"Tunguska"

Aired: November 24, 1996 (Part 1)

Krycek Lives!

This is an instance where I need to turn off my brain and just hang on for an amazing ride. With my brain on I kept asking, "is this alien rock the same as the oil from last season?" When my brain is off, I can enjoy it for being the most action-packed and fast-paced hour since Season Three's "731."

Krycek is back, having been released by a terrorist group, and he then tips off Mulder about their activities. Now that they've teamed up, he leads Mulder to a rock from outer space, that just happened to be left behind at an airport. But then my brain came back on and asked why that guy was so stupid to leave behind something so valuable. Darn it, brain! If I just relax, I can enjoy the excellent and intense sequences too. The scientist cutting into the rock and splattering it onto his suit, Krycek being handcuffed to a balcony railing, and Krycek and Mulder being chased through the woods are just a few of the excellent scenes. It proves how good their budget was and also how amazing the production crew was when you watch Krycek dangling from Skinner's balcony, then pulling someone over with him. I even started to feel sorry for him after all the abuse he took from Mulder and Skinner.

The episode ended in Russia, which made my brain come back on again. Mulder flies off to New York to get information from his new source with Krycek, only to take him along with him to fly to Russia. How does he get the kind of money to travel so much! No matter how he made it to Russia, it did end my sympathy for Krycek. He gave Mulder to these Russian scientists, who wrapped him up in chicken wire and exposed him to the black oil. The X-Files certainly knows how to deliver creepy visuals, which made for an excellent cliffhanger.

Meanwhile Scully and Skinner are being questioned by a Senate Committee. No doubt this is the work of the Syndicate to use them as scapegoats to cover up the fact that they misplaced the alien rock. I did like the quick scene between CSM and the Well-Manicured Man (R.I.P.), where Old Smokey is told this will take more than having good aim to cover up. Now whether or not you believe CSM is a Presidential assassin, I took this as a reference to last week's episode; though he could have also meant the executions of Bill Mulder and Melissa Scully. Either way you take it, I loved "Tunguska." It doesn't answer anything, in fact it adds the oil to a conspiracy involving bees, clones, and hybrids. Next week's episode is too far away!

"Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man"

I'm imaging he's listening to "Fight the Power" by Public Enemy

I cannot say this enough: I love Morgan & Wong. These two are on a roll this season and it appears that they came back with a game plan. While they are not a part of the "Mythology", it seems they have decided to make character-centered standalones that are focusing on each of the central characters. This time its the Cigarette-Smoking Man, though it turns out he didn't even like to smoke! We still don't know his name, we actually learned so much more...or did we?

In addition to a great story, James Wong's direction of this episode has taken this series to a new level. They say that each X-Files episode is like a mini movie and I think this episode is the best example of that. I loved the many close-ups, the use of black and white, and most of all the sequences where CSM fires and it cuts to a bottle of root beer as well as Deep Throat executing the alien. Mark Snow's music is also top notch.

There are even touches of humor throughout. I liked the reveal at the end that Frohike read this in a magazine, leading you to wonder if the CSM was writing his life story. The publisher told him it was too ridiculous to be true, and really, who would believe that one man was responsible for all of these historical moments. However Morgan and Wong did link it to previous events in the series. Deep Throat executing an alien is the same event he told Mulder about in "E.B.E." CSM was there from the beginning, monitoring Mulder, and also revealing that he was the one who assigned Scully to The X-Files. This proves my theory that CSM is the head of Syndicate security.

Whether these events in CSM's life are true or not, does it really matter?

"Sanguinarium"

I felt like I should start out this episode review with that image because its about the only redeeming part of this hour of The X-Files. If I didn't already know in advance, I think it would be easy to tell that this episode was not written by a regular writer. I have no clue who Valerie Mayhew & Vivian Mayhew are, though I am glad this is their first and only X-Files episode.

I know this is a fantasy/science fiction series that just had an episode dealing with the possibilities of soul mates and/or reincarnation, but I just thought they made Mulder go a little overboard here. Some lady pukes up needles that couldn't have been swallowed and he rattles off his usual facts about how there are known cases of this happening. It felt really far-fetched to me and Mulder came off a lot dorkier than usual.

A friend of mine linked me to an article online that talked about scrapped plots for episodes from Star Trek's many tv series. Deep Space Nine was absent from the list and he questioned whether or not the DS9 staff just filmed every script that they had, good or not. I am wondering if this was the case with The X-Files; did they just film every script that was submitted to the producers? Perhaps they just added a few Mulder one-liners into the script before shipping it to the crew up in Vancouver. Certainly seems likely since they're back to their "good episode, bad episode, good episode, bad episode" rotation from Season Two. I was already considering if I should stop assigning a score to each episode and after watching this, it was easy to make up my mind. "Sanguinarium" was less than average; it was cookie-cutter X-Files at it's finest. Not even upping the level of "gore" could save it.

"The Field Where I Died"

Aired 11/3/1996

This was a "new to me" episode, one of the many this season, yet I was a little hesitant to watch it. While I love Morgan & Wong episodes, several places online made this out to be among the worst of the series. The topic of past lives does indeed seem a little "out there", even for this series, but once I watched it I felt it worked. The motto of this series is "I Want to Believe" and that applies equally to both Mulder and Scully. Mulder believes in the paranormal, aliens, that there's a government conspiracy in which his family is involved, and other things that go bump in the night. Scully is a Catholic but also believes in rational explanations through science, which when you think about it actually makes her a lot like Mulder. She has faith in God, yet her scientific background contradicts that. Her faith in religion is just like Mulder's belief in aliens.

This won't become a religious debate, but if Scully believes in Christianity, then it makes sense that we would see other religions in this series. Buddhists believe in reincarnation, so rather than past lives being too out there for The X-Files, I think it actually has added more depth to the series. The episode doesn't really dive into whether the past lives are related to a religion but Morgan & Wong did create a very thought-provoking and personal episode. It's a nice change of pace from monsters, especially in contrast with their last episode, "Home." Their episode from Season 2 called "One Breath" has slowly become my favorite, which was a multi-layered episode that was more than just there to further the conspiracy. Did Scully have a guardian angel? I think "The Field Where I Died" is an extension of that. Is there something cosmic that's out there besides aliens?

The only complaint I would have with this episode is minor. It never really went into why Mulder, Scully, and even Skinner were included in this investigation. A cult with weapons seems like it could have been handled by a different division of the FBI, so they only make a quick mention that the cult leader is claimed to be an astral projector. If they did get into more of that, it could have cluttered up the episode and taken the focus away from investigating Melissa's past lives. I did like the small moments of comedy too, like when Scully said she wouldn't redo anything, except for the Fluke Man.

Morgan & Wong continue their trend of great episodes in the series so it will be sad to see them go after "Musings of the Cigarette-Smoking Man." I already watched "Never Again" a few years back but it will be diferent to see it in the context of the series, rather than my old method of 'cherry picking' episodes. I'm giving this episode 4 stars. Next week will continue the long stretch of "new" episodes with "Sanguinarium."