Season 6, Episode 4
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, Frank Spotnitz

This one is going to be another short one gang.

There are some episodes of The X-Files on which I could literally write tomes. Then, there are episodes like “Dreamland” whose name itself appears as an invitation to sleep through the episode. A conspiratorial sci-fi takeoff on Freaky Friday, Mulder switches bodies with a Man in Black, Morris Fletcher (Michael McKean), thanks to close-range exposure to what appears to be a UFO. That, by itself, is not a bad idea for an episode were it played for the right amount of humor. Yet, The X-Files “Dreamland, Part 1” ultimately blows the tone, mixing strange humor with the super-serious drama by episode’s end and closing on a cliffhanger note that will be resolved in the next episode.

The body switch takes place near Area 51 where Mulder and Scully were tipped off about the presence of an alien spacecraft. They are detained by Fletcher and his men, and, during their detainment, a spaceship flies overhead, its bright lights apparently, mysteriously causing Mulder to switch bodies with Fletcher unbeknownst to others. The rest of the episode becomes a muddle of events with “Fletcher” harassed by his wife (SNL‘s Nora Dunn), “Mulder” shacking up with random women and completely ignoring his typical pursuit of X-Files, and another solider switching bodies with an old Hopi Indian woman. Why? I have no idea. The episode ends with Scully growing increasingly frustrated with “Mulder’s” lack of focus but unable to believe “Fletcher’s” assertion that he is the real Mulder. As “Fletcher” is dragged away screaming his is actually Mulder, Scully appears to perhaps consider the possibility.

First, the most realistic thing about the episode is “Mulder’s” actions once he determines he’s in Mulder’s body. To understand what I mean, you have to consider Michael McKean becoming David Duchovny. Younger. Better looking. More sexually desirable. It is both hilarious and completely believable that “Mulder” would engage in random romantic trysts. He’s in a new body. Of course he’s going to take for a test drive. I mean, who wouldn’t? Ultimately, I have no idea what any of this ultimately means or has to do with any X-File. The fact that it took three writers to get here is inconceivable and a sure sign of a troubled episode. But I will reserve judgement until I entertain it as a complete whole after viewing “Dreamland, Part 2.” I’m not hopeful it will be better, but it would hopefully justify its rampant silliness.

Season 6, Episode 3
Director: Chris Carter
Writer: Chris Carter

The X-Files series creator Chris Carter doesn’t direct as many episodes as you might think. Sure, his fingerprints are all over nearly every episode – the mistrust of (government) authority, complex conspiratorial plots, the strong female presence of Dana Scully – but he doesn’t actually direct that many. When he does, though, you’re never not aware of it. He typically makes tremendously broad directorial strokes in his episodes, most famously in “The Post-Modern Prometheus.” In the latest Carter-directed outing, “Triangle,” his directorial approach is equally flashy, but it’s not flash for the sake of flash. His choices are well-considered and appropriately juice up the material. In Season Six, The X-Files continues to take chances, and they continue to pay dividends.

It was bound to happen eventually – The X-Files had to pull the Bermuda Triangle into its mythology. “Triangle,” a stand-alone episode, begins with the wreckage of a small boat and Mulder’s body floating face-down in the water, the camera shooting from bottom up to echo the opening of Sunset Blvd. Mulder is rescued by a group of British sailors who are revealed to serve on the Queen Anne. In 1939. During World War II. Under suspicion of being a Nazi spy, Mulder is locked in an officer’s quarters just as Nazis board the ship under the command of two men who bear an unmistakable resemblance to the Smoking Man and Jeffrey Spender. Through the episode, Mulder attempts to have the crew turn the ship around to sail back into the Bermuda Triangle, a feat that is not accomplished until he convinces the 1939-era “Scully” (also played by Gillian Anderson) to follow through with the plan. Just before jumping off the ship, he grabs and kisses her firmly on the lips. She smacks him as he plunges into the water.

While all of this happens, Scully and the Lone Gunmen determine that Mulder is missing and may be trapped in the Bermuda Triangle. Scully runs through multiple levels of the FBI from Skinner to new AD Kersh to obtain information from the Pentagon that will help recover Mulder’s location. She and the Lone Gunmen eventually find the Queen Anne, but the ship is an eerie ghost ship. They board, finding no one, but wander through the ship in complimentary fashion to the events of the path. There is one amusing sequence where the two Scully’s cross paths and sense a presence of their alternate selves. In the end, Mulder wakes in a hospital with Scully, the Gunmen, and Skinner watching over him. He tells them of his adventure, and they all assume he’s high on meds. He tells Scully he loves her, but she rolls her eyes and leaves the room. Before he goes back to bed, he rubs his cheek which is still sore from 1939 Scully’s smack across the face.

The real star of the episode is undoubtedly Chris Carter who orchestrated a significant challenge in “Triangle” with its dual timeline structure and complicated cinematography – namely the illusion of several scenes filmed as one long take. Carter’s cinematic influences here include the aforementioned Sunset Blvd. in addition to the groundbreaking cinematic risks taken by Orson Wells in Touch of Evil. The screwball fight sequence between Nazi’s and the Brits feels ripped straight from a film of that era. There are also several allusions to The Wizard of Oz, none more amusing than the wrap-up with Mulder’s “did he or didn’t he dream it” sequence. The fact that Carter pulls it all off is a minor miracle given his relative inexperience behind the camera. The episode moves as fluidly and frenetically paced as the previous “Drive” but in much more confined spaces. It’s exhilarating to experience risk-taking like this with a series in its sixth season.

Season 6, Episode 2
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Vince Gilligan

Bearing strong resemblance to the 1994 action flick Speed, The X-Files‘s “Drive” is notable primarily because it is the first pairing of future Breaking Bad cohorts writer Vince Gilligan and actor Bryan Cranston. Here, Cranston in his pre-Malcolm in the Middle career is able to convincingly illustrate an unlikeable character in a sympathetic manner – something that would pay in spades later in Gilligan’s Breaking Bad.  As a stand-alone episode of the series, “Drive” demonstrates the best characteristics of all involved and squarely fits within my ten favorite episodes of the entire series.

The episode opens with a network affiliate covering a high-speed chase in Nevada. As local law enforcement lay down spikes to stop the vehicle, Patrick Crump (Cranston) is pulled forcibly from the vehicle, the suspect of kidnapping a woman in the back seat. The woman is revealed to be his wife, and she is suffering from some sort of dramatic head trauma. Escorted to a nearby police vehicle for safety, she begins to bang her head rapidly against the window, and her head eventually explodes from within. Mulder and Scully, on an inane assignment to investigate a large quantity of fertilizer delivered to a farmer in Utah, see the event on television and decide to get involved. Meanwhile, Crump starts displaying symptoms similar to his wife’s and is put into an ambulance which he overpowers at gunpoint and eventually takes Mulder hostage, forcing him to drive at high speeds to alleviate his pain.

During an examination of Crump’s wife’s body, Scully is sprayed with blood resulting from another rupture, which may allude to a possible contamination. As Mulder and the anti-semitic, anti-government Crump rocket west, Scully visits the Crumps’ home and discovers a nearby U.S. Navy antenna. After investigating the connection, Scully hypothesizes that a recent surge in radio waves has caused an unnatural rise in pressure in the inner ear cavities of those close by. Scully and Mulder work together to devise a plan where Scully will meet Mulder at a rendezvous point and use a syringe to try and remove fluid from Crump’s inner ear. Sadly, when Mulder reaches the location, Crump’s ear has ruptured, and he is dead. Scully and Mulder are then called in front of their new assistant director, Alvin Kersh (James Pickens, Jr. of Grey’s Anatomy), who criticizes their motives and overspending. They are unlikely to be reassigned to the X-Files.

“Drive” is an excellent example of all creative aspects of The X-Files coming together beautifully to deliver a top-notch and intelligent entertainment. Writer Vince Gilligan and director Rob Bowman work well together here, collaborating to fashion an episode that has to run on high speed while simultaneously delivering the character development and sympathy required to make it great. They succeed on both fronts. “Drive” feels appropriately hyperkinetic as the audience becomes as breathless as the characters thanks to the expertly paced and clear direction. Gilligan then fills in the action set pieces with smartly chosen dialogue that rounds out the impacted characters, namely Cranston’s Crump who is challengingly drawn as an anti-semitic yokel with whom we need to sympathize by episode’s end. That dichotomy is not easily forged, but Gilligan appears to have a knack for it.

The actors are all in top form as well with Cranston giving the kind of dominating performance that gets actors noticed. Mulder and Scully are also well used and focused in their areas of specialty – Scully in her logical (if somewhat conveniently paced) study of the case and Mulder’s emotional reaction to the events. Nothing in the episode feels out of character for the two despite being completely out of their element  – a.k.a. out of the X-Files. “Drive” is a classic example of how to build a better television episode, and it’s so well executed that it makes the creative team’s job appear seamless, which it is not. In the end, the tragedy of “Drive” is impact of the faceless government entity on the common man, something The X-Files and to an extent Gilligan have explored many times. It is a theme that resonates whether the offending agent takes the form of aliens or simple accidents, the latter being the most realistic heartbreaker of them all.

Season 6, Episode 1
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Chris Carter

The X-Files Season Six marked a turning point for the series in multiple ways. First, it was coming off of a Season Five ender designed to end the series in favor of motion pictures. Never wanting to kick a cash cow to the curb, Fox stepped in and requested a sixth season. Second, The X-Files motion picture – The X-Files: Fight the Future – popped up over the summer and made a mild splash. Critics complained it didn’t feel cinematic enough and appeared to be more of a 2-hour extension of the television show, and Season Six directly refers to the events of the film, reaffirming the complaints of film critics in a sense. Third, and most importantly, the series stopped filming in its formerly Canadian locales and relocated to Los Angeles, which changed not only its look and feel but, judging from the season premiere alone, affected its tone as well.

So, “The Beginning” is indeed a sort of rebirth for the series. The X-Files are re-opened, but Mulder and Scully aren’t assigned to them. The Smoking Man rejoins the Syndicate that tried to kill him (minus the Well-Manicured Man who died in the film), but there’s a sense that he’s more in control than he was before. He’s more obviously the puppet master. Additionally, again judging only from the Season Six premiere, there is more at stake as a brutal alien is born which begins ravaging humans – not something we’ve seen often before. After a few very competent and engaging seasons, The X-Files for the first time in a while feels to be new and dangerous again. I have little idea of where it’s heading, and I’m excited about that.

“The Beginning” kicks off with a group of scientists returning home to their pre-fab Arizona homes with one scientist shivering uncontrollably. After entering the house and jacking the heat up, he sits on his sofa where he begins to scream, a hand protruding Alien-like from his stomach. The next morning, his coworkers arrive to pick him up, but he doesn’t respond. One man enters the house looking for him, discovers his body with a giant gaping hole in his chest, and is shortly, violently mauled to death by an unseen creature. The Smoking Man tells the Syndicate about the alien and of his intent to kill it while Mulder and Scully petition to be reassigned to the newly opened X-Files. Their petition, of course, is denied, but Skinner shares confidential information with them regarding the alien in Arizona.

Scully and Mulder travel to Arizona against policy to investigate and find Jeffrey Spender and Diana Fowley in charge. During their stint, Scully pulls an alien fingernail out of the wall while the Smoking Man drives by with boy psychic Gibson Praise (bandaged having been inexplicably operated on) in tow. Gibson tells the Smoking Man the alien is no longer in the house having moved to a nearby nuclear power plant where it kills another man (in a sequence comically featuring a man named “Homer”). At the power plant, Mulder and Scully find the escaped Gibson and care for him. Upon further analysis, it is determined that Gibson has alien DNA in him, but he is kidnapped again before anyone can determine what to do next with him. Gibson is taken to the power plant where Mulder and Fowley have found alien goo near the warmest areas of the plant. Mulder witnesses the alien kill Gibson’s kidnapper but not Gibson himself. In the end, Mulder and Scully are told to leave the X-Files alone, but Mulder continues to try and rebuild them. Gibson, meanwhile, is trapped in the power plant with the alien who has shed its skin and retains the traditional grey alien form with which we are familiar.

I am of two minds on “The Beginning.” First, on the positive side, it establishes a new era and a new sense of purpose for the series. Actions have heft and weight to them. Mulder and Scully’s separation from the X-Files creates a challenge for the writers to logically place them in the center of the action when they may not necessarily be there. The Smoking Man’s relative independence makes him more of a rogue agent than ever before, which is a good thing. The series needs a successful and clear villain, which they have ear-marked the Smoking Man. All of this is an exciting turn of events and, as I’ve mentioned before, gives me a sense of unexpected activity for the first time in a long while. On the negative side, I’m not exactly sure I’m 100 percent satisfied with the direction they’re taking. I do miss the beauty of the Canadian settings in favor of the more generically bland Los Angeles and surrounding areas. Additionally, the Alien knock-off alien threat (the alien virus implants a fast-growing alien inside the host) feels less interesting and a bigger shift-left from the bees and black oil of earlier episodes.

Overall, “The Beginning” is a very accomplished episode that organically folds new thoughts and new characters into the heartbeat of the series. As such, it begins to travel different and exciting territory – never a bad thing. But the mythology of the series and its ever-changing attributes will most likely bring the series crashing down, I suspect. Chris Carter doesn’t really seem to have a good handle on what he wants the ultimate mythology to be, and it shows. Yet, for now, “The Beginning” is a good enough place to start in shaking up the series and making it feel new again. We’ll see how long this can last.

Season 5, Episode 20
Director: R.W. Goodwin
Writer: Chris Carter

The X-Files fifth season finale, “The End,” was originally supposed to have been the end of the series itself. Once freed from its television shackles, it would then ascend to an ongoing series of films, much like Star Trek. Yet, shockingly (the italics designating great sarcasm), the Fox Network decided that the series was too popular – and too profitable – to end just yet. Therefore, “The End” does indeed feel like an ending in some ways but leaves enough lose ends for the film and for the inevitable sixth (and seventh and eighth and ninth) season.

The episode begins at an international chess tournament where a Russian grandmaster faces an 11-year-old boy, Gibson. Overhead, an assassin prepares his gun, aiming at first at the Russian but refocusing on Gibson. The boy, seemingly aware of the activity, quickly shifts his body as the bullet rips into the Russian and kills him. Back at the FBI, Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens) heads up the investigation but requests that Mulder not participate. Clearly, Mulder does not oblige and joins Scully and Diana Fowley (Mimi Rogers) in the investigation. Though the investigation, they discover that Gibson can read minds, which is why he became a chess prodigy.

Meanwhile, the Smoking Man is flushed out of hiding by Alex Krycek, and he begins working with the Syndicate to deal with the boy and the now-apprehended assassin. He also reaches out to Jeffrey Spencer, eventually telling him that he is his father. The Smoking Man orchestrates the assassin’s death within his prison cell and manages to abduct Gibson, who apparently has genes that are dormant in most humans. In the end of the episode, the Smoking Man gives Gibson to the Syndicate and burns down Mulder’s office, save one file – the file belonging to Samantha Mulder. All of Mulder and Scully’s research is now gone.

While I enjoyed “The End,” it’s a difficult episode to effectively review as it is a strict exercise in plot as most mythology episodes are. There is little-to-no room for character development since writer Chris Carter fills each episode with more detail and action than should reasonably be expected. The saga surrounding Gibson is effectively introduced, but it ultimately goes nowhere. He is effectively a red herring within the episode itself – apparently a diversion to achieve the burning of the X-Files – and in the actual construct of the episode. As a result, his story is not satisfactorily resolved by the end of the episode.

Speaking of “The End,” if this episode were to serve as the end of the series, I can imagine that legions of fans would have been outraged. It feels like an ending – the burning of the X-Files is more symbolic than anything else – but, as with Gibson, it resolves nothing. It just stops. As a season cliffhanger, it’s fine. As a series ender, there would have been riots in the streets. The episode isn’t the worst of the mythology outings I’ve seen, but it’s not the best. It lives somewhere in between where plot points dominate and character development is non-existant. If you can deal with that, then you’ll likely appreciate it. For me, “The End” is a means to an end – a place that hopefully gives us more unique experiences with Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

Season 5, Episode 19
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Vince Gilligan

One of the things that makes me the happiest about watching all of The X-Files episodes is when I see Vince Gilligan has crafted the episode. Aside from a few misfires, Gilligan is, for my money, one of the best writers The X-Files has employed. His greatest strength is his ability to devise character-driven stories that rarely rely on the supernatural (or mythological) elements for which the series is famous. “Folie à Deux” is one such example in which the very sanity of Fox Mulder is effectively called into question, creating an unexpected and intense hour of television.

The episode begins with call center drone Gary Lambert telemarketing VinylRight siding when he begins to see a mysterious bug-like entity (his boss, Greg Pincus) jittering through the office. Sanity clearly questioned, he begins calling local radio stations with a manifesto, attracting the attention of the FBI due to similarities with other events at the manufacturer. Mulder and Scully are reluctant to participate, and, in fact, this variation of Mulder is aggressively tired of “monster of the week” assignments. His resentment at being assigned to this case begins to drive a wedge through his relationship with Scully, a nice touch on Gilligan’s part. When Mulder arrives on scene, Lambert finally snaps and holds co-workers hostage at gunpoint, eventually killing one he believes to be a zombie. When the FBI finally overtakes him, Mulder catches a brief glimpse of Pincus as the insect monster and begins to have doubts as to how insane the now-dead Lamber actually was.

Here, the ‘Folie à Deux’ shifts perspective. Initially, I expected the resolution to be tied to some kind of experiment or pathogen spread within the office. There’s even a scene where a glitter-like substance sprinkles from a vent. But Gilligan takes us in a different direction. As Mulder further explores Pincus and his ties to multiple sites of similar occurrences, he begins to suspect that Pincus is actually some sort of monster. Scully, of course, thinks Mulder is cracking and actively refuses to support his hunches, including refusing to perform an autopsy on Lambert’s shooting victim. Mulder’s actions eventually land him in the loony bin where he sees the bug version of Pincus outside his third floor window. Having determined that Pincus actually does inject some sort of substance into the spine of his victims, killing them and effectively rendering them zombies, he convinces Scully that something may be afoot with Pincus. She arrives in the hospital to see the insect creature hovered over Mulder and shoots at it, causing it to jump out of the window. The case is wrapped with Mulder cleared for duty, but the final scene of the episode shows another office, another agitated employee, and the same bug-like sounds emanating through the floor.

The brilliance of the first half of ‘Folie à Deux’ is the exploration of the American white collar office drone. Bored and unchallenged by the monotonous work, Lambert’s initial psychosis is easily understood. Who hasn’t imagined their managers as some sort of other-worldly creature? It’s kind of the rules of the game within office environments. It helps cut the monotony and keeps the mind alive. Actually evolving the manager character into a monster is an amusing touch on Gilligan’s part.

The transition from The Twilight Zone-inspired first half (its thematic first cousin of the “gremlin on the plane” episode) in which no one believes the individual who is able to see things no one else does to the questioning of Mulder’s own sanity is a thrilling shift. And, ultimately, “Folie à Deux” is simply an unnerving and vaguely scary episode. Most likely afraid of the low-quality makeup or prosthetics of the bug creature, the director films it in very low light and with jittery camera tricks, thus heightening the tension and terror of the episode. It’s always scarier when you can’t see the evil – even if the evil is your office manager.