Originally Aired 10/21/94
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| The best tram-car sequence since Moonraker! |
"You're one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan, designed and directed by his red right hand." Wow, not only does Duane Barry have a catchphrase, he also has his own theme song, which funnily enough is playing on his car's stereo. Also something that's funny which I just noticed (or maybe forgot since last time), is that Skinner orders Krycek to take Mulder home safely. Yup, he's just handing him right over to the enemy. Way to go, Walter!
All kidding aside, this episode is truly one of the all-time greats of the entire run of The X-Files and presently sits at #9 on my personal "Top Ten Episodes" list (if you ignore the fact I still have about 30 "unseen" episodes.) It packs a reall wallop, as it begins with Scully's abduction, follows Mulder's pursuit of Duane Barry, then Mulder is left empty-handed and broken-hearted by the time it concludes. Steve Railsback makes another appearance as Duane Barry, Nick Lea makes his third appearance in a row with Krycek's true colors finally being known to Mulder, William B. Davis is back as the Cigarette Smoking Man, Sheila Larken reprises her role as Scully's mother, Steven Williams delivers cryptic information as X, and of course Mitch Pileggi appears as A.D. Skinner. It packs in as many guest stars as it does memorable moments. I also like the pacing of this episode too, because the Duane Barry mystery is resolved by the half-way point, then it still packs even more plot on top of it. If I hadn't noticed the counter on my dvd player (or known the running time for these episodes), I'd swear this ran longer than the usual 45 minutes.
I have no idea who Paul Brown is since he didn't write many episodes of The X-Files, so its a wonder how he was given the greenlight to write such a crucial episode. I want to say his next episode is a turd, but I can't recall which it is, so maybe he was given some help by Chris Carter. No matter who wrote "Ascension", it was a pretty neat idea to abduct Agent Scully because it served several purposes. Behind the scenes Gillian was pregnant so they needed to briefly write her out. On-screen, we finally get much more of this conspiracy that Mulder is always so worked up over. It raises the stakes by actually putting the main characters in danger and X being a shady informant fits perfectly with this new direction the series is taking. While Mulder may have lost Scully, he did regain his position on The X-Files unit, so that part of the plot is finally wrapped up after being unresolved since the end of the first season. There's a subtle line of dialogue that I noticed this time through. Mulder says someone could have given Scully's address to Duane Barry and Krycek looks like he's about to say something but stops short. Now I've always figured Krycek just killed off Duane Barry because all evidence of alien life is eventually destroyed by the end of each X-Files episode, but this time that takes on a new meaning. He killed Duane Barry so Mulder wouldn't know who really took Scully.
Besides "Ascension" being a milestone for the series, I've noticed my reviews really have come a long way since I started this in the Fall of 2008. I looked back to my original Facebook review of this episode which was posted on February 6, 2010 and I could barely type a full paragraph then. I'm able to write a lot more now, but I think I was funnier back then, because in that review I said, "I really dug the song Duane has on in his car, if it even was his car. Nice sweatshirt too."
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