"Vienen"

"And you'd love to help but you left your lightsaber at home."
(Originally Aired 4/29/01)

In this week's episode we have more of the Doggett-Mulder duo, "As The X-Files Turns", or in this case, Die Hard on a oil rig. Doggett is sent by Kersh to quickly investigate the death of a worker on an oil rig, which was a case that Mulder was looking into, so naturally he shows up and beats Doggett to the punch. Meanwhile, Scully and Skinner remain on land to perform an autopsy on that oil worker.

Scully told Mulder that this isn't like old times, except it is, with the two of them investigating the same case from different locations. It also feels like the old days, when the agents face resistance from an oil company executive, much like when Mulder and Scully encountered a local police officer who resented their investigation. To give it even more of that old feeling of nostalgia, the episode's villain is the black oil, last seen in the movie Fight The Future. Season 5 would be it's last series appearance, when the Syndicate attempted to create a vaccine in "The Red and The Black." This was actually the first episode I had watched with the oil, so I wasn't aware of how differently it acts in each appearance. The version in "Vienen" is more like it's original incarnation, which was also found under the sea, and would take over a person's body and irradiate anyone who got in it's way.

 
Revisiting this for the first time in 8 years, it feels slightly less exciting than I remembered. Possibly it's because Mulder has done so much in the past to skate on thin ice at the FBI, that this can't be what gets him dismissed for good by Kersh. On the other hand, Kersh now has another guy in the X-Files that he can manipulate to take the fall, making Mulder expendable. This also feels slightly less exciting because most scenes feature Doggett and Mulder walking around the oil rig; I guess they had to make the most of the oil rig they had rented. The set piece of the oil rig also gives it an old school X-Files environment, too. I was reminded of the early years where they created paranoia by isolating Mulder and Scully in a remote location in episodes like "Ice" and "Darkness Falls."

I love how Season 8 appears to be the "Year of the B-Players", with the best episodes of this season coming from unlikely writers. First was David Amann's "Invocation", which attempted to provide a backstory for Agent Doggett and the mystery surrounding his son. Frequent mythology co-conspirator Frank Spotnitz provided the script for "Via Negativa", which featured Doggett's descent into madness when investigating a creepy cult leader. Last week's was Greg Walker's "Empedocles", again centering the episode's mystery around Doggett's past, and now this episode's Doggett-Mulder bromance aboard an oil rig was written by Steven Maeda. "Vienen" is also noteworthy among the series' mythology because it's one of the very few to have not been written by either Carter, Spotnitz, nor the duos of Morgan-Wong and Gordon-Gansa. I feel like these writers were given the spotlight this season because Vince Gilligan and John Shiban were tied up with the Lone Gunmen spin-off, though their absence adds to the unique atmosphere that is Season 8.

Only one standalone episode remains before the season ending two-parter, with "Alone" being another script from Frank Spotnitz. I'm curious how well it has aged since I recall hating it the first time around. "Vienen" remains strong, still among the best that Season 8 had to offer.