d, \u201cThe Bard\u201d, \u201cBlack Leather Jackets\u201d, etc. etc. But how is it that the truly worst episode of the series has consistently escaped mention? Yes, the truly worst episode of all, \u201cThe Gift\u201d has cowered in the corner hoping not to be noticed when this debate arises. It has it all: terrible acting, senseless script, bad sound, and incompetent directing especially in its climactic scene. The episode received 6 votes in my survey of fans and writers asking, \u2018What is your favorite episode of the original Twilight Zone series?\u2019 tying it with 11 other episodes for 106th thru 116th place of the 156 episodes.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>We first see Sanchez, a Mexican policeman leading a burro carrying an unconscious man lying atop it. He enters a small village where he has attracted everyone\u2019s attention. Poorly executed sound overlays of folks in the crowd exclaiming \u201cWhat\u2019s happening?\u201d, \u201cparece que est\u00e1 muerto\u201d (\u201clooks like he\u2019s dead\u201d), etc. My television\u2019s closed caption calls it \u201cindistinct chatter\u201d but if only that were the case. The lines sound very closely recorded and slapped on top of the picture with a very present, close-up quality; in other words, the sound mixing made no effort to make the crowd voices throughout the episode sound as though they were coming from people in the background. The lines sound as though they were coming from a character having their close-up shot taken.<\/p>\n<p>Sanchez stops at the town cantina where seizes Rudolpho, the telegrapher, who has been flirting with a hussy in a booth. Sanchez dictates a message to be sent to the prefect of police. He relates how a metallic, circular craft crashed into the hills nearby, whereupon he and his partner Salvador investigated. Salvador followed the footprints and Sanchez heard several gun shots. Sanchez found Salvador\u2019s dead body, then followed the \u201cmonster\u201d and fired several shot at \u201cwhoever\u2026whatever it was.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pedro, a \u201crootless\u201d little boy has been watching, listening. He works in the cantina for the unpleasant owner Manolo. And the boy playing him cannot act. Not a bit. Meanwhile, townsfolk hover over the body of Salvador. The town doctor examines him, and then confronts Sanchez, asking him \u201cWho did it Sanchez?\u201d Sanchez answers, \u201cPlease doctor, I do not know. Some giant thing who escaped in the darkness. I fired several shot and later I found some blood stains.\u201d The doctor challenges him: \u201cSome giant thing? Not the darkness or perhaps your fear?\u201d Sanchez is insulted, but the doctor persists, \u201cYou\u2019re the law and order in this village, Sanchez. Be the sanity as well. You have frightened all these people. I just want to make sure that the source of the fear is not an illusion.\u201d Irate, Sanchez points down at the wounded man, countering \u201cIs this an illusion?\u201d From his guilty behavior we do suspect that Sanchez himself as well as the doctor may harbor the notion that Salvador may have suffered friendly fire from Sanchez.<\/p>\n<p>The bartender Manolo and the doctor then have a discussion about Pedro\u2019s background. Manolo goes in to quite a bit of detail, but in the end none of it really served to help us form any ideas about the character and how those biographical details related to the story, or this space traveller who we will meet in a second. Russian actor Vladimir Sokoloff plays a Latino for the third time in a Twilight Zone episode (see also \u201cThe Mirror\u201d and \u201cDust\u201d), and his blind guitarist character here in the cantina suggests gently to Manolo that he treat Pedro with more kindness.<\/p>\n<p>Manolo is anxious to close up and as the doctor finishes his drink and leaves, both he and Manolo look up at someone approaching. Manolo has a look of unjustifiable horror, because the visitor as we will see, is completely normal looking. Perhaps it is the utterly bad line delivery of actor Geoffrey Horne that has Manolo backing up against the wall in shock. Horne plays the spaceman, who has been wounded, and staggers (sort of) into the cantina, asking for\u2026get this: wine. Does wine have some sort of interstellar medicinal properties we\u2019re not aware of? Pedro greets the man with grace telling him to have a seat while he gets him some wine. And the way the actor stares at the little boy, you\u2019d think he came straight from a child sex trafficking ring. It\u2019s bizarre. Manolo says he\u2019s closing up, but the alien persists, promising not to stay long. When you want wine you gotta have wine after such a long space trip.<\/p>\n<p>Manolo brings a bottle to his table, and because he\u2019s so freaked out by the man, Manolo carelessly drops the wine bottle. As both men reach for it, Manolo sees blood all over the man\u2019s hand. Manolo panics and runs to the door, whereupon the visitor clubs him over the head to knock him out, exclaiming to the doctor, \u201cI didn\u2019t want to hurt him. He gave me no choice.\u201d Hell, maybe this alien DID shoot Salvador! He explains to the doctor how he has come in peace, and that earlier the two policemen had pulled guns on him and as he wrestled with Salvador\u2019s, it went off. And that\u2019s all he can utter as he faints.<\/p>\n<p>Cut to: the alien in a back room being administered to by Pedro. They exchange some hair-brained philosophy, and then the alien tells Pedro to fetch a gift from his poncho. It looks like some sort of metallic book. He informs Pedro that he will bestow this gift to our world to show that he comes in peace, not as an invader.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, the doctor comes back and is impressed at how healthy the alien\u2019s vital signs are depite having a bullet lodged in his chest. The doctor tells him he will be digging the bullet out but the alien refuses the anesthetic. Pedro says \u201cbut doctor you must give him something\u201d, but the doctor has a hunch and obliges the alien\u2019s wish. Post-surgery, the doctor unwinds with a whiskey, musing to Manolo about how odd his patient is\u2014how could he be so strong after getting shot? How could he not have bled to death, he wonders. The doctor takes leave again, but not before finding out Manolo has informed the police that they can find him in the back room when they arrive. The doctor fires a zinger at Manolo calling him \u201cJudas\u201d. Cliff Osmond as Manolo shrugs it off making it clear that Bible studies was not an area Manolo knew much about.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr. Williams\u201d, which somewhere along the line Pedro has now taken to calling the alien visitor, lies awake. He tells Pedro that he will have to get back to his ship and repair it. But he promises Pedro that he will come back again to visit.<\/p>\n<p>Just then, the authorities that Sanchez had reported to, arrive in a Jeep. Director Paul Mazursky plays the snooty commanding officer who sarcastically praises Sanchez: \u201cYou are a brave man Officer Sanchez, but, please explain to me if he is only one man and is too weak to move, why do you need us?\u201d Sanchez explains that he is a creature, not a man. Manolo comes out to claim some credit for holding the alien here, and then the doctor joins the group advising that they not go in and claim his patient because he\u2019s too weak to move. Mazursky\u2019s Captain defies the doctor and goes in anyway after again jokingly expressing amazement at this brave village of \u201clions\u201d. None of the butts of his sarcasm however, ever get that he is looking down on them.<\/p>\n<p>As the Captain struts quickly into the back room, we see the window open. Williams has escaped capture. The Captain quickly tells his men to start searching. And when they spot him what ensues is one of the most ineptly staged and poorly performed showdowns in the history of any TV show. Williams is cornered, and the police quickly assemble and aim their weapons. Actor Horne stumbles about, unconvincingly. The townsfolk join in the fray, looking on and adding some laughably bad commentary.<\/p>\n<p>Pedro comes running up crying out \u201cMr. Williams! Mr. Williams!\u201d whereupon Williams manically tells Pedro to show the gift to the doctor, who has also shown up. The actor playing the doctor, Nico Minardos has been fine up to now, but in this final scene he has for some reason chosen to stick his hands in his pockets and keep them there the whole time, watching with the casualness of a man waiting for his morning coffee to come from a kiosk. Anyway, the boy takes out the gift, but Manolo grabs it and throws it on the ground. \u201cBurn it! Burn it!\u201d someone criess out, ala \u201cMonty Python and the Holy Grail.\u201d Manolo grabs one of the torches the villagers wielded as though hunting Frankenstein\u2019s monster, and he throws it onto the gift. It burns up and Williams breathlessly exclaims in shock, \u201cWhy did you do it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And then comes some physcial blocking that is hard to believe as you watch. Pedro walks ever so ploddingly toward the fire. Williams with arms held out wide to the side also walks slowly to Pedro. Villagers toss in an awkward patchwork of alarmed sentences and cries\u2014the most hilariously awful is \u201cLook out for the boy!\u201d called out in some indiscernible accent that is definitely not Mexican. The editing is terribly choppy and feels intended to create a sense of chaotic panic, but instead just feels like an assistant editor dropped several strips of shots and reassembled them randomly for the final edit. Willam is shot dead by a trigger happy policeman. The doctor picks up the gift and reveals its secret\u2014the aforementioned vaccine to cure all cancer. But the fire burned the formula. Snag on humanity\u2019s ignorance!<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>If the Twilight Zone had a gift returns department, \u201cThe Gift\u201d would be the first episode I returned. I rate it a 1.3.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>[si-contact-form form=&#8217;2&#8242;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By William Kozy When the popular question of \u201cworst Twilight Zone episode\u201d comes up on fan sites, we have become used to hearing the same episodes bandied about: \u201cCavender is Coming\u201d, \u201cThe Bard\u201d, \u201cBlack Leather Jackets\u201d, etc. etc. But how is it that the truly worst episode of the series has consistently escaped mention? Yes, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26547],"class_list":["post-103726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-the-twilight-zone-review-the-gift"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103726"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}