If the X-Files website, the official one, is putting up names of new episodes, I can't find them. So I will call it This Weeks's Ep.

Now, whenever I tell someone I want to be a writer, they will run away. :~)

This episode was interesting. It was gruesome, first of all.

Secondly, it was made mostly of empty space and WORDS. The episode was a writer's world. The words, either in voice over or in written snippets dissolving across the screen, filled the brain in an endless stream of what was not especially well written, but which somehow fed the soul's desire for words. There were certainly enough.

Then, the ep went into the minds. It caught an impression of Scully perfectly. The writer knew what he was doing with her. Mulder, however, was played out as a jerk. Now, we all know that Mulder is a jerk SOMETIMES, but just because it's a Scully episode doesn't mean we should forget the Mulder that sobbed in the doorframe in One Breath, which was one of The X-Files finest moments. There was, too, the reference to Mulder's past- his psychocriminalsomethingorother background. With it, he developed the instinct he had to such a fine point that it was really he that danced the writer's deadly dance. Scully merely held trinkets and sat on beds and had her head explored. The writer and Mulder were the only ones who really took action.

Then, there was the intersting new phenomenon, psychic surgery, brought in. The X-Files hasn't given us one of these in a while. Scully has been offering her theories and scientific explanations less lately, and I do miss learning weird and wacky things from The X-Files. This episode had a little of the old feel in that it taught us a bit, and broadened our minds.

Yet, at the same time, there was the very original element- the character which came to life. There is no scientific explanation for this, no documented precedent. The X-Files is just playing with our minds.

Lastly, it touched on the shipper issue. What IS that love between Mulder and Scully? I don't know what to make of the writer's comments. I am a non-shipper at heart, but I am sure that there is truth to what he said. How long can the X-Files play with this issue? Do they HAVE to decide whether they love each other or not. I know that there is love there- see the way Mulder ran to Scully, and Scully clutched Mulder? But is it the kind of love that the writer felt was there? I won't mind if the X-Files plays this out forever!

And so, if you look at the episode, it really fit the classic X-Files format. We had the gruesome, the psychological, the scientific, and the implausible, all mixed together in a more dark and Scully-based concoction than usual. And then there was shipper issue, and the mandatory novel feel which the episode gave us, which set it apart from others and makes people like it or hate it. This was an epiosode I am sure a lot will hate, but I don't think it was bad at all. The end was weak, but I think that almost everything else was good.

What do you think? Please write back!

Aniad :~)
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