The X-Files: Underneath

A man Doggett put away for murder years ago is released, and the agent believes he will kill again and is determined to capture him before this happens.

This episode has been held back for quick a lot of this season, and I'm not entirely sure why. It's got nothing too close to reality in it, it's got no major effects to speak of, so why keep pushing it away? Maybe because it's simply not that good. The reason Scully remained sceptical for so long is because she never saw anything that would change her mind, ludicrous though this eventually got. Here, not only does Doggett see something he can't explain, but his former partner doesn't do anything that makes much sense.

At the end of the story, Doggett is forced to admit that what he saw couldn't have happened. Yet rather than putting the case down as an X-File, he just stands there and says he's not sure how such an event is possible, but just because he can't explain it doesn't mean it happened in some supernatural way. Surely he'd at least consider the possibility that something is amiss. Meanwhile, Scully discovers that Doggett's former partner has framed the recently-released prisoner for murder. Now, I appreciate that he was the only person at the scene of the murders, but if all killers stood about afterwards they'd be a whole lot easier to catch. The cop has no animosity towards the man he frames, giving him no reason to do so aside from to ease his paperwork a bit. It's a bad way for a cop to behave as it is, let alone when the motive isn't adequately explained.

The killer himself is passable enough, but two people as one has surely been done in this show any number of times. The reason for the killings isn't the most interesting of motives either, and once again is taken from past episodes of various shows including this one. A closer examination of the killer would have been good, maybe showing how his other persona first appeared and when he lost control over it. As it is, there's not much depth and it's all over too easily.

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