June 27, 2023- number 92, 97

Spoilers

The strange numbering comes from Amazon Prime/Paramount +. For some reason, they had the episode “The Gift”, which is listed as episode 32 everywhere else I looked, was in at number 28. I am not sure the reason it is in a different order on Prime even though it had never been in an incorrect order as of yet. So I am listing it as the order is supposed to be, not the one on Prime.

“Person or Persons Unknown”

He is David Gurney… or is he?

“Cameo of a man who has just lost his most valuable possession. He doesn’t know about the loss yet. In fact, he doesn’t even know about the possession. Because, like most people, David Gurney has never really thought about the matter of his identity. But he’s going to be thinking a great deal about it from now on, because that is what he’s lost. And his search for it is going to take him into the darkest corners of the Twilight Zone.”

David woke up after a night of drinking and, without warning, his wife did not recognize him. He thought of this as a joke, but when the people at work did not know him either, things get harder for him.

He desperately tries to find proof of his existence, failing at every turn. The performance by Richard Long was solid, though he did take a while to really grasp what was going on. You would think that he would have come around earlier than what he did.

Then, The Twilight Zone pulled a switch much like they did in “The Midnight Sun”. David wakes up again, understanding that everything he had gone through was a dream. However, his wife Wilma was not the wife he knew, looking completely different.

I feel as if this was another Twilight Zone episode that started strong, with a really good premise, but that did not deliver an equally potent conclusion.

“The Gift”

As I mentioned earlier, this was out of order on Prime, but I did not realize it until it was underway so I decided to leave it as is. I am still referring to it as episode 32, though.

This was not a very good episode. Performances were weak or uninspiring and the story, which was meant to be a parable tied to the story of Jesus Christ, it misses its mark badly.

“The place is Mexico, just across the Texas border, a mountain village held back in time by its remoteness and suddenly intruded upon by the twentieth century. And this is Pedro, nine years old, a lonely, rootless little boy, who will soon make the acquaintance of a traveler from a distant place. We are at present forty miles from the Rio Grande, but any place and all places can be the Twilight Zone.”

Pedro was one of the weakest child actors we have seen in The Twilight Zone. His performance was very wooden and lacking any sort of depth. I do not like calling out child actor’s performances, but when one is such a vital piece of the story, I can’t ignore it.

The gift given by the alien was, of course, something that we all wish we would have had and it shows the way fear and hatred can cause problems in the world today. The message is good, but the delivery of the message felt heavy-handed and lacking the sufficient subtlety to make this sci-fi story worthwhile.