X FILES: SEASON 7

1 "The Sixth Extinction"‡ Kim Manners Chris Carter November 7, 1999 7ABX03 17.82[30]

Walter Skinner and Michael Kritschgau work desperately to attempt to discover what is wrong with Fox Mulder, who is imprisoned by his own frenetic brain activity, but they are unaware of Agent Diana Fowley's duplicity. In the meanwhile, Dana Scully is hunting for an ancient artifact in Africa.

Murky, slowly paced, at times boring, repetitive, and confusing, this episode is also confident in its art and it is visually colorful and beautiful as well as having something in that confidence and sense of …well, something. It’s horror to be sure thanks the nutty murderous Dr. Barnes and the killed driver that he slew coming back. That it takes place in Africa does it favors and that location is well served by the excellent cinematography. Skinner seems to be trying to help Mulder. Scully seems to believe in that spacecraft being both extra terrestrial and holding the keys to humanity’s spiritualism AND biogenome or genome. Diana says she loves Mulder and seems to want to help him. Kritschgau is a puzzle. The woman helping Scully in Africa is a good character. I wonder if she ever reappears. There is a sense of wonder, a sense of dread, and a sense of something bigger than all of us and of the TV series but…for all of that, this is still a slowly paced episode that one can’t wait to end and then realizing that…there’s a second part, third if you count last season’s finale. It’s too much. Time to take another break!

141 2 "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati"‡ Michael Watkins David Duchovny & Chris Carter November 14, 1999 7ABX04 16.15[30]

Returning to Washington to find Mulder gone, Scully joins Kritschgau and Skinner—who is still being forced into betrayal by Alex Krycek—to find her partner. However, the Cigarette Smoking Man has taken Mulder to a place where all his problems are gone and Fowley is forced to make a choice about her loyalties.

A bit better but not by much. I guess when this first aired, I tuned out seeing the illusionary world Mulder found himself in: at first it was as if this were real: Deep Throat alive, CSM giving Mulder a new life. Then it was apparent it was a dream or nightmare: Samantha, aliens destroying the Earth, Diana is Mrs. Mulder and having children with Mulder, everyone dead. Kritschgau dies for real, killed by the evil Krycek, who also attacked Skinner. Diana is killed (by who? CSM? Krycek?) off screen, which seems anti climatic. Scully’s crying about her is a bit…well, Diana was sort of helping the CSM but then changed to helping Scully free Mulder. She also sent Scully the book. The Navajo who once helped the agents, appears while in a coma and/or dead to Scully to give her sage wisdom and to pray with her. Murky and often dull but there is a point to this: Mulder has become an X Files himself the rock for each agent is: Scully for Mulder and Mulder for Scully. But we sort of knew that all along. This was overdone and overwrought and padded and boring. And yet…there’s something to it all. The boy in Mulder’s dream on the beach making a sand UFO must be HIM.

142 3 "Hungry" Kim Manners Vince Gilligan November 21, 1999 7ABX01 16.17[30]

In an episode told from the point-of-view of the "monster", a fast-food employee with unusual cravings becomes the focus of an FBI investigation. The victims appear with no brain and a suction hole in the forehead.

A grotesque opening, a mutant man, and the story told from his POV. Mark Pellegrino of the CW TOMORROW PEOPLE, SUPERNATURAL and others in an early role as a suspect. And like a later BUFFY, this gives us the creeps in a fast food place like McDonalds and/or Burger King (Mulder even uses the phrase, “We’ll have it our way.”). Utterly repulsive but hard to ignore, this plays off like a later Alfred Hitchcock (the evil man) movie like FRENZY. It’s hard to ignore the horrors of this episode and the good acting and the main suspect who is quite handsome. And for some reason, it makes me think of Stephen King. Maybe because of THINNER?

A truly underrated episode of pure horror and ultimately sad because the killer is so likable and wanted to be good…but couldn’t be something he wasn’t. That he killed the nice landlady (I think Sylvia was the landlady) makes him less likable but that’s the turning point, or rather the Overeaters Anonymous was. He decided to embrace who he was…a brain eating mutant monster. We get no explanation of how he survived this long though. Still, a piece of pure horror with Mulder looking almost like the irritating hunter of monsters, he’s almost the antagonist to the killer’s protagonist. Both he and Scully was only in it for short bits at a time. Outstanding but not one I’d want to watch more than once. Disturbing.

143 4 "Millennium" Thomas J. Wright Vince Gilligan & Frank Spotnitz November 28, 1999 7ABX05 15.09[30]

An associate of the Millennium Group, which believes the apocalypse will happen on the new year of 2000, resurrects the dead for use in the bringing about of the apocalypse, and Mulder and Scully have to ask the help of criminal profiler Frank Black, a man who has former experience with the shadowy group.

There is a critical MILLENNIUM review of this episode on this blog at the end of MILLENNIUM’s sections. It’s probably not very favorable. Some things I did think they got right:

1-Frank’s care about his daughter vs his job in the past

2-Frank’s interactions with Scully and Mulder each

3-the music

4-all of Frank’s dialog

5-Scully calling Frank “sir”

6-Jordan and Frank’s reunion

7-the Mulder Scully kiss

8-Scully finally acknowledging at least some of the things she’s seeing like zombies

9-The end of the world talk

Other than that it is certainly not the ending I would have given for MILL as it seems a bit too NOT epic.

144 5 "Rush" Robert Lieberman David Amann December 5, 1999 7ABX06 12.71[30]

When a school student becomes the prime suspect in the bizarre murder of a police officer, Mulder and Scully are sent to investigate. They discover that the boy and a couple of friends have been playing with the ability to accelerate their movements to a frequency the human eye can't perceive.

When I first saw this, I was bored by it. Maybe too much FLASH vibes but today when I watched it, I was actually enjoying it. It’s nothing special and maybe that’s exactly why I like it so much. It’s fast moving teenagers, one of them a killer. From a cave with special properties. It gives what it promises and nothing more. I’d take that over the three hours that end season six and start season seven, not that those are terrible but this is a fast moving (! PUN!) “less than an hour” mystery action adventure supernatural sci fi “adventure.” It is predictable? A bit. Is it okay? Yes, a lot actually. Nothing special is something just what the X FILES doctor ordered. It’s lighter, just a bit, than most but next episode…

145 6 "The Goldberg Variation" Thomas J. Wright Jeffrey Bell December 12, 1999 7ABX02 14.49[30]

After being thrown off a building and surviving, Henry Weems, who appears to be the luckiest man in the world, attracts the attention of Mulder and Scully. But, if he is so lucky, why is he on the run from the mob, and why is everyone around him so unlucky?

Is even lighter. This is almost a feel good X FILES with good characters, a good outcome and a great premise (“everything happens for a reason” a premise my mom used to say; dad, too). I like this episode a lot, and even watched it quite a while ago the same night I watched the Burt Reynolds episode when I could not sleep. While I was disappointed with the Burt is God episode of that season (8 or 9), I really enjoyed this and liked Henry Weems and the mother and son he was protecting. Shia Lebeouf is the little boy Henry wants to get the money for but the boy needs a blood transfusion. This almost feels like a MILLENNIUM episode that they could not use because their episode quota was filled and MILL went off the air (was cancelled). It would work on that show, too. I think it’s quite uplifting as an X FILES. Mulder falling through the floor is hilarious, “It’s okay---my ass broke the fall.”

146 7 "Orison" Rob Bowman Chip Johannessen January 9, 2000 7ABX07 15.63[30]

Reverend Orison releases Donnie Pfaster, Scully's former kidnapper, as seen in the second season episode "Irresistible", from jail in the hopes of passing judgment on him. What he discovers instead is that he has released pure evil, and it's headed for Scully.

This feels like a MILLENNIUM episode but it can’t be as it’s Scully’s victory over that skin crawling, worst of the worst Donnie, who makes my skin crawl, the worst monster they ever faced or ever will, probably of any TV series. I guess one can take it that Orison sees Donnie as the devil but it’s not a main emphasis as some reviewers insist it was and they don’t like it due to that. I do see some structural faults or at least cliches but this works in a downbeat, dark way. The Scully thinks that maybe the devil made her shoot Donnie…is puzzling I guess or not…but I cheered her on. If any villain deserved it…gosh. A well done episode and one of Donnie’s near victims survived!

147 8 "The Amazing Maleeni" Thomas J. Wright Vince Gilligan & John Shiban & Frank Spotnitz January 16, 2000 7ABX08 16.18[30]

The Amazing Maleeni, a small-time magician, performs an amazing feat to impress a heckler—he turns his head 360 degrees. So when he is later found without a head at all, Mulder and Scully arrive on the case and discover an angry ex-con, an unimpressed rival, and Maleeni's twin brother all seem to have something to do with the plan to rob a major bank.

Though a few reviewers didn’t like this due to the magic missing, I disagree completely. Gone are the conspiracy nonsense-icals and here is a plot. Not sure it makes sense not explaining how the head turned around but there you go. I was drawn in by the plot and the unsolvable which Mulder managed to solve…most of. It was particularly well paced and fun, and Anderson and David seem to be having a good time and it translates across to the audience, at least to me anyway and there are some very funny lines and an overall tone of funny crime drama.

Which makes me wonder if any of these scripts were discarded or unused MILLENNIUM scripts. This is not the first this season that makes me wonder about this. In any case, I liked this one and it went by fast which is more than I can say for some others across these first seven seasons. It was entertaining and a credit to the guest stars who play three vile characters (not as vile as Donnie last ep or some others in the entire X FILES canon) that all three are somewhat likable and slap happy funny. I like them in this. They guy playing Cissy plays a lot of vile villains, most more vile than the one here and he’s quite incredibly scary in almost all his villain roles (a real life criminal thug and murderer is far scarier than some far flung, impossible mutant or alien).

148 9 "Signs and Wonders" Kim Manners Jeffrey Bell January 23, 2000 7ABX09 13.86[30]

When a small town church is the site of a number of ritualistic-like murders, fingers are pointed to the Church of God with Signs and Wonders, a church where the Bible is read literally, and punishment is dealt deftly. But soon the agents realize that the difference between the peaceful religious and the fanatics may not be very much at all.

Despite some great moments (the preacher shoving Scully’s hand into the snake tank is amazing) and chilling scares (snakes!), this one is a bit hollow and shallow, though it does have some twists and turns but not sure I like this one at all or fully. Having a Bible thumper be the villain, however, is brave.

149 10 "Sein und Zeit"‡ Michael Watkins Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz February 6, 2000 7ABX10 13.95[30]

While investigating the bizarre disappearance of a young girl from her home, Mulder becomes obsessed with a number of children who have vanished in similar ways. Scully's fears that he is emotionally involved due to his sister's disappearance 27 years earlier are heightened when Mulder's mother dies, apparently of suicide.

Not sure the events really work on any logical level. The girl bodily vanishes from her home. Was it the Santa Claus killer or those walk ins? If so…Samantha must have been bodily taken too. Who took them? Did the walk ins take them bodily or were they killed in bed and then taken or taken and then killed? What about the psychic’s son? If it were the walk ins….why would such angelic like beings make the parents write notes incriminating…the parents? A side effect? What were those visions of the little girl dead? Who did that? This reads a lot like a MILLENNIUM episode and not one of the good ones.

On the other hand, part two has a resolution for Samantha that I like but not sure I agree with the written explanations.

150 11 "Closure"‡ Kim Manners Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz February 13, 2000 7ABX11 15.35[30]

As Mulder is forced to accept that his mother's death was by her own hand, he is led by a man whose son disappeared years earlier to another truth—that his sister may be among the souls taken by 'walk-ins', saving the souls of children doomed to live unhappy lives. Together, they embark on a journey that will reveal to Mulder the truth about his sister's disappearance.

Mulder’s mother appearing over his bed is a lot like real life visions and visits from and to heaven. So, too, is the ghost boy taking Mulder’s hand. And even more, the finale where Mulder sees the ghosts of the starlight children including Samantha and gets resolution. As if his mother was setting him into beliefs that he in the past did not have: he’s not even slightly religious and almost never talks about an afterlife, which Scully does believe in and does talk about and has had encounters with. The finale with him in the midst of all the starlight children is haunting in a good way. Some see it as sad and yet it’s not: they are alive but they are also dead. The walk ins seems to be good entities that pull the kids from their bodies or something…to save them suffering. Whatever the dumb explanations are, this is a lot like what happens to all of us when we transition from the physical to the non physical.

David’s acting, the music, and the effect combine to make it one spiritual sequence that really works and resonates with anyone who is in touch or has been in touch---with their inner spirit. Those complaining are more align with the alien bullshit and probably feel somewhat convicted that they don’t believe but it’s okay either way. Like gravity that holds down anyone and even those who do not believe…so too will the laws of the universe(s) allow them to go to a better place (we all do regardless of how we have or have not listened to and used our inner good spirit). Haunting, chilling, warming, and reassuring, this sequence makes the entire two parter worth it. It’s that good.

151 12 "X-Cops" Michael Watkins Vince Gilligan February 20, 2000 7ABX12 16.56[30]

A filming of an episode of COPS gets in the way of the collaborative effort between the FBI and the local police department. Mulder later finds out that the monster feeds on fear. While Mulder embraces the publicity, Scully is not so sure of it. The episode was filmed as if it were an authentic episode of the TV series COPS.

GREAT IDEA and some tense sequences and scary premises. Love that David smiles when staying with the gay couple who are not in fear for their mortal selves. The idea is great in premise and execution and it comes together. Glad we do not ever see the monster. This works and I love the guy that played the officer named Wetzel. He was in AS THE WORLD TURNS and TEXAS WALKER, I believe. The totally hot Judson Mills.

152 13 "First Person Shooter" Chris Carter William Gibson & Tom Maddox February 27, 2000 7ABX13 15.31[30]

The Lone Gunmen summon Mulder and Scully to the headquarters of a video game design company when the new virtual-reality game, which the Gunmen helped design, is taken over by a bizarre female computer character whose power is much more than virtual.

Bit of a slog at first but I sort of really got into it as it went along. This one is thought as the worst ep of the season but it is not that bad, really. It has its moments, mostly humorous and beguiling. Scully is quite fun in this in many ways as the level headed one. One thing I did NOT like was …that expert in gaming…WHY did Mulder and Scully too, LET HIM GO INTO THE GAME after the first murder? His death was uncalled for and made the agents look really remiss and even stupid.

Still, Mulder and Scully in a game against a female villain character, animated or not, is really too good a plot NOT to do. Could this have been better? Maybe? But it’s still a lot of fun and more than a bit exciting, even for a gay man!

And yes, there are a lot of funny lines.

153 14 "Theef" Kim Manners Vince Gilligan & John Shiban & Frank Spotnitz March 12, 2000 7ABX14 11.91[30]

After a prominent doctor discovers his father-in-law dead and the word "Theef" written on the wall in blood, Mulder suspects hexcraft may be the source of threats against the doctor's family.

At first, I didn’t want to see another revenge episode and one that has good people die horribly but…hey, this is THE X FILES not the MUNSTERS so…

…and given that Billy Drago as ever plays a very scary villain even if his motivation is almost one note (given that he wasn’t there, there might be guilt as well) and he IS gross. Not sure what the obsession this show has with flesh eating viruses and bacteria but that’s gross, too.

The scariest thing is the MRI scan and gosh that was ….yeah.

Love the expert Scully and Mulder visit. Wonder if she ever appears again and wish she would. She was probably, aside from Drago’s performance, the best thing about this but again, it’s NOT a bad episode at all. Well acted by all. And intensely scary. Love how Mulder…AND Scully seem to step around the strange symbol on the floor in the shop of th expert.

And even so, the villain is still alive in the end. Eeeek. There might be a reference to Drago being in CHARMED but I doubt it. And his charm is…ewl…his dead daughter’s body and later, just her skull. Eeek. Did he have to kill the poor landlady?

154 15 "En Ami"‡ Rob Bowman William B. Davis March 19, 2000 7ABX15 11.99[30]

After a young boy with cancer, whose parents do not believe in medical treatment because it is against God's will, recovers miraculously, Scully is intrigued. What she soon discovers is that his cure is not miraculous, but scientific. Eager, if wary, to learn of the truth behind his secrets, Scully agrees to travel with the Cigarette Smoking Man to get the cure to all mankind's diseases.

A lot of what others say makes sense: Scully does look vulnerable and yet…I believe David, the writer of this makes the CSM believable if somewhat super heroic but it’s all a cover. He wants it all for himself and I don’t see how that goes against other X Files cases where our heroes are just plain duped. Scully wants the cure and indeed, the cure seems real and she has to at least try, even though she seems sure he was duping her but…and she’s right…the Cigarette Smoking Man has another side: he is a lonely sad man. And he DOES save Scully. I’m not sure he had to. He does seem to like her and not sure the undressing of the knocked out Scully was as predatory as some reviewers make it out to be. It’s creepy to be sure but this is a creepy and dare I say it, realistic villain (sure, it’s hard to believe he had his hands in that many conspiracies but what else does he have to do after his writing was rejected and his family and loves seem to reject him, too?). It’s been before, too: he had plenty of time to kill the Lone Gunmen but doesn’t. Mulder, too. And for all the horror of Jeffery Spender’s shooting, he seems to have failed at that too (see the last episode of the original run, season 9’s finale). He’s not as one note as some reviewers might make him out to be and this is not as bad as some reviewers say. I found it riveting the first time and even more enjoyable now.

Love the “life saver” ask and Scully’s face when he asks. Joyous in a strange uptight episode. Entertaining.

155 16 "Chimera" Cliff Bole David Amann April 2, 2000 7ABX16 12.89[30]

Mulder investigates what appears to be a case of a missing woman from a small town, but soon turns out to be a murder by a spirit summoned from the underworld. Scully, meanwhile, must endure an uncomfortable stakeout.

A kind of routine X FILES with several disturbing images: the ravens (the poor birds get a bump rap), the monster itself, and undercover of a small town and wonderful family life. Ellen’s rap to Mulder about having a family to take refuge in makes this even more unsettling. There are some very funny exchanges between Scully who Mulder left on a stake out looking for what isn’t really a female serial killer but a good Samaritan trying to save souls!

And love when Ellen asks if Mulder has a significant other to take care of him…his answer, “Not in the traditional sense.”

That said, it’s another seedy underbelly in a place that’s not supposed to have that while Scully’s stake out has the underbelly totally out and up front while someone is trying to do good there and another man cheating on his wife, this time with TWO women. It’s almost, like so many episodes this season and some of last, VERY MILLENIUM like in its execution.

Mulder being drowned and saved only by Ellen seeing the reflection of her own Mr. Hyde like monster is wonderful though and the music, as ever, is great. It’s also very KOLCHAK. Despite it being a routine scare fest and picking on birds again, I really like this episode. It’s typical X FILES and I’m guessing if you don’t like this one, you probably really are NOT an X FILES fan at all.

Skinner fucked up again.

156 17 "all things" Gillian Anderson Gillian Anderson April 9, 2000 7ABX17 12.18[30]

While Mulder is away in England, Scully is led by coincidences, chance, fate and possibly a higher power to a married man with whom she had an affair during medical school, and a look at the life she didn't choose, forcing her to make choices about her future.

I like how this starts out. And it is not out of character for Scully to be disillusioned by their job and Mulder’s jaunts around the world to find crop circles or whatever. She wants a life. I think, deep down, so does Mulder (given past episodes). Here, Scully wonders what he will get out of going and waiting for a crop circle to appear (given now that his sister is no longer a factor in his quest to find aliens and alien activity THAT is a new argument she can make and it’s interesting).

Given what we know about bugs, monsters, mutants, the CSM, snakes and serial killers, WHY does Scully keep her windows open when she’s not at home (or even when she is!?)?

I also ---out of character ---appreciate how leisurely this is----no sense of urgency in a show that almost always has that, is nice for a change.

Robert Shearman, who I don’t usually agree with, is right about this feeling like a slow moving (he also uses the word dull so there I can’t agree with him as his taste…well) late afternoon TV movie (the 4:30 movie? Certainly he was in the UK so maybe he means THEIR TV?).

He meant it as a negative criticism but I like that ambience. I like how this does not match the rest of the series. It’s unique and certainly a choice. Gillian wrote this and directed and I like it.

The guest cast is strong (again) and I love Colleen Flynn (the NEW FLIPPER) and Stacy Haiduk (DAYS OF OUR LIVES as crazy Kristen Dimera) and SEAQUEST. I love them both. Colleen’s been in this show before but this is a more startling, wonderful character and wel written.

So, wait? Scully was the other woman? Not sure I like that.

I like Scully’s interactions with Colleen (who has a female significant other, which must be a first for TV). It’s all so normal and nice, unlike most other encounters with …well, everyone in other episodes. Her home is beautiful and yes, normal. The lighting is so fresh, too, even in the rain that happens eventually. And their conversation is nice.

Rain? Or does it turn to a light snow during the “tea” in the kitchen scene?

157 18 "Brand X" Kim Manners Steven Maeda & Greg Walker April 16, 2000 7ABX19 10.81[30]

While protecting a man due to testify against the Morley cigarette company, Skinner is horrified when the witness dies mysteriously. What the agents soon discover is that a new brand of cigarette has a dangerous secret.

Gross. No. Just no. Not a bad episode but again, a bit routine and a lot MILLENNIUM. Bugs and cigarettes, two of my pet hates and loathing together. Some funny moments but not enough and it sort of blends in with CHIMERA, which at least had a horrid looking scary powerful monster, this has…Torbin Bell, who starting in 2004, is in the SAW franchise, which features him as an over the top villain. Here…he mostly plays it sedate. Underacting is a thing and he accomplishes that here, far from being over the top. At first, it’s a notable and admirable acting choice but by the end of the episode, it’s slightly uninspiring and annoying. The writing doesn’t help but I do like that Skinner is given a more active role. He seems to fuck up again here, though. Add to bugs and cigarettes, coughing and coughing up blood. Ewl. No. Did the young guy in the store get affected? It seems not.

BTW, we’ve also had SAW franchise and BLOB remake star Shawnee Smith way back in season 2. Smith also was in the Barbara Eden short lived show BRAND NEW LIFE and the relatively unknown remake of I SAW WHAT YOU DID. I love her!

For not the first time but the most notable time, Mulder gets grossed out by what he’s seeing (and we are thankfully not seeing): the lung autopsy Scully and Skinner are looking at.

Good acting doesn’t really save this much, though and it’s almost too apocalyptic to spread further (like MILLENNIUM’s last second season episode) which would change the entire setting of the X FILES and we sort of know that as we’ve been here before with diseases in this show and it’s sister shows. So…what’s left. Plant eating bugs and a notiable premise that the cigarette company is covering stuff up. Glad to see someone on TV writing about that as cigarette companies used to give creators a hard time, most notably Rod Serling. Fuck them. They’ve signaled our friends and family members’ addictions long enough. Now we have the horrid YT for that.

158 19 "Hollywood A.D." David Duchovny David Duchovny April 30, 2000 7ABX18 12.88[30]

Wayne Federman, an entrepreneurial Hollywood producer and college friend of Skinner, picks up the idea for a film based on the X-Files division, however the agents find that the level of realism in their fictional portrayal is somewhat questionable.

Sadly, while I see the humor in this very funny episode, I also see the flaws everyone else is talking about. Skinner has a friend? In Hollywood? Like that? When would the FBI let Hollywood know details about a case?

And while most of this is very funny, all of it, really, as someone raised Catholic who now believes in spirituality more than religion, I, even so, find some of the Jewish Duchovny’s jabs and imagery at Jesus and Catholicism offense, less so than I might have some 7 years ago or so but even so the live Jesus in the church while Scully kneels is a bit much, not funny, and just startlingly in poor taste.

But hey, I would not mind a sort of Alternate Universe X FILES like the opening we saw. We almost had that with this season’s MILLENNIUM, the botch job they did on ending the more realistic sister/brother series MILLENNIUM.

I’d bet Duchovny didn’t know that in PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE, there is a graveyard scene where one of the graves doesn’t have a cross on it but… a star of David!

159 20 "Fight Club" Paul Shapiro Chris Carter May 7, 2000 7ABX20 11.70[30]

Mulder and Scully cross paths with a pair of doppelgangers whose close proximity yields unlimited mayhem. Splitting up in two, the agents try to find out "why" and "what" they are doing.

I read the reviews first. I have to say I was set to ignore all the awful things I read about this episode. There were a few bad episodes here and there (first season’s cave woman on the run ep for one) but nothing quite as stupid as this. I’m only 22 minutes in and I have to say it’s pretentious, boring, stupid, dopey, ridden with unrealistic dialog, lots of exposition that goes almost no where, and yes, even bad music. It’s almost unbelievable that Chris Carter could write such trash.

And yes, the reviewers were right: Kathy Griffin is awful in this but SO IS EVERYONE ELSE including Anderson and Duchovny. They’re absolutely awful for the first time ever. What a mess. What could be a scary premise and an interesting episode is just eye wide bad. And it’s a sign of things to come because season ten is mostly stupid, ridiculous garbage, too. I mean this episode is the first X FILES I felt was really trash. KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER did a doppelganger episode that was scary, disturbing and entertaining, memorable. This is everything that that is not.

The scene where Scully visits the sperm donor father of the girls where he is on death row in prison is so far, the single worst X FILES scene over the entire first seven seasons and one movie. Sadly, season 10 and maybe 11 will have far worse scenes.

It’s hard to fathom what the director, writer and actors were thinking when they did this shit but it strikes me as the SPOCK’S BRAIN, THE GREAT VEGETABLE REBELLION of THE X FILES. And yes, it IS that bad.

Still, over 11 million people reportedly watched this garbage.

160 21 "Je Souhaite" Vince Gilligan Vince Gilligan May 14, 2000 7ABX21 12.79[30]

Mulder and Scully's encounter with a man and his handicapped brother lead them to an indifferent genie whose willingness to grant wishes belies a deeper motive.

Here’s one I had fond memories of but being another tongue in cheek as last week, I’m shaking in terror at this being another unfunny parody or something. What happened to this show? Maybe it was time to cancel it?

That’s more like it. Much better. Whimsical and a bit downbeat here and there (those brothers sure were stupid, maybe too stupid) and annoying (like the actress playing the Jinn but…her ways of twisting wishes is a bit…annoying and dare I say it, scary) but still fun, entertaining, and a bit unique.

Scully can’t possibly deny what’s she seen or in this case what she’s not seen when presented with an invisible man. Mulder shows his heart warming ways by making the Jinn what he makes her in the end. It’s his one last act of charm before…he leaves the show. I’m not sure that THE X FILES is THE X FILES without Mulder and David and not sure I want to continue after the next episode but of course, I will.

161 22 "Requiem"‡ Kim Manners Chris Carter May 21, 2000 7ABX22 15.26[30]

Mulder and Scully return to the site of their first investigation together when a series of abductions take place. However, Scully's failing health, and Mulder's concern that she is in danger, cause him to take her off the case. Meanwhile, the Cigarette-Smoking Man—on his deathbed—reunites with Marita Covarrubias and Krycek in an attempt to revive the project.

Not a bad episode but this feels forced and highly negative. To have both Billy and his girl back, also Krycek and Marita and the CSM, it all feels like it might go somewhere but in true early X FILES mode, it does nowhere. And then in the last ten minutes, Mulder gets gone. Scully gets pregnant. And it all seems to end but it just goes limp and goes on and on and on. Nicely mounted but no real propellor. A sad ending for a sad season really.