A Quality of Mercy

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The Twilight Zone original series Season three (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5) Fall 1961 – Summer 1962 List of The Twilight Zone episodes
Episodes: Two The Arrival The Shelter The Passersby A Game of Pool The Mirror The Grave It's a Good Life Deaths-Head Revisited The Midnight Sun Still Valley The Jungle Once Upon a Time Five Characters in Search of an Exit A Quality of Mercy Nothing in the Dark One More Pallbearer Dead Man's Shoes The Hunt Showdown With Rance McGrew Kick the Can A Piano in the House The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank To Serve Man The Fugitive Little Girl Lost Person or Persons Unknown The Little People Four O'Clock Hocus-Pocus and Frisby The Trade-Ins The Gift The Dummy Young Man's Fancy I Sing the Body Electric Cavender Is Coming The Changing of the Guard

“A Quality of Mercy” is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

[edit] Details

Episode number: 80
Season: 3
Production code: 4809
Original air date: December 29, 1961
Writer: Rod Serling from a story by Sam Rolfe
Director: Buzz Kulik

[edit] Cast

Lt. Katell/Lt. Yamuri: Dean Stockwell
Sgt. Causarano: Albert Salmi
Hansen: Leonard Nimoy
Andrew J. Watkins: Rayford Barnes
Hanacheck: Ralph Votrian
Sergeant Yamazaki: Dale Ishimoto
Japanese Captain: Jerry Fujikawa
Jeep Driver: Michael Pataki

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A gung-ho American soldier in World War II becomes a Japanese soldier and gets a whole new perspective on the war.

[edit] Trivia

Dean Stockwell, who appears in this episode, later becomes well-known to science fiction fans as Albert "Al" Calavicci in the television series Quantum Leap. That series, like this episode, concerns a man (played by Scott Bakula on Leap) who finds himself involutarily transformed into another person.
Leonard Nimoy, who makes a brief appearance in this episode, later becomes well-known to science fiction fans as Mr. Spock in Star Trek.
Michael Pataki also made appearances on Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He is most famous in the Star Trek Universe for playing the Klingon Korax in "The Trouble with Tribbles", where he ignites the famous bar room brawl scene by telling Mr. Scott that "the Enterprise should be hauled away as garbage."
Interestingly, four leading Star Trek actors made pre-Trek appearances in The Twilight Zone: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, and George Takei.
The title is taken from Act IV, Scene I, of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. The full quote used by the narrator at the end of that episode is the words spoken by Portia to Shylock, which begin: "The quality of mercy is not strained, / It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven / Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest, / It blesseth him that gives and him that takes." (lines 183-186)

[edit] Themes

A Quality of Mercy is a uniquely human quality that at least partially defines who we are as a species. An arrogant young American officer during the Second World War finds this out in the most disturbing of ways. He is adamant about a last assault on a surrounded group of Japanese soldiers in the final days of the war that would do nothing of value for the war effort. He insists simply out of hatred as well as a desire for personal glory. This unfortunate young man gets to see what mercy really is when he is transported back in time to exactly three years prior, when he's suddenly WEARING a Japanese uniform! It is a small group of Americans who are then surrounded in the first days of the war, and he sees first hand that to be merciful makes us human in many regards. Regardless of the uniform one wears on the battlefield, within the human heart there still can be compassion for one's fellow man.