The X-Files
11.1: My Struggle III
(SPOILERS) Good grief. Have things become so terminal for Chris Carter
that he has to retcon his own crap from the previous season, rather than the
(what he perceived as) crap written by others? Carter, of course, infamously
pretended the apocalyptic ending of Millennium
Season Two never happened, upset by the path Glen Morgan and James Wong, left
to their own devices, took with his baby. Their episode was one of the greats
of that often-ho-hum series, so the comedown was all the unkinder as a result. In
My Struggle III, at least, Carter’s
rewriting something that wasn’t very good in the first place. Only, he replaces
it with something that is even worse in the second.
So Scully wakes up in hospital, and everything we saw in My Struggle II was a foretelling at
best. Or just a dream, like that season of Dallas,
only she isn’t in the shower and now not enough people are watching to give a
shit. And Mulder, as is inevitable with these unimaginative Carter
envisionings, must turn sceptic when Scully turns prophetic (we had the same
thing when they introduced disbelieving Doggett).
Scully has very little to do but lie in bed, and God knows
she’s done enough of that during the series, while Mulder eventually races off
to find CSM, accompanied by a ridiculously apathetic – even by Carter’s
standards – voice over (“I was running
only on adrenaline and Scully’s premonitions”). Mind you, he isn’t any
worse off than Dana, who is experiencing some pretty Garth Merenghi’s Dark Place-standard medical care (“Neurologically speaking, her brain’s on fire”),
and is somehow able to transmit a message in Morse Code while comatose.
Carter’s always been all over the place as a director, but
here he’s as borderline incoherent as his teleplay. Nothing hangs together, and
his instinct to rake over the coals of long dead embers of X-lore and characters elicits no sparks whatsoever. The best I can
say is that Chris Owens (Spender) has aged more interestingly than Duchovny,
who between finishing up Californication
and taking on this new run has become a cross between Walter Matthau and Bob
Mortimer, such that he seems to be uncomfortably squeezed into his traditional
FBI suit. I suppose you could regard his graphically slitting the throat of
Scully’s would-be assassin as something different, but by this point in the
episode, no tonal aberration on Carter’s part really surprised me.
Besides Spender, who was never very interesting in the first
place and for some reason seems to have been entrusted by our intrepid duo, we
have William, their son, one of the least productive elements of the ailing
later stage arcs of the original run, who rather than being Fox’s son is revealed
as the product of Scully being artificially impregnated by his dirty old dad
(during En Ami, it seems). What’s the
betting we find this wasn’t so at all by the end of the season? Or at the start
of the next. Is there a less called for returnee than CSM? I felt he was past
his expiry date around the point he had an episode devoted to his memories (and
that was only Season 4), and Carter’s really flogging a dead horse here, making
him the Big Bad again and in so doing shrinking the size and potential of the X-universe irreparably. Do something
new, for goodness sake. His mere invocation is a surrender to the absence of
the creative impulse.
Poor old Skinner, meanwhile, would actually be a welcome
presence if they gave him something to do, other than be on the receiving end
of the umpteenth unnecessary string of accusations from Mulder (“Whose side are you on?!”)
Is there anything good to be said about My Struggle III? The one great coup of is the faked Moon landing pullback
one-shot in a TV studio. There’s also more from the Georgia Guidestones by
inference (although none of that happened now, or yet), and mention of a secret
space programme, one of the more buzzed about assertions of conspiracy lore
these days. Oh, and CSM clears up that the aliens aren’t coming anymore,
because it’s all a bit of a lost cause down here. Why, precisely? I think it
must be Trump – everything suddenly is, after all – if Carter’s hilarious
incontinent opening montage is anything to go by. Who knew the X-world had only suddenly turned to
shit, when in fact its covert shitness had been the series’ theme all along?
But Carter’s always been at his worst when trying to be political/topical. We’re
told at one point that Mulder doesn’t want to believe. With an episode this
pitiful, who can blame him?
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.
Comments
Post a comment