The X-Files - S6:E7 "Terms of Endearment"

[ S6:E6 "How The Ghosts Stole Christmas" <<< Season 6 >>> S6:E8 "The Rain King" ]

This is going to sound terrible, but it feels like it's been weeks since I've watched an episode of The X-Files. I mean, a traditional episode. Terms of Endearment is the first episode I've watched in a while that actually feels like a classic monster-of-the-week episode. We've had a lot of humor and (arguably) clever deconstruction and experimentation going on of late. And while a script about a suburban devil trying to raise up demon spawn isn't likely to win any Emmys any time soon, these are the kinds of stories The X-Files was made to tell! Well, either that or Millenium - I actually kind of thought I had remembered this episode from the latter series rather than The X-Files, but nope! We haven't had a good devil episode since...let's see, going all the way back to the second season, with the devil double shot of Irresistible and Die Hand die Verletzt! And that's not the only thing about this episode that recalls the second season - what with Mulder and Scully off the X-Files, and Mulder investigating in the field (much to his superiors' chagrin) while Scully [initially] advises by phone. It's nice to have an episode that feels familiar for once.

But, this is still the sixth season. We get to see Agent Spender originally handling the case, only to toss the X-File into the shredder (that fiend!). Thankfully, Mulder manages to salvage it from the trash, and his enthusiasm for the case is a delight to behold. The episode, which draws appropriate comparisons to Rosemary's Baby, and which was filmed around a really creepy-looking house (that kinda reminds me of The Amityville Horror), stars no less illustrious a guest as Bruce Campbell, who is fantastically understated as the sensitive husband who harbors an unsettling secret. There is a fun, if a bit cheesy, twist at the conclusion, which is wrapped up a little too neatly, and Mulder doesn't piece together the crimes so much as he intuits the explanation for them based on his knowledge of occult legends - but I can forgive all of the episode's flaws because it's just such a good, fun, grim story. And it features one of the most startling special effects shots in the entire series!

Memorable quotes:

Laura Weinsider: I kept calling it a nightmare, but how many people's nightmares come true?

Mulder: Scully, this is a classic case of demon fetal harvest! What they called in the middle ages atum nocturnem - the impregnation of an unwitting woman by a dark lord of the underworld.
Scully (bored): As host for his demon seed.
Mulder: Exactly.
Scully: I saw Rosemary's Baby on cable the other night, Mulder.
Mulder: Yeah, but this is the real deal.

(The only thing funnier than Mulder's unbridled enthusiasm about this case is the fact that it's apparently a common enough occurrence to be described as "classic". Lol).

Mulder: Not a shred of evidence is exactly the evidence I'd hoped you'd find.

Wayne Weinsider: I just wanted what everyone wants.

The X-Files - Series Highlights (Part 2)

a.k.a. Mainstream X-Files

(View Part 1 for an introduction to this series).

For my Series Highlights feature, I was originally going to split the show into thirds - with three seasons covered in each part. But I've decided that the season 5-6 split is such a landmark breaking point for the show, for a number of reasons. The first X-Files movie was released. Production was moved from Vancouver to L.A., marking a drastic change in the feel of the sixth season compared to the fifth. And because I'm anticipating another drastic change between seasons 7 and 8, when Mulder disappears and Robert Patrick comes to the show, I've decided that it makes a lot more sense to split the remaining 6 seasons of the show into three pairs, rather than two triplets. Which means you'll get more entries more often!

Warning: I will repeat (in summary) the spoiler warning I used for the last installment. While I don't intend for this post to be especially spoilerry, those viewers wishing to be totally surprised by what they find in a given episode (especially as regards which episodes certain characters appear in, or survive unto) may want to skip over the text passages and, if trusting my episode selection, merely browse the episode titles for a guide to what to watch.

Season 4 (7 episodes)

Home
Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man
Paper Hearts
Leonard Betts
Memento Mori
Small Potatoes
Gethsemane

Curriculum: Season 4 is really a quality season, so I had to cut out a lot of good episodes. On the other hand, it has less multi-part mythology episodes that I've deemed essential, so that helps make room. Home is an infamous freak-of-the-week episode, and has the reputation of being one of the most disturbed in the entire series, and the first (only?) to require a parental advisory. Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man is a well-crafted biography of the series' central villain. One of Vince Gilligan's ace scripts, Paper Hearts is a gritty episode that posits an alternate (and more terrestrial) possible explanation for Samantha's abduction. Leonard Betts is an all-around good quality episode, which is fun, gross, and has good dialogue. As the series' most-watched episode, it's a good choice for casual fans (whether they've never seen it before, or whether it might be one that they remember). But mostly, it earns its place on this list for the revelation at its conclusion, which forms the central subject of the heartbreaking mythology episode Memento Mori, for which Gillian Anderson won an Emmy. The light-hearted Small Potatoes serves as a brief respite from the emotional weight of season 4. I wouldn't personally vote it one of the best episodes in the series, but its sheer popularity among fans (as well as the much-talked-about "date" scene between Mulder and Scully), legitimately earns it "essential viewing" status. Finally, the season finale, Gethsemane, kicks off another one of the all-time greatest mythology arcs of the series, which will continue into the fifth season.

Extracurricular Episodes (Mythology): Those willing to devote more time to the mythology may want to watch the premiere, Herrenvolk, which continues from the last season's finale, and deals with the colonization plot. It also introduces Marita Covarrubias. Tunguska/Terma is certainly worth watching, particularly for fans of Krycek and/or the Black Oil, even though the mythology content is a bit convoluted. Tempus Fugit/Max is a bit of a detour from the main branch of the mythology at this stage of the show, but is a good couple of episodes, and recommended for fans of the first season's mythology, or especially of the character Max Fenig. Zero Sum is one of those good episodes that I had to cut out for time. It's another Skinner-centric episode, and expands on the deal he makes in Memento Mori, as well as the bees that are involved in the colonization plot, and includes a notable development for Marita Covarrubias' character. Finally, Demons is a recommended watch for those who have the time for it, as it is a captivating mystery-thriller that delves into Mulder's memories of his sister's abduction.

Extracurricular Episodes (Freak-of-the-week): Unruhe, another Vince Gilligan episode, starring Pruitt Taylor Vince as a maniac, while not on the level of Paper Hearts for me, personally, is still very much worth watching. For those who enjoy gross-out, Sanguinarium has much to recommend it. El Mundo Gira is a rather fun episode, about the Mexican legend of the chupacabra. Those who'd like to see Scully's dark side may want to watch Never Again, in which she hooks up with a man who hears his tattoo talking to him (voiced by Jodie Foster!). Personally, I thought Unrequited, about a POW with advanced stealth tactics enacting revenge on the U.S. government, was a very riveting episode. Synchrony may be worth a view for physicists and those interested in time travel paradoxes. Elegy (about a mentally-handicapped man who experiences death omens) is an alright episode, but has some good emotional scenes that tie in to the themes of Memento Mori.

Season 5 (6 episodes)

Redux / Redux II
Unusual Suspects
Bad Blood
Patient X / The Red and the Black

Curriculum: The two-part season premiere, Redux/Redux II, concludes the exciting arc began in last season's Gethsemane, and resolves one of Scully's main character struggles. Unusual Suspects is an entertaining flashback to when The Lone Gunmen first got together. Bad Blood is one of the series' more successful comedy episodes, which examines the case of a possible vampire through the contradicting perspectives of Mulder and Scully. Patient X/The Red and the Black, which introduces Jeffrey Spender and sees the return of Alex Krycek, is one of the more compelling mythology arcs in the series that deals with the Alien Bounty Hunter and the Black Oil, tying them together for the first time.

Extracurricular Episodes (Mythology): This is a short season, and its highlights are once again the mythology episodes, so the really good ones have already been included in the curriculum. Certainly, if you're giving more time to the mythology, you can watch the season finale, The End, which introduces Diana Fowley and mind-reading wunderkind Gibson Praise, although if you're strapped for time, you're better off going straight to the movie. Although in the form of a period freak-of-the-week episode, Travelers is worth watching to see the origin of the X-Files project. Christmas Carol/Emily may be worth viewing if you're a Scully fan (or just like watching Gillian Anderson cry), but is otherwise safe to pass up.

Extracurricular Episodes (Freak-of-the-week): Any of the freak-of-the-week episodes this season are good enough to sit down and watch if you have time - choosing which ones is just a matter of what interests you. Shippers, and those who enjoyed the "conversation on the rock" in Quagmire, will want to watch Detour. The Post-Modern Prometheus - Chris Carter's tribute to Frankenstein - is highly praised, and would probably make most people's essential viewing lists, but I simply didn't like it that much. Kitsunegari features the return of the freak from season 3's Pusher. Schizogeny isn't very highly-rated, but is an imaginative episode about killer trees. Chinga, about a cursed doll, was co-written by Stephen King. Kill Switch is pure cyberpunk. Mind's Eye is about a blind woman who can see through the eyes of a killer. All Souls is this season's episode about Scully's faith. The Pine Bluff Variant is a conspiracy thriller about a terrorist militia with bio-weapons. And Folie a Deux concerns itself with a corporate invasion of insect people. Take your pick!

---

Stay tuned for Part 3! I anticipate having it ready and posted before Christmas.

The X-Files - S6:E6 "How The Ghosts Stole Christmas"

[ S6:E5 "Dreamland II" <<< Season 6 >>> S6:E7 "Terms of Endearment" ]

I was unenthusiastically settling in for another Christmas episode (perhaps like last season's Christmas Carol), only to find to my delight that this is just as much of a Halloween episode, merely transposed onto another holiday! Mulder drags Scully reluctantly out on a stakeout on Christmas Eve to investigate a ghost story about the legend of a lovers' suicide pact, and the house that they haunt every year on the night before Christmas. It's a fun, eerie episode, starring Lily Tomlin and Edward Asner in an unusually tight cast. And the conversations between Mulder and Scully and the ghosts serve as excellent character studies. After three lukewarm episodes in a row, I'm happy to discover that this show can still put out a creepy, atmospheric episode. Also, to my relief, it breaks the dismal record for freak-of-the-week episodes written and directed by Chris Carter that I don't especially like. It loses a little bit of its coherence towards the end, being too committed to the idea that Mulder and Scully have to shoot each other - which you know they're not going to do. They may be lonely people, but they've never been lonely together.  Still, it's a great episode, that manages to accomplisth he unlikely feat of being both a good Halloween episode, and a good Christmas episode! I recommend it.

Memorable quotes:

Scully: Checkout lines are worse than rush hour on the 95. If I heard Silent Night one more time, I was gonna start taking hostages.

(I feel ya, Scully).

Scully: I see. The dark, Gothic manor; the omnipresent low fog hugging the thicket of overgrowth - wait, is that a hound I hear baying out on the moors?

Mulder: Ghosts are benevolent entities...mostly.

Mulder: Shh! What was that?
Scully: These are tricks that the mind plays. They are ingrained clichés from a thousand different horror films. When we hear a sound, we get a chill, we see a shadow, and we allow ourselves to imagine something that an otherwise rational person would discount out of hand.

Maurice: I've found you all tend to fall into pretty much the same category.
Mulder: Hm. And what category is that?
Maurice: Narcissistic, overzealous, self-righteous, egomaniac.
Mulder: Wow, that's a category?

Maurice: You've probably convinced yourself you've seen aliens! Do you know why you think you see the things you do?
Mulder: Because...I have seen them?
Maurice: 'Cause you're lonely men. A lonely man, chasing paramasturbatory illusions that you believe will give your life meaning and significance, which your pathetic, social maladjustment makes impossible for you to find elsewhere.

Maurice: Of all days, why did you pick Christmas? Why not Halloween?
Lyda: Now who is filled with hopelessness and futility on Halloween?

Mulder: We're not lovers.
Lyda: This isn't a pure science. But you're both...so attractive. And there'll be a lot of time to work that out.

(I always love it when the writers put lines into their characters mouths that could simultaneously be taken as pithy meta-statements about the show itself).

The X-Files - S6:E5 "Dreamland II"

[ S6:E4 "Dreamland" <<< Season 6 >>> S6:E6 "How The Ghosts Stole Christmas" ]

Spoiler Warning: As this episode picks up where the last one left off, there may be some minor spoilers ahead.

If there's any doubt about the humorous intention of these episodes (and at this point, there really shouldn't be), this one opens with a monologue - not by Mulder explaining the metaphysical source of his anguish, as in many classic episodes - but by the false Mulder - Morris Fletcher in Mulder's body (although to us he still looks and sounds like Morris Fletcher) - describing what a loser Mulder is over top of a quirky score, and his mischievous intentions now that he's acquired possession of his life. Meanwhile, Mulder avoids the imminent peril we found him in during last week's cliffhanger thanks to the presumed aid of the real leak (not Morris Fletcher). And Scully, now convinced that a body-swap has indeed occurred, is looking for a way to switch Mulder back. But not before some more hijinks occur. Although, honestly, when Morris (as Mulder) invites Scully to a home-cooked dinner (and seduction), you can't help thinking, "haven't we seen this all before?"

As with part one, I have a hard time getting very excited about this episode, but I do have a few notes. For one thing, that house that's claimed to be Fletcher's sure as hell ain't in Rachel, Nevada, like it's described. I've been to Rachel, Nevada (it's the tumbleweed town that's closest to Area 51), and it ain't a fraction as green as the place depicted in this episode. It's not some oasis in the desert, it is the desert. Just a couple of ramshackle trailers set up on a dry, flat plain. I don't doubt that the people who really do work in Area 51 live down in Las Vegas or even fly in from some other much fancier location (maybe in California, or any of the other nearby states), or if they do live in Rachel, it's not in nice, green, suburban houses like this one. I did, however, appreciate the rendezvous at the Little A'Le'Inn, even if it wasn't really the Little A'Le'Inn, and even if the crowd was a little too bustling for the truly small town that Rachel is, and even if the Little A'Le'Inn would be a ridiculous choice of a place for an Area 51 officer to go to find anonymity.

When Mulder (as Morris) ultimately confronts the informant he intended to meet at the beginning of this adventure, there's a bit of a surprising twist in store, where the high-ranking Area 51 officer knows less about the truth regarding aliens than he assumes Mulder does, based on his work with the X-Files. It's kind of a disappointing - if clever - development, but it fits in with the whole idea of Area 51 being more image than substance. The episode wraps up in far too trite a manner, however, when things just naturally - conveniently - end up fixing themselves, just like that. After Mulder and Scully go on in this one scene about how the process relies too much on coincidence, and can't be reversed. Are we really supposed to believe that Michael McKean is going to be taking over David Duchovny's job on this show? No. The scene is utterly devoid of pathos, in spite of how seriously the actors play it. The emotion therefore comes off feeling forced, because the audience isn't where the characters are, and they can't really get into it. And I guess, for me, that about sums up this lackluster two-parter.

Memorable quotes:

Scully: You did the right thing, Mulder.
Morris (as Mulder): I did?
Scully: I've been telling you for years you should play more by the book, haven't I?

Morris (as Mulder): This guy hasn't been laid in ten years.

Scully: I didn't even know you had a bedroom.

Morris (as Mulder): You're The Lone Gunmen, aren't you? You guys are my heroes. I mean, look at this crap you print.
Byers: We uncover the truth.
Morris (as Mulder): The truth? Well, see - that's what's so great about you monkeys. Not only do you believe this horse pucky that we create, you broadcast it as well.

Mulder: What is the truth?
General Wegman: You mean, you don't know?
Mulder: Don't know what?
General Wegman: The truth. What is going on here at Area 51? What are these black budget projects? We just fly these birds. They don't tell us what makes 'em go - they engineer 'em all up in Utah.
Mulder: Well, if you don't know, why'd you call me?
General Wegman: I've seen your file. You've chased flying saucers for years. Do aliens really exist, Agent Mulder?

Scully: I'd kiss you if you weren't so damn ugly.

(What, so now they're actually romantic partners, and the only thing stopping them from expressing it on the show is (in)convenient circumstances? I know they were pretty close to a kiss in the movie, but I thought that was just a tease).

Mulder: If I shoot him, is that murder or suicide?

The X-Files - S6:E4 "Dreamland"

[ S6:E3 "Triangle" <<< Season 6 >>> S6:E5 "Dreamland II" ]

If ever there was an advantage to moving production to the southwestern U.S., it was having a chance to do a proper story about Area 51. Although I kind of liked the Smoking Man's dismissive reference to it back in Apocrypha. By the time the movie Independence Day had come out in 1996, Area 51 was part of the pop culture lexicon, and so, obviously not a good place to store the military's top secrets (especially ones involving extraterrestrial technology). And, unfortunately, this episode has less in common with the suspenseful infiltration of top secret government installations à la Deep Throat, E.B.E., The Erlenmeyer Flask, Memento Mori, Redux (etc.), than it has with the comedy-infused flavor of Small Potatoes, which also involved David Duchovny in a body-swapping role. That this is not just the angle they take for an Area 51 episode, but that they extend it into a two-parter without even synching it with the show's mythology in any substantial way, really says it all about the direction this show is heading in. Also, that the show is now examining viewer-friendly Area 51 in lieu of any number of unnamed military installations with more genuine secrets to hide, is further proof of its evolution toward a less serious tone, and its pandering embrace of mainstream popular culture.

I'm excited that the show has extended past five seasons, but in these latest episodes, I'm getting the feeling that the stars and the creator(s) both are getting tired with the format. The characters are growing exceedingly into caricatures, and Chris Carter seems more bent on mucking with the formula - giving the actors episodes like Syzygy, The Post-Modern Prometheus, and Triangle, in which they can let loose and have fun at the show's expense - than finishing the gritty alien conspiracy story that he originally set out to tell. It's like Darin Morgan has cast a twisted legacy on the show's remaining writers - the humor and deconstruction becoming the show's central pillar, instead of an occasional respite from its usual, darker tone. The fact that David Duchovny sounds like he's getting bored of playing Fox Mulder (according to interviews I've read from around this time), and the knowledge that he will eventually (though not just yet) leave the show before its end, just contributes to this feeling that the show has lost its focus. Maybe the show should have ended in its fifth season, and continued intermittently from there as a film franchise (as may have been discussed at some point in time).

Anyhow, the basic thrust of the episode is that Mulder drags Scully out to the ET Highway in Nevada (to the expected frustration of A.D. Kersh) to meet up with an informant that has contacted him who works at Area 51. They are stopped, however, by a convoy, prior to witnessing a military UFO (probably not unlike the ones the military had in the episode Deep Throat) that passes over them, inexplicably subjecting them to some kind of spacetime warping anomaly that causes Mulder to switch bodies with an Area 51 employee named Morris Fletcher (Michael McKean). But unlike Small Potatoes, in which David Duchovny got to act out a stranger inhabiting Mulder's body, the two actors follow their characters, so that we see who they really are, and not who the other characters see them as. (It's a little confusing, but makes enough sense in the context of the episode).

So, Morris - ostensibly a government grunt bored with his life and in the midst of a mid-life crisis - gets to hang out with Scully and try on the bachelor life, while Mulder gets a taste of the [dysfunctional] married life (wasn't Scully the one pining for a normal life just prior to the swap?), and an opportunity to "infiltrate" Area 51, provided he doesn't blow his cover. The risk to his life is even greater when the other employees find out there's a leak, and begin to suspect Morris (whose body is currently inhabited by Mulder). Although, Mulder seems more intent on righting the situation, and providing Scully with scientific proof that he is who he says he is (that she doesn't initially take Mulder (as Morris) at his word is a wonder, after spending a day being exasperated by Morris (as Mulder)'s frustratingly (humorously, to the audience) out-of-character behavior), than discovering much of anything that is going on inside Area 51.

To be continued... (Because one episode of this ridiculousness apparently wasn't enough).

Memorable quotes (there are a number of lines in this episode that are funny mainly due to situational cues based on the body-swapping premise, that lose a lot of their impact taken out of context):

Morris Fletcher: I got a top secret for you: there's no such thing as flying saucers.

Morris (as Mulder): Are you out of your pretty little mind?
Scully: Am I out of my mind? Mulder, you are out of your mind!

Howard Grodin: Antigravity systems utilize bends in space and time for propulsion. A sudden shift in a craft's trajectory could create the kind of distortion we're witnessing right here - a lizard and a rock existing in the same time and space.

The X-Files - S6:E3 "Triangle"

[ S6:E2 "Drive" <<< Season 6 >>> S6:E4 "Dreamland" ]

Ugh. I'm not going to enjoy critiquing this episode. Like last season's The Post-Modern Prometheus, it was written and directed by Chris Carter. Also like that episode, it is a bit of an experiment - one that is generally well-received by fans, and one that I really didn't like much at all. I hate to say anything bad about Chris Carter - he's the genius who created The X-Files, and is undoubtedly the man behind much of what makes The X-Files so good. But if this episode and The Post-Modern Prometheus came from anyone else, I'd be tempted to use them as examples that their creator doesn't really get the show. Which is hard to reconcile with the truth. Granted, Chris Carter hasn't had a great track record for freak-of-the-week episodes (going all the way back to season 1's much-maligned Space) - although that doesn't explain why fans love these later excursions. And I still think he's a genius as far as the mythology is concerned (even with his frustrating tendency to ask more questions than he answers). But if you ask me, I'd just as soon he stuck to the mythology. I don't begrudge him his opportunity to play around in the sandbox of his own creation - he's certainly earned it. I guess all I have to say is that I'm not very fond of the results.

The Post-Modern Prometheus' technical trick-of-the-week was being shot in black and white. Triangle has a trick of its own - it's shot using lots of long shots, with minimal cuts between (like The Silent House). But, as in the previous case, I fear that it feels a little pretentious - like a rookie director trying out a new toy just to see what he can do with it, rather than a talented auteur putting a rare technique to use in service of the story. As such, we get lots of long tracking shots as characters move up and down long hallways (with lots of dark corners in which to hide cuts), and instead of letting the viewer get lost in the escapism of the fantasy, it constantly draws your attention to the fact that you're watching somebody with a camera following the actors around. This is useful in found footage films, where realism is a commodity that enhances the effect of the fear, but doesn't work out so well here.

Anyhow, this is the much-celebrated episode in which Mulder washes up aboard a ship lost in the Bermuda Triangle (the stark opener isn't as tense as it should be because you know Mulder's not really going to drown at sea). But instead of the eerie ghost ship atmosphere that we got in Død Kalm (a much better - and more classic - episode, in my opinion), the ship has been displaced in time from the era of the Second World War, leading to an out-of-date period piece with Nazis. I don't want to be insensitive, but I think Nazis are kind of tacky. You can tell good stories about them, but they're such a caricature of evil that it's too easy for a writer to get lazy. And as time marches on, the thematic shorthand of the events of WWII is losing more and more of its emotional relevance to modern audiences. For better or worse, Hitler is becoming ancient history. Also, I know it seems "fun" and, above all, "patriotic", to have Mulder take advantage of the opportunity to insult the Nazis directly to their faces, but you'd think that without the safety buffer of decades of history between you and them, you'd be a bit more subtle (like the people of their time) about your hatred of the men who could easily kill you if they decide they don't like you as much as you don't like them.

I know the Bermuda Triangle is weird, and maybe in the end it's not simply a case of time displacement, but Mulder hallucinating, or an alternate dimension or something, but why have familiar people showing up with different identities in the past? Scully's there. So is Spender - and both he and the Smoking Man are Nazis. I mean, it's like the ridiculous past-life fantasy from The Field Where I Died brought to life (and that wasn't a great episode worth revisiting and expanding a thread from into an entire episode of its own). But that's not the limit of the weirdness. Why play kooky dance music during a fight scene? (Not to make another mention to The Post-Modern Prometheus, but between that and this episode, I have reservations about Chris Carter's taste in music, Songs in the Key of X notwithstanding). Scully kisses Skinner in relief in one scene, but it feels overly dramatized. For that matter, Mulder kisses alternate dimension Scully near the end of the episode, which seems to be more pandering to the shippers without giving actual ground. Except that then Mulder actually confesses his love to the real Scully (who thankfully doesn't take it seriously), and I'm thinking, what's going on with this show?

I mean, there have been episodes in the past that have felt off - Humbug, for example, which was the first "comedy" episode of the series, had the wrong tone, in my opinion. But even though I didn't like The Post-Modern Prometheus, it still felt like an X-File. And though The Field Where I Died was dreadful, there was no point at which I felt that it was anything more than a single week's flop. But with the crazy shit that goes on in this episode, in addition to the recent move to L.A., and the introduction of all these new characters - Spender, Fowley, and now Kersh, too - this is the first point in the series where I really feel like things are starting to go off the rails. I'm sure there will be better episodes in the future - especially in the next three seasons - to pinpoint as places where the series "jumped the shark", but much like how I identified Talitha Cumi as the point where the mythology was just starting to break down, I could consider this episode to be the "early warning sign" that the show is heading down hill.

Memorable quotes:

Langly: All we can do is wait and hope for the best.
Frohike: Yeah, but expect the worst.

Skinner: Use your head, Scully. It'll save your ass.
Scully: Save your own ass, sir. You'll save your head along with it.

(Okay, yeah. Skinner: good advice. Scully: not sure what the hell you're trying to say here. It's like you're trying to be clever, but it didn't really work out. It's okay, I understand you're stressed out in this scene).

Scully: You did something incredibly stupid.
Mulder: What did I do?
Scully: You went looking for a ship, Mulder. In the Bermuda Triangle.

(That about says it. Although I can't help thinking that a more traditional X-Files episode about the Bermuda Triangle could have been a whole lot more interesting).

The X-Files - S6:E2 "Drive"

[ S6:E1 "The Beginning" <<< Season 6 >>> S6:E3 "Triangle" ]

I was surprised the first few times, but by now I've noticed that it seems to be a pattern for The X-Files to front-load their seasons with notable episodes. Breaking Bad fans will not fail to note that this episode marks what I presume to be the birth of the creative partnership between writer Vince Gilligan and actor Bryan Cranston. It opens rather unusually, with news footage of a car chase that sets the stage for the episode. Coupled with the desert highway landscapes - the majority of the episode takes place in Nevada, and ends on the Pacific coast - this really feels like a different show than the one that was filmed in Vancouver. It's still The X-Files, though. The unlucky victims in this episode seem to have come down with a rather deadly case of tinnitus, and the only thing that soothes it is driving real fast. It's like Vince Gilligan thought to himself, "what if in Speed, the bomb wasn't on the vehicle, but inside someone's head?"

What's more, Scully harbors a suspicion that it may be communicable, like a disease. Outbreak scenarios are always rife with potential for a good thrill 'n' chill. One spooky scene where Scully examines ground zero, trying to put together a profile on the pathogen, just screams Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain. And there's also a feeling of F. Emasculata, with Scully hanging back to study the disease, while Mulder's out on the front lines dealing with it. Dangerous or not, you can't deny it's more exciting than the domestic terrorism detail Mulder and Scully have been assigned to. When Mulder sees the news footage on TV, you can tell that, like in Detour, he wants nothing more than to be working that case, instead of the mundane job he's been tasked with. It really goes to show that, whatever their feelings about Mulder's crazy "theories" are, they're totally wasting his talents by keeping him from the work he's passionate about.

On that note, we get a better introduction to Mulder and Scully's new Assistant Director, Kersh (James Pickens, Jr.) here, whom we only saw briefly in the last episode. There was a time when Skinner could (more or less convincingly) play the bad guy - even as recently as season 4, although by then you already had confidence that even if Skinner did bad things, he'd be doing them for the right reasons. So, with the Smoking Man either retired or doting on his presumed heir for the past year, there'd been a hole in the form of a direct, bureaucratic obstacle opening up which Kersh fills nicely. And whereas Skinner wears his emotions on his sleeve - delivering all his lines through gritted teeth, even as he has his agents' best interests at heart - Kersh has this unsettling way of speaking. It's a sort of quiet disdain, like when the principal calls you into his office, but instead of yelling at you, he chastises you in a calm, controlled voice. Like, rather than being upset by your misbehavior, he's almost pleased, because he relishes the opportunity to punish you.

Memorable quotes:

Crump: Drive.

Mulder: You stop moving, you die? I think I saw this movie.

Mulder: We'll figure this out.
Crump: Better figure quick. We're runnin' outta west.

Kersh: Don't misunderstand me, Agent. I don't care if you and your partner saved a school bus full of doe-eyed urchins on their way to Sunday bible camp. You no longer investigate X-Files - you are done. And the sooner you and Mulder come to recognize that, the better for both of you.