Travelers

"Smells like a whole lot of something went bad."

Geez, is that an understatement. It has been a long long time 
since I've been this disappointed in an episode of X-Files. 
All I could think when it was over was that I was suddenly 
very afraid for the movie. Sure, we've all joked about the 
National Enquirer "lizard aliens", but when I actually had 
to witness that "Dark Skies" rip-off (incredibly pathetic 
in and of itself - especially given the dissing of "Dark 
Skies" X-Files staffers entered into) crustacean-like slimy 
lizard butt thing crawl out of Skur's mouth I was just 
appalled and saddened. I was actually thankful Gillian 
Anderson was not in this episode just to spare her having 
her name attached to it.

David Duchovny is not as lucky. Nope, not at all. Instead 
of escaping this cheese festival he gets to trip down memory 
lane again. Maybe they thought it would be cute to make us 
all wonder at a smoking, wedding banded Mulder. It wasn't 
cute. It was annoying. For the second time this season (the 
first being the other flashback episode "Unusual Suspects") 
Mulder sports a wedding ring. No, I do not think David just 
forgot to take it off. They dress these characters down to 
their watches and bras. Plus, they made sure it was in our
faces with that affected hair swipe thing that Mulder never 
does as if to make sure we saw it with all the subtlety of 
a ton of bricks. Is this some clever little thing they plan 
on dropping on us later? Oops, did we forget to mention Mulder 
was once married? Sure. 

Oh and apparently as Mulder was in his carefree early years 
he just blocked this whole story about his father being 
involved with grafting another species to people's insides 
with the help of German Axis scientists. Why the hell is he 
so shocked in "Paper Clip"  if this is the case. (Pardon me 
while I sigh and fondly remember "Paper Clip" - it's the best 
thought I've had tonight). Oh damn, Dad did that? Hmm. Ok. 
Good thing we "don't really speak" or I might actually bring 
this up some day. Fine.

Then there is the whole incredible idea that Mulder's Dad 
would let a murdering alien possessed guy go out of some 
guilt complex so he could continue using that crab thing 
to suck the organs out of people for years. Yeah right, 
he's just been used. He didn't mean to kill his wife. Best 
let him go for the greater good. Oh, and it get's better: 
38-odd years later of removing people's organs via his 
little slimy symbiont pal his last word is "Mulder"? Whatever.

On the acting side Darren McGavin was sadly wasted. Fredric 
Lane did a credible but bland job as Agent Dales. David 
Moreland played Roy Cohn like Pee Wee Herman's evil twin. 
Eileen Peddle as Mrs. Skur gave us some nice work for her 
few scenes, and I really liked Jane Perry as the helpful 
woman who created the "X" files because there was no room 
in "U".

I will say a few nice things. I liked what Joel Ransom 
did to create a 40's look with the yellow-based lighting. 
There were some very nice touches by the set dressing crew 
down to the push button wall light switches.

Other than that I'm going to try to block this one out of 
my memory just like Mulder.

Random Musings
------------------------

-Yeah, yeah, yeah we've all heard the excuses of "Musings 
of a Cigarette Smoking Man" being not grounded in reality 
in order to hide the continuity errors. So then, I ask, why 
do they use the same actors? We are supposed to recognize 
the characters and forget the time line? Now we are to believe 
Dad Mulder 10 years into his State Department job leaves to 
be an Army Captain for a while in 1962 to fit the "Musings" 
time frame. Whatever. I don't know why we bother. They sure 
as hell don't.

-Retread Alert: The coroner was the deputy in "Miracle Man", 
the helpful secretary we last saw in "Paper Hearts", and the 
teaser sheriff is an X-Files regular appearing in "GenderBender", 
"Sleepless", and "The List".

-Not only do we get actor retreads, but they couldn't even 
be bothered to find new locations. The house in the teaser 
is straight out of "Demons" and Dale's hang out Hoot-Owl bar 
was in both "Deep Throat" and "Piper Maru".

-Not only is Mulder smoking in this episode, but he is driving 
around with his trench coat belt slammed in the car door. 
Pretty pitiful.

-Which leads me to "Frank's Fashion Spot" and that horrid 
blue/navy/white striped tie Mulder had on. Ick. At least the 
period costumes looked dapper.

-I've got to say the pathologist telling us they'd have the 
results back in 6 to 8 weeks made me appreciate the good Dr. 
Scully and modern medicine even more.

Autumn
"You're not supposed to understand."