Episode Reviews

(by original air date)

Season One

Pilot:    Pretty decent setup for the whole thing, with our heroes meeting amid an air of mutual respect and vague distrust. Really, though, I honestly wonder how far ahead Chris Carter had thought when he threw CSM there into Scully's first scene. Nice "sudden familiarity" with Scully's panicked dash into Mulder's room and her impromptu strip only to reveal a few mosquito bites. I still like the music, but I often wonder what it'd be like if every episode from then on had opened the same way - no music and just a couple of seconds with an "X" on the screen.

Deep Throat:   They didn't waste any time jumping into the "Area 51" idea, huh? Still, it's one of my favorites, with an informant mysteriously turning up, offering a couple of tantalizing tidbits, then disappearing into the darkness. Meanwhile, Scully maintains her steadfast ideas of critical analysis of such alleged phenomena, but it doesn't stop her from going pretty far out on a limb to watch out for her partner, and Mulder begins his much-repeated pattern of leaving Scully behind, only to later need her to show up in the nick of time.

Squeeze:   This is just about the best episode they could have hoped to make at this point in order to establish the idea of the "Monster of the Week" episodes contrasting with the "Mythology" episodes. It makes use of a unique way to creep out the viewer - imagine Plastic Man if he became a cannibal. Where could you possibly be safe from him? The episode also benefits from a great performance by Doug Hutchison as Eugene Tooms, making it rather difficult to classify him as a "monster". After all, gross, disgusting, and inhuman as what he does might seem to us, he's not "evil" by any means. He's just doing what he has to do.

Conduit:   A delving into the idea of "legacy" abductions (I'd guess that's what they're called), when a parent had an encounter years ago, and now the same type of thing at possibly an elevated level is visited upon an offspring. Unless there was some kind of Deux Ex Machina alien cryptography ray beamed onto this boy, though, I'm still unclear as to how he is suddenly able to sense and break codes. This also has one of the great "couldn't see the forest for the trees" scenes with the revelation of what all those binary numbers added up to there on the floor.

The Jersey Devil:    If Squeeze was the best monster episode they could have hoped to have had early in the series, then this one is the first of many of a different, more common type: the substandard monster episode. Mulder runs up to Atlantic City because bums are getting eaten, and once again Scully has to save his ass, this time from the casino police because they know it wouldn't be good for it to get out that their homeless people were drawing pictures of humanoid beings in the woods.

Shadows:    The first foray into the realm of ghost stories is fairly successful, particularly given the twist of the dead boss having an attachment from beyond the grave to his secretary. Although there might have been the possibility of some kind of governmental involvement in this particular company's activities in supplying such an extremist group, the plot holds, wisely, it could be argued, to independent action by one of the company's executives. However, this raises a bonehead question in an otherwise tidy plot: why go to all the trouble of wallpapering over a diskette which holds the proof of all your crimes? Will any such criminal ever realize that it's a lot better to burn the damn thing before anyone can find it rather than simply hiding it in some place where it might eventually be found? Well, maybe I missed something.

Ghost in the Machine:    This seems to not be a popular episode at all, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Finally we have our agents investigating a conceivably real phenomenon (although the plot understandably skirts the issues involved in the more technical aspects regarding the possibility of artificial intelligence), and the government involvement one would expect in such a project is right there at the surface of the investigation, along with the help of our friendly neighborhood informant. One of these days I'm going to finally see what the big deal is concerning the outtakes from that elevator scene, and I might see this episode in an entirely new light.

Ice:   An instant classic derived from a formula so integral to fiction that although we know where it's going, it's done skillfully enough that our skin is crawling by the time the episode is finished. However, it's still possible to screw up this type of story terribly, as Firewalker during Season Two will demonstrate. A small group of people (Mulder, Scully, three random scientists, and an airplane pilot) find themselves in an remote, isolated location (a scientific research outpost in the Arctic) where something has killed the previous group to spend time there. No help is on the way, and increasing suspicion of everyone else constantly threatens to drive those in that situation into a blind paranoid panic.

Space:   High concept at its worst. Something having something to do with the alleged Face on Mars takes possession of a former astronaut and current big wheel with NASA, and vague but obviously bad things are happening during the current space shuttle flight as a result. I'd be convinced that the X-Files brain trust had really been thinking ahead if, during the development of this plot, they'd disposed of the Face on Mars bit and instead given this story an explicit connection to specific elements of Deep Throat above, since they were going to spend all that money to put our agents into the bowels of Mission Control anyway. As it stands, this one is simply a waste of time.

Fallen Angel:   Poor Max Fenig. He's spent so much of his life chasing aliens without questioning why, and as it turns out it's them who've been coming after him without his knowledge. Once again Mulder gets a hot tip and skips town without telling his partner, but later it's up to her to bail him out. Mulder discovers that what he'd been doing and taking it as a matter of course has momentous importance to anonymous citizens out there whom he might never meet, which makes him see his work as possibly more than just a single man's crusade. Meanwhile, military forces appear once again but pose no more than a minor nuisance to this alien presence, which almost develops a personality of its own - it's got a job to do, and it wants to get it finished so it can go home. Above everything else here, though, there's Max Fenig - powerless, a little goofy, and not knowing why he does what he does other than the simple fact that he enjoys it. What's most haunting about his situation is that he's simply a prize in a race between two heartless entities, but it won't matter who reaches him first - he's going to lose either way.

Eve:    Children often make me wonder how they perceive the world. They might be young, innocent and naive by our own definitions, but adults forget that their kids can be very observant of the world around them. I'm often reminded of the scene early in The Wild Bunch where a group of kids sets a scorpion on fire so they can watch it burn. I suppose there's a fine line between outright cruelty and simple curiousity when kids do such things (and they certainly do). This particular aspect of children for which adults have only a vague understanding is used brilliantly in this episode, where adult thought processes in the mind of a child have nothing but dire consequences for any adult who stands in the child's way (which could include simply being the child's parent). We also see that our government has been freely exploring all manner of biological experimentation in the past - it's just another aspect of our daily lives into which our trusted leaders have been reaching without our knowledge.

Fire:    An early example of what good monster of the week episodes will have to explore - namely, the Mulder/Scully relationship. The mythology episodes primarily deal with the government/alien conspiracy, and they're usually so filled with related information (and distractions) that it falls to the monster of the week episodes to develop the individual characters and the growing professional and personal (although I say that reservedly) relationship between them. Yes, Mulder had a life previously, and here we meet a girl with whom he used to spend a lot of time. Although the focus is on Cecil L'ively and his pyromaniacal tendencies, what we're left with more than anything is wondering what Scully was thinking about Mulder's old flame and what, if any, emotions she might have felt concerning this new discovery.

Beyond the Sea:   Quite simply, bad things are going to start happening to Scully and her family now that she's started work on the X-Files. Here's the first example - her father dies suddenly. However, he appears to her in a vision after the time of his death, and later it seems to be him talking to her through a death row convict. This provides the first opportunity for believer/skeptic role reversal between Scully and Mulder, but with a twist. Scully thinks that the condemned man might be channeling her father, but Mulder believes that although he might be a psychic, he's still a fraud. After it's all said and done, they both return to their original roles, but each has a better understanding of the other's point of view.

Genderbender:   This is a tough one to call. It seems to throw beings with gender-reversing abilities in with Amish-like societies, and wraps it all up with a crop circle. This characterization, though, is irrelevant when accounting for the dark mood created by this episode. A renegade member of this society ventures into the human world to experience its sensations, but, chemically speaking, he/she packs too much of a punch for us to handle. Is it that our pleasures are the envy of others, or is it the emotional and mental chaos associated with the sexual drive (or even, more specifically, the reproductive drive) that causes our moments of greatest weakness? I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I venture to guess that it's both.

Lazarus:   Well, here we have the switch in the emergency room as the spirit of the dead man takes over the body of the one who lives. In such cases, it's typical that the bad soul is able to take over the good body, and this plot is no different. We also get a glimpse into Scully's past as we learn that the good man was both her former FBI instructor and her ex-boyfriend, which begs the question of whether she, given her level of maturity and analytical thought, would have gotten into such a situation in the first place. You'd think she'd have understood simple hero worship when she experienced it rather than simply giving in to it.

Young at Heart:   Now we have a glimpse into Mulder's past, with the re-emergence of the killer he had caught years before. The killer had supposedly died in prison, but now somebody is running around killing people associated with the case. The killer calls, and Mulder is sure it's him. As it turned out, the killer had been listed as dead so he could be used for medical research, and now he's blackmailing the government because the experimenting doctor is dead, so he's the only one who knows what progress was made in this age-reversing research. Yet another arm of this conspiratorial octopus reaching into unknown areas. So far, so good. Oh, and did I mention that the killer had his arm chopped off and the doctor replaced it with a giant salamander hand? Why'd they have to go and do that?

E.B.E.   Finally, the priceless entrance of the Lone Gunmen, whose collective rabid paranoia makes Mulder's seem like that of a complacent commuter without a care in the world. As important, though, is the revelation that Deep Throat is not above using what trust he has from Mulder to forge a crucial misdirection when he sees fit. The opening sequence set in Iraq and the tale from Vietnam reinforce the world-wide scale of the conspiracy, and skeptical Scully finally has an argument go her way after proving to Mulder that the photograph from his trusted source is a fake.

Miracle Man:   An investigation into a phenomena involving the only group of people who want to believe more than Mulder does, as it appears that a young preacher might be responsible for the deaths of those upon whom he's laid hands. This episode contains mostly unmined satirical potential in that it could have looked at the tent revival subculture and worked to show how fundamentally such religious groups are similar to UFO groups in their complete lack of need for evidence and their blind willingness to fork over hard-earned dollars in their need for validation. Still, it's very effective because of Samuel's tragic situation and the eventual guilt-ridden evil of someone else (although I'm sure you've seen it, so there's no reason to keep it a mystery, but I will anyway).

Shapes:    An idea full of the potential to explore an ancient Native American legend and use it to make points about what a once proud culture has come to quickly degenerates into a werewolf freak show, where Scully's rational and critical analysis of the situation leads her into a self-made trap. This will be done much more successfully with the Anasazi story arc which begins at the end of Season Two.

Darkness Falls:   I think this is a terribly overrated episode. There's a little done with issues of trust between Mulder and Scully, but the plot as a whole exists primarily to give Mulder the opportunity to make a seemingly bad decision only to later be able to say "I told you so" and for Scully to freak out due to a case of instant cabin fever. She's a scientist, and she's coolly dealt with life-threatening situations before, so I find it hard to believe that this character should begin blindly flailing her arms when seeing these bugs on her hand until Mulder explains to her why they were there. She actually should have been the one to do the explaining instead of batting at the air with her hand and almost shattering the one remaining light bulb.

Tooms:     Here we have the beginning of a mostly welcome tradition - an encore appearance from a previous guest who made a striking impression on us the first time. Eugene Tooms, last seen held behind a woefully inadequate door in a mental hospital, is released rather than having to escape. Mulder is the only one who knows what he's capable of, and it's fun watching him harass Tooms during his return to freedom and the working world. However, the writing almost paints this plot into a corner: if Tooms could get into almost any place and leave again without a trace, why wouldn't he have gone ahead and killed Mulder while in the apartment? Surely he realized he could have gotten away with it. What saves the day is once again Hutchison as Tooms, who gives the impression that rather than killing Mulder outright, there are plenty of other livers out there for the taking, so it would give him much more satisfaction to ruin Mulder's life first by setting him up.

Born Again:   While this tale of reincarnation/ghostly possession could have been good, instead it just sits there on the screen, flying on autopilot through a couple of deaths, a revelation scene involving a videotape, the eventual pieces coming together, and the obligatory final confrontation and happy ending. Why not explore more of the Eve issues by having the plot start in the same way, but instead have the little girl aware of what's going on and see if it's possible that she might even have enjoyed the murder and mayhem around her. Just a thought.

Roland:    Given the plot, this episode turns out to be much better than it should. A rocket scientist dies, but his head is preserved in a vat of liquid nitrogen. Apparently this gives him the means to seek retribution on those who stole his work as well as to finish his current project, as he's able to do both through his suddenly revealed twin brother, who happens to be a janitor at the laboratory.

The Erlenmeyer Flask:   The first season ends with what will become two of the show's trademarks - incorporation of obscure and unexplained current events into storylines and sudden deaths of familiar characters. No sooner had the story emerged of the medical people in an emergency room in the American southwest collapsing due to unknown emissions from a patient than it first appeared here, and has since become an integral part of the continuing alien/clone saga. Furthermore, we'd only just gotten to know Deep Throat when he's suddenly taken away from us, letting us know in no uncertain terms that nobody is safe.

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