<\/p>\n
In Madeiro, Mexico two policemen are sent to investigate a UFO.\u00a0 When one of them comes across a fleeing alien they have a firefight and the policeman is killed.\u00a0 His partner fires at the alien and wounds him.\u00a0 When the policeman returns with his partner\u2019s body, he warns the town that a dangerous creature is on the loose and telegraphs a message for the Army to come to Madeiro.<\/p>\n
At this point a man that seems to be an American shows up in the cantina and asks for a drink.\u00a0 He passes out and is discovered to be bleeding from gunshot wounds.\u00a0 The town doctor removes the bullets and finds that this man (who calls himself Williams) very quickly recovers from what should have been fatal wounds.\u00a0 Williams more or less admits to being the alien and claims that the police officer forced him to kill him.<\/p>\n
A boy named Pedro who cleans the cantina befriends the alien and in return for this Williams gives Pedro a box which he tells him is a gift that Pedro should show to the doctor.\u00a0 At this point, the Mexican Army shows up and a platoon of riflemen corner Williams.\u00a0 When Pedro tells the crowd that Williams has given him a present, they grab it from him and burn it declaring that it is the work of the devil.\u00a0 As Pedro and Williams walk toward each other, a woman yells out that the alien is going to harm Pedro and the soldiers all open fire on Williams, killing him.\u00a0 When the doctor reads what is left of the gift it says \u201cThe following chemical formula is a vaccine, a vaccine against all forms of cancer.\u201d\u00a0 But that is all that is left.\u00a0 The doctor says, \u201cWe have not just killed a man; we have killed a dream.”<\/p>\n
First off, I\u2019m really proud of Rod Serling for allowing someone other than Americans to be trigger happy xenophobes.\u00a0 It\u2019s sort of an achievement for Mexicans to be allowed to be the bad guys in a Twilight Zone.\u00a0 It\u2019s an acknowledgement of first world status to be responsible for oppressing somebody else.<\/p>\n
Now, as to the dramatic quality of this episode, I\u2019ve got some thoughts.\u00a0 First off, Williams is something of an anglophile.\u00a0 He can quote Robert Burns in the Scottish dialect.\u00a0 I assume this is rare in space aliens.\u00a0 Also, the panicked crowd of villagers were, shall we say, a little too excited.\u00a0 After all the monster more or less looked and sounded like a guy from Cleveland.\u00a0 And finally, why is it always cancer?\u00a0 For once can\u2019t it be high cholesterol or male pattern baldness?<\/p>\n
Anyway, it was a little thin and there were a few too many stereotypes.\u00a0 C+.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Madeiro, Mexico two policemen are sent to investigate a UFO.\u00a0 When one of them comes across a fleeing alien they have a firefight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,4,244,240,1661],"tags":[38,1355,1194,44,309,265,1691,1899,154,1692,838],"class_list":["post-7115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-tv-reviews","category-tv-reviews","category-twilight-zone","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-rod-serling","tag-sci-fi","tag-sci-fi-tv-review","tag-science-fiction","tag-sff-tv-show-reviews","tag-the-gift","tag-tv-review","tag-tv-reviews","tag-twilight-zone"],"yoast_head":"\n