FabXXL

OMG! There is more going on in this episode than happens in most movies nowadays! It’s a rollercoaster. Blokes in tanks, noxious wounds, Scully as a spy, roadside executions, extraterrestrial DNA. I can’t breathe. It’s conspiracy city. Honestly, how are the government keeping all this a secret? Are these really the same people that run the tax office? Loves it. 10

Želko Ivanek! He’s that guy! From everything ever! He was the boss dude in True Blood, the boss dude brother of Dennis Hopper in 24, the tragic closeted gay lawyer in love with Ted Danson in Damages, Oz, Homicide. Everything. Ever.

He is brilliant in this. He plays the title character, Roland, who is a mentally handicapped cleaner that is possessed by someone dead (yes, it’s the Child’s Play plot again). The episode would be naff if it weren’t for Ivanek doing the same kind of thing Dourif (who was Chucky in those Child’s Play movies) did in the “Beyond the Sea” epsiode, and that is pretty much taking the show and running off with it. There are some nice creepy bits, Mulder and Scully blunder into the truths of the plot way later than they should, but overall the episode is as simple as the title character, which is ironic, because Ivanek is so convincing in his portrayal, the character is anything but. 7

They’re crazy for the creepy kids in this first season aren’t they? This is basically a made-for-tv version of Child’s Play, and to save on special effects the spirit goes into a child actor instead of an animated Chucky doll. There’s lots of cop stuff I don’t really care about. If I wanted the ins and outs of crooked cops, I’d watch The Wire or The Shield. I want spooky business! Apart from some video static and a fishtank, this isn’t spooky enough. It’s not as bad as some of these first season eps, but it’s not great. 6

Yay! It’s Skinner! I love Assistant Director Skinner. So manly and assured. Plus creepy Tooms is back, looking for livers to eat. When he finds one he likes, like the one inside the Greek dude from The Wire, he sees everything in black and white, and dinner man (or lady) is in colour. Like Schindler’s List but spooky instead of sad. The ending is really scary and will give you nightmares about Westfield escalators. 9.

Eco-terrorism! Lumberjacks! Log cabins! Human cocoons! Deadly thrip! The Man in Black from Lost! This episode has it all, and one of the most unconventional endings for a tv episode in ages. Irony abounds as prehistoric glowing bugs attack everyone in sight. They swarm in the dark and scared the bejeezus out of me. This is the kind of gruesome horror and tension I was hoping for. Fantastic. 9.

This is awful. Anything that inspires me to watch Twilight: New Moon needs to not exist. Native American Werewolf things. Horrible. I fell asleep in this episode. Twice. Once when I was watching it at 11am. They should prescribe it to insomniacs. 3.

I sometimes wish X-Files episodes were like Terrance Dicks Doctor Who book titles; this one would be called Mulder and Scully versus the Faith Healers. It’s a bit dicky. The faith healer starts off as a little kid and then grows up into a smoking, drinking, disaffected young adult. Like Macaulay Culkin with god powers. His preacher-dad and the burns victim he resurrected as a little kid drag him around to heal people in those tent revival churches, until his powers go sour and the people he lays hands on start dying. It’s a fairly straightforward whodunnit with some surface supernatural/religious overtones. Mulder keeps seing his disappeared sister. 6.

I think this may be how the show means to go on, and I don’t know if I want to go on that ride. This is loopy la la conspiracy crazy. There are a trio of uber-nerds called The Lone Gunmen, who make Mulder look sane, bugged pens, Iraqi pilots shooting down aliens, a truck driver with Gulf War syndrome and suspicious cargo, and Deep Throat pulling so many strings you expect him to break into a chorus of High on a Hill Lived a Lonely Goat Turd. Deep Throat disappointed me in this episode. I get that the “truth wrapped in lies” thing is meant to make us question everything, but he’s been so deliciously enigmatic up until now, this episode makes him seem like he can’t decide between pantomime villain or pantomime dame. It’s exciting, though, I’ll give it that! 7.

They’ve fallen off the wagon again. This one is really all over the shop. The spooky amphibian bits, and the bizarrely poignant progeria subplot fly in the face of some of the ham acting and colour-by-numbers plotting. I wandered off to deep fry a toasted sandwich halfway through, so I’m not really sure how it all went down. As far as I can work out, Mulder tracks down the only person with all the secrets and shoots him in the head. I think the reason he is allowed to be in charge of the X-Files is because he’s incompetent, and they don’t have to worry about him actually finding anything out. They should never have assigned Scully to work with him, he is bound to learn how to actually investigate a case from her, and unearth all sorts of nonsense. 4.

Great ambiguous title. NOT! (I’ve clearly been watching too much X-Files, because now I’m talking like it’s 1994) Scully’s ex is shot and killed attempting to prevent a bank robbery, and comes back to life, but he has the soul of a dead bank robber, who is only back because he’s obsessed with his murderous bank-robbing girlfriend. They’re like a nineties Bonnie and Clyde, shitty tattoos and all. This is a bit all over the place, and if someone is going to have diabetes all of a sudden, you maybe should have had a reference to it earlier in the episode, so it doesn’t seem like you made it up all of a sudden as a convenient plot trick. There’s a cylon from Battlestar Galactica in it for ten seconds. 6.