The Grand X-Periment Day 2

10/2/11- I found it really hard to stop watching the show yesterday. I think the main challenge won't be getting through them all but rather not getting through them all early.

6) Episode 20- Darkness Falls- Another non-mythology episode but another one I love. Just like Ice from earlier in the season, you have Mulder and Scully trapped in a remote location and facing something really messed up. When illegal logging unleashes a horde of glowing insects that cocoon and eat people, our heroes are sent to investigate the seeming disappearance of 30 loggers.

We get Mulder, Scully, a Forestry official, a logging company hack and an eco-terrorist all trapped too deep in the woods to escape before sundown, when the creatures come out to feed. The episode is a little about the methods of eco-terrorism and the illegal actions of lumber companies but it is all background noise for a pretty gripping thriller.

As the team waits for their one generator to die, they try various gambits to escape the woods and being eaten. I think the thing I like the most about this one is the ending. In that, they don't escape. I won't say anything more but it is a pretty grim adventure, all told.

7) The Erlenmeyer Flask- Season 1, Episode 24- This is the first season finale and it helped me think about one of the challenges of long form storytelling. Just like in comic books, you can't really threaten or kill off the main characters. Mulder and Scully are the heart of the show and, especially this early in the run before David Duchovny wanted out of his contract, you can't do the show without them.

So, to keep building tension and making stakes high, you must be willing to build up and tear down supporting characters. This episode is all about Mulder's relationship with Deep Throat coming to an end. With only the most cryptic of clues, Mulder is sent looking for a man who eluded police and vanished after being shot three times and jumping into a harbor. Throughout the episode, we get a very aggressive man in black (who would be nicknamed the Crew-cut Man later) killing any leads Mulder develops and erasing any evidence he finds. Mulder finds a storage facility filled with living men in water tanks. Deep Throat explains the existence of human/alien hybrids.

SPOILERS AHOY- Mulder finds one such hybrid and his bullet wounds release a toxic gas that mess our hero up badly. Meanwhile, Scully finds a bacteria that is not of this earth so her "see it to believe it" attitude gets loosened some more. By the end, Scully has to steal an alien fetus from a military installation and trade it for Mulder's life. In the process, Deep Throat gets whacked and the X-Files get closed down. The first season ends as if they didn't know they were being renewed. The final shot is of Cigarette Man placing the fetus in that Indiana Jones warehouse from the first episode. It all makes for a nice circle and leaves our heroes in a bit of a lurch with no way to obtain new information.

8) Little Green Men- Season 2, Episode 1- I forgot to mention in the last one that a few major players get introduced in some otherwise non-exceptional episodes. Skinner, the Assistant Director of the FBI who appears to take his marching orders from the Cigarette Man, was slipped in on the episode called Tooms in Season 1. Likewise, between this one and the next I watch, there will be an episode called Sleepless that introduces Mulder's new partner, Alex Krycek. The reason for fleshing out the supporting cast is that Gillian Anderson begins this second season very pregnant. They shoot around her for quite awhile but the ultimate solution is a few episodes away.

With the X-Files shut down, Mulder is working on a wiretap case where he just listens to two guys discuss strip clubs all day. Scully is teaching forensic science at Quantico. Way back in the Pilot, Mulder hints that he has connections in Congress which keep him from being shut down. This episode, we meet the senator who seems to be his new source of info. The Arricebo satellite array in Puerto Rico starts receiving alien signals. Mulder has 24 hours to get there and gather some evidence before a blue beret team is sent in to cover it all up.

Cigarette Man knows Scully will seek out Mulder and has her do the leg work in tracking him down. She manages to outsmart her followers and finds Mulder anyway. We get to see Mulder's memories of his sister's abduction (although it contradicts the story he told in the pilot). Aliens seem to show up, but we don't know to what end or purpose. Mulder and Scully escape the military and it all ends with Skinner kicking Cigarette Man out of his office. Mulder is placed back on surveillance duty and he, once again, has no evidence of the cool stuff he witnessed.

This reminds me a bit of Lost at this point. Chris Carter had no idea how long this series would last or when they should start moving towards an end point. I realized that the big picture we should be seeing here at the beginning of Season 2 is that aliens have visited Earth and the government has stolen or captured their technology to create new vehicles and human/alien hybrids. Otherwise, it seems like the government takes a pretty hostile stance on aliens and kills them on sight (like they tried in Fallen Angel and did in EBE). There is no suggestion of co-operation or conspiracy at this point, just exploitation.

9) Duane Berry- Season 2, Episode 5- After a few adventures without Scully, Mulder gets called in to do hostage negotiations with a former FBI agent who believes he has been abducted by aliens. The whole thing feels super packed as the hostage situation seems at least a full episode long.

During the course of events, Mulder trades himself for a hostage and Scully figures out that Duane Berry (the abductee) is really just a raving psychotic who was never the same after being shot in the face. After the situation is resolved, we figure out (ta-da) that Berry really does have implants in him that seem to be cataloging him for some purpose. Justified in his beliefs, Mulder doesn't get to gloat for long before Berry escapes his hospital room and somehow tracks down Scully to abduct her. To be continued...tomorrow night.