As I continue to sum up television shows I've fallen behind on, I now turn to the last couple episodes of the X-Files revival, "Babylon" and "My Struggle II."
"Babylon" is the kind of episode that I feel probably had a message at its core, but I wasn't paying close enough attention to catch it. There were Muslim terrorists involved, and mini-Scully and mini-Mulder appear to help them solve the case, and Mulder has a weird acid trip (except it was a placebo and all in his head). Whatever.
"My Struggle II" started with Scully giving her summary of her life in X-Files, much as Mulder had done at the beginning of "My Struggle." Then a pathogen is released, spreading rapidly, and people are sick and dying, all very The Stand. Turns out Scully's alien DNA protects her, and so the goal is to create some kind of cure based on that. Meanwhile, a near-death Mulder confronts Smoking Man. In truth, the whole thing felt thrown together and fragmented at the same time, like something shattered that has been badly re-glued. Maybe the writers threw index cards with scenes in the air and then randomly assembled them into a script. I don't know. But the whole thing ends without ending, as Scully tries desperately to save Mulder and a UFO arrives to spotlight them.
To be fair, it would be impossible to write something finite for this show. Better to leave it open and ambiguous. I only wish it hadn't felt crammed into an hour. The story in "My Struggle II" feels like it could actually have been the kind of multi-episode arc one finds in the special Torchwood series. So I walked away with an ultimate feeling of a missed opportunity.
I'll always love The X-Files, though. Despite all the flaws, I was glad to have it back.
1 comment:
I felt the same way. I really hope the mini agents disappear and are forgotten. I don't want more X-Files and see them again. Now that you mention Torchwood, it did have that sort of flavor. We needed Captain Jack!
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