Roots: The Gift is a 1988 television film. It is the third installment of the Roots series, which traces the maternal family history of African American author Alex Haley, starting with his fourth great-grandfather Kunta Kinte. The film premiered on ABC on 11 December 1988, with AT&T as the sole national sponsor for the broadcast. LeVar Burton and Louis Gossett, Jr. reprise their respective roles of Kunta Kinte and Fiddler. The film is not considered a strict sequel because it takes place in between the second and third episodes of the original Roots miniseries. The film was crafted as a Christmas movie. As one of the characters explains, the "gift" referred to in the title is freedom. Roots: The Gift is also notable in that it features four actors who each portrayed a major character in a Star Trek television series: Burton, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, and Tim Russ.