"S.R. 819"

"That was the second opinion. The first was unsolicited. A phone call at the hospital, a scrambled voice telling him he had 24 hours to live."
Originally Aired 1/17/99

John Shiban is one of the core X-Files writers that I never took as seriously as the others. Several of the episodes that his name is attached to also share credit with Vince Gilligan, so it's hard to tell where John's contribution begins and ends. It wasn't until his Fifth Season episode "The Pine Bluff Variant" that I began to look at him differently. It was a highlight among many great episodes that season, with this particular episode feeling like a spy thriller involving chemical weapons and a bank heist.

Shiban contributes another thriller episode with "S.R. 819", which is the type of episode I have been begging for since the start of the Sixth Season. Skinner returns for only his third appearance this season, Krycek appears for the first time since "The End", and Mulder's former contact in the Senate, Senator Matheson, makes his first appearance since Season 3. Another notable aspect of "S.R. 819" is that its the first "Skinner-centric" episode since Season 4's "Zero Sum."

I like the return to gunfire and shadowy parking decks since it feels like The X-Files of days gone by, but I also like how this episode features Skinner with a varicose vein face; which follows in the series' tradition of great visual effects. When I was much younger I noticed that my grandfather had bulgy, purple veins like that on his legs and it was somewhat disturbing. There was even a gag on the Ren & Stimpy cartoon where kids had "stick-on" varicose veins so they could sneak into adult movies. It takes on a whole new level of creepiness when Skinner's body is covered in these throbbing, pulsating veins which lead to him nearly dying of a heart attack. Its a great effort from the make-up department and also Mitch Pileggi for enduring the likely lengthy process of applying it.

I've watched this a few times before writing this review yet I'm not entirely sure what is the purpose of this episode. Was it to make it seem believable that even Walter Skinner is now "expendable" and just how lost Mulder and Scully really are without the X-Files? It's like kicking a man when he's down, rubbing salt in someone's wounds, and other cliched phrases. Possibly the purpose of "S.R. 819" was to bring Skinner back into the fold since he's been on the fringes with Mulder and Scully now reporting to another Assistant Director. Krycek is also a man on the fringes, a fact I even pointed out when Agent Jeffrey Spender was brought into the series and seemed to fill his previous role as a tool of the Cigarette-Smoking Man. Krycek was briefly an associate of the Well-Manicured Man but even that ended abruptly, leaving Krycek without a purpose in the series. Is he still part of the Syndicate conspiracy? Possibly this is giving Krycek a new conspiracy within the series and it brought both Skinner and himself back into the fold. I like the possibilities of where this could go; why is Krycek using Skinner? Is it to serve the Syndicate or to serve his own interests?

This episode also proves that other writers are worthy of contributing to the mythology besides Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz. Without Morgan, Wong, and Howard Gordon, its been the sole work of those two head writers for the past season and half of tv. I'd like to see more from Shiban in this role, and even Vince Gilligan too, though I know it doesn't happen in hindsight. The nanobytes conspiracy doesn't seem to go anywhere after this, though I can't judge this episode based on what happens (or doesnt' happen) in future episodes. In my opinion I would have liked to see Senator Matheson become the villain, or at least take on more of a presence within the series following the dissolution of the Syndicate, though it wasn't to be.