Confuse The Twilight Zone with The Outer Limits? DO YOU EVEN KNOW ME?

The X-Files

11.4: The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat

(SPOILERS) Can Darin Morgan just write every episode of The X-Files? Even The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat, which teeters into the territory of the less than worthy of his talent in places by going for obvious targets – Morgan is generally signposted by his ability to do exactly not that – is leagues ahead of anything else in either this series or (mostly) the original.

Mulder: It’s the Mandela Effect. When someone has a memory of something that’s not shared by the masses, or the factual record.

As current age conspiracy theories go, the Mandela Effect is one of the leaders of the pack, and being an intrinsically quirky theory, it’s entirely appropriate that Morgan should present it in his trademark quirky, self-reflexive style. While it gets its name from the belief, as cited by Mulder, that Nelson Mandela died in prison, and includes such speculation as whether our internal organs, as per medical text books, are in different places from where they used to be, Morgan also references the more common idiosyncrasy of the effect, that it seems to weave its magic on innocuous pop culture events, such as whether there was a ‘90s movie called Shazam starring Sinbad (see also C-3P0’s never-used-to-be silver leg, or Jaws’ girlfriend in Moonraker’s lack of tooth-wear) or Scully’s childhood love for Goop-O (did Fruit Loops change their name from Froot Loops?) Although, the latter is most notable for Scully continuing the season’s taint referencing (“Lemon and lime tastes like leprechaun taint”).

Reggie: Were you followed?
Mulder: It would be a hell of a twist if it were Rod Serling.

And then there’s Mulder’s obsession with his memory of the first Twilight Zone episode,

(“But Mulder, isn’t you fake Twilight Zone memory also a Mandela Effect?”: “No, because my fake memory is real”) offered the altogether mundane explanation that, as the explanation would be with the beloved flawed memories of so many, that it was never an episode of The Twilight Zone at all; it’s from The Dusty Realm (ahem). That’s obviously the “wise’ conclusion of any rational minded type taking a cursory glance into these waters, and one suspects it’s Morgan’s too, given he only really gives the thing a smidgeon of credit in a late stage gag.

Mulder: Maybe, this is simply evidence of a parallel universe.

Scully and Reggie: WHAT?

He scrupulously avoids mentioning CERN, the holy grail of Mandela Effect theorists. Could that be because it’s already lined up for a devoted plotline (it is fairly irresistible)? But Mulder does kind of invoke it with his initial enthusiasm for a parallel universe answer to the conundrum (“We’re not going to do this parallel universe, sci-fi gobbledegook, nerd boy. Please, just drop it”).

Mulder: The Mandela Effect has been an Internet meme for almost a decade. It’s always been called that.

Reggie: Ah, you see, you’re having a Mengele Effect about the Mandela Effect.

The episode hinges on the testimony of one Reggie Something (Brian Huskey), in common with many Morgan structures required to tell shaggy dog stories (along with Dr They) in order to guide the narrative. He claims the government is trying to erase him from history, that he knows Mulder and Scully (or “Sculls”) and even that he actually started the X-Files (cue an amusingly re-jigged title sequence and clips from classic episodes, including the Pilot, Tooms, Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose, Home, Bad Blood and, er Tesos Dos Bichos).

His path began while tracking down Dr Wuzzle books that he remembers being spelt Wussle (“No, I remember the logo being racist in a different way”), and he claims the Effect is named after Josef Mengele, because of the memory some have of his apprehension in Ohio in 1970. That Reggie turns out to be Reginald Murgatroyd, who suffered a nervous breakdown through recognising that, by serving his country he was betraying its very ideals, is perhaps inevitable (Reggie witnessed a UFO landing in Grenada, and embarked on a series of government jobs, from US postal service, to IRS, to SEC, DoJ and CIA and DoD). But Morgan offers the sliver, in keeping with the work of Dr They, that Reggie is telling the truth, when Skinner arrives to see Murgatroyd driven away by the men in white suits (“Where the hell are they taking Reggie?”)

The problem is, the choice to make the Mandela Effect about Fake News is something of a misstep, not that Morgan doesn’t hit some targets, but that he also launches at lazy, easy ones. This season has become overpoweringly overburdened by the weight of the Trump regime, whereas this is exactly the kind of show that shouldn’t take new incumbents so literally as exerting real power. Writer after writer is crying into their cornflakes for an America they don’t recognise any more, but the Morgan of old response would more likely be that it’s exactly the same one, just with a different set of obfuscators sticking their heads above the parapets.

Dr They: It’s a presentation of real facts but in a way that ensures no one will believe any of it.

Mulder: To what end?

Dr They: The bitter end.

Getting an almost unrecognisable Stuart Margolin (Angel in The Rockford Files) to play Dr Thaddeus Q They is something of a coup, and at least part of his pitch is astute as it relates to Phoney Fake News: that the objective is to make anyone and everyone uncertain about what to believe any more. Certainly, as this relates to the conspirasphere, not that you’re supposed to believe anything in such territory, it could never be more so. They makes a case for a post-cover-up, post-conspiracy age (“Po-co”) (“In the old days, I’d never have gone out and told you”) and Morgan takes up his own baton from last season’s Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster when They informs Mulder his time has passed (“Time when people of power thought they could keep secrets”). It doesn’t matter what comes out when no one can be sure how much veracity any of it has.

Mulder: To be honest, I’m not believing any of this.

Dr They: Well, believe what you want. You’re only proving my point, you twit.

The idea of consciously manipulating the truth in order to slide subjects from the radar (“the gamut from holocaust denial to corporate product news. Products catch on fire, companies like G- spending billions to repress memories”) has a certain cachet, but Morgan doesn’t quite stick the landing, going from playful noodling to clumsily on-the-nose Trumpism that Carter might have written (“We’re building a wall” announce the aliens. Who no longer want to have any further contact with us because we lie. The barrel-scraping parting shot? “You’re free to explore Uranus”) Mulder’s summation of the situation is at least amusing (“So that’s the truth. We’re not alone in the universe, but not one likes us?”), but the last quarter finds some decidedly not-so-sharp writing.

FBI Agent: You start out a rebel. But then you get fat. The next thing you know, you’re deep state. It’s sad.

Mulder: Do you know who I am? I’m Fox Mulder. I was fighting the power to break conspiracies before you saw your first chemtrail, you punks. I’m Fox Mulder! I’m Fox freakin’ Mulder, you punks! I’m Fox Mulder! Fox Mulder!

Which is a shame, as for much of this ride, Morgan is delivering dynamite, from shots at Duchovny’s waistline to the explanation that no one gets probed by aliens anymore because of the Mandela Effect. And the clip from The Last Martian is a lovely little vignette worthy of Joe Dante’s Mant (“That ain’t a window. That’s a mirror”).

Mulder: I was out squatchin’.

Scully: Any luck?

Mulder: No, but that’s not the point. I just had to get away from the madness for a little while. It seems this past year all I’ve done is watch the news and worry that the country’s gone insane. I had to get out to nature, you know, where it’s simple and uncomplicated, where it’s just you and the elements. And possibly a cryptozoological, simian-like hairy humanoid with enormous feet.

Scully: I think you just like squatchin’.

So this is the rarity for me, the Darin Morgan episode that doesn’t get five stars. Perhaps he’s got fat. Oh wait… That would just be small potatoes to him.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

The Illumi-what-i?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (SPOILERS) In which Sam Raimi proves that he can stand proudly with the best – or worst – of them as a good little foot soldier of the woke apocalypse. You’d expect the wilfully anarchic – and Republican – Raimi to choke on the woke, but instead, he’s sucked it up, grinned and bore it. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so slavishly a production-line Marvel movie, both in plotting and character, and in nu-Feige progressive sensibilities, there was no chance of Sam staggering out from beneath its suffocating demands with anything more than a few scraps of stylistic flourish intact.

What’s so bad about being small? You’re not going to be small forever.

Innerspace (1987) There’s no doubt that Innerspace is a flawed movie. Joe Dante finds himself pulling in different directions, his instincts for comic subversion tempered by the need to play the romance plot straight. He tacitly acknowledges this on the DVD commentary for the film, where he notes Pauline Kael’s criticism that he was attempting to make a mainstream movie; and he was. But, as ever with Dante, it never quite turns out that way. Whereas his kids’ movies treat their protagonists earnestly, this doesn’t come so naturally with adults. I’m a bona fide devotee of Innerspace , but I can’t help but be conscious of its problems. For the most part Dante papers over the cracks; the movie hits certain keynotes of standard Hollywood prescription scripting. But his sensibility inevitably suffuses it. That, and human cartoon Martin Short (an ideal “leading man” for the director) ensure what is, at first glance just another “ Steven Spielberg Presents ” sci-fi/fantas

This risotto is shmackin’, dude.

Stranger Things Season 4: Part I (SPOILERS) I haven’t had cause, or the urge, to revisit earlier seasons of Stranger Things , but I’m fairly certain my (relatively) positive takes on the first two sequel seasons would adjust down somewhat if I did (a Soviet base under Hawkins? DUMB soft disclosure or not, it’s pretty dumb). In my Season Three review, I called the show “ Netflix’s best-packaged junk food. It knows not to outstay its welcome, doesn’t cause bloat and is disposable in mostly good ways ” I fairly certain the Duffer’s weren’t reading, but it’s as if they decided, as a rebuke, that bloat was the only way to go for Season Four. Hence episodes approaching (or exceeding) twice the standard length. So while the other points – that it wouldn’t stray from its cosy identity and seasons tend to merge in the memory – hold fast, you can feel the ambition of an expansive canvas faltering at the hurdle of Stranger Things ’ essential, curated, nostalgia-appeal inconsequentiality.

Is this supposed to be me? It’s grotesque.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) (SPOILERS) I didn’t hold out much hope for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent being more than moderately tolerable. Not so much because its relatively untested director and his co-writer are mostly known in the TV sphere (and not so much for anything anyone is raving about). Although, it has to be admitted, the finished movie flourishes a degree of digital flatness typical of small-screen productions (it’s fine, but nothing more). Rather, due to the already over-tapped meta-strain of celebs showing they’re good sports about themselves. When Spike Jonze did it with John Malkovich, it was weird and different. By the time we had JCVD , not so much. And both of them are pre-dated by Arnie in Last Action Hero (“ You brought me nothing but pain ” he is told by Jack Slater). Plus, it isn’t as if Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten have much in the way of an angle on Nic; the movie’s basically there to glorify “him”, give or take a few foibles, do

Whacking. I'm hell at whacking.

Witness (1985) (SPOILERS) Witness saw the advent of a relatively brief period – just over half a decade –during which Harrison Ford was willing to use his star power in an attempt to branch out. The results were mixed, and abruptly concluded when his typically too late to go where Daniel Day Lewis, Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro had gone before (with at bare minimum Oscar-nominated results) – but not “ full retard ” – ended in derision with Regarding Henry . He retreated to the world of Tom Clancy, and it’s the point where his cachet began to crumble. There had always been a stolid quality beneath even his more colourful characters, but now it came to the fore. You can see something of that as John Book in Witness – despite his sole Oscar nom, it might be one of Ford’s least interesting performances of the 80s – but it scarcely matters, or that the screenplay (which won) is by turns nostalgic, reactionary, wistful and formulaic, as director Peter Weir, in his Hollywood debu

Are you telling me that I should take my daughter to a witch doctor?

The Exorcist (1973) (SPOILERS) Vast swathes have been written on The Exorcist , duly reflective of its cultural impact. In a significant respect, it’s the first blockbuster – forget Jaws – and also the first of a new kind of special-effects movie. It provoked controversy across all levels of the socio-political spectrum, for explicit content and religious content, both hailed and denounced for the same. William Friedkin, director of William Peter Blatty’s screenplay based on Blatty’s 1971 novel, would have us believe The Exorcist is “ a film about the mystery of faith ”, but it’s evidently much more – and less – than that. There’s a strong argument to be made that movies having the kind of seismic shock on the landscape this one did aren’t simply designed to provoke rumination (or exultation); they’re there to profoundly influence society, even if largely by osmosis, and when one looks at this picture’s architects, such an assessment only gains in credibility.

That, my lad, was a dragon.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) (SPOILERS) It’s alarming how quickly Peter Jackson sabotaged all the goodwill he amassed in the wake of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. A guy who started out directing deliciously deranged homemade horror movies ended up taking home the Oscar for a fantasy movie, of all genres. And then he blew it. He went from a filmmaker whose naysayers were the exception to one whose remaining cheerleaders are considered slightly maladjusted. The Desolation of Smaug recovers some of the territory Jackson has lost over the last decade, but he may be too far-gone to ever regain his crown. Perhaps in years to come The Lord of the Rings trilogy will be seen as an aberration in his filmography. There’s a cartoonishness to the gleeful, twisted anarchy on display in his earlierr work that may be more attuned to the less verimilitudinous aspects of King Kong and The Hobbit s. The exceptions are his female-centric character dramas, Heavenly Creat

Gizmo caca!

Gremlins (1984) I didn’t get to see Gremlins at the cinema. I wanted to, as I had worked myself into a state of great anticipation. There was a six-month gap between its (unseasonal) US release and arrival in the UK, so I had plenty of time to devour clips of cute Gizmo on Film ’84 (the only reason ever to catch Barry Norman was a tantalising glimpse of a much awaited movie, rather than his drab, colourless, reviews) and Gremlins trading cards that came with bubble gum attached (or was it the other way round?). But Gremlins ’ immediate fate for many an eager youngster in Britain was sealed when, after much deliberation, the BBFC granted it a 15 certificate. I had just turned 12, and at that time an attempt to sneak in to see it wouldn’t even have crossed my mind. I’d just have to wait for the video. I didn’t realise it then (because I didn’t know who he was as a filmmaker), but Joe Dante’s irrepressible anarchic wit would have a far stronger effect on me than the un

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls… dyin’ time’s here!

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) Time was kind to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome . As in, it was such a long time since I’d seen the “final chapter” of the trilogy, it had dwindled in my memory to the status of an “alright but not great” sequel. I’d half-expected to have positive things to say along the lines of it being misunderstood, or being able to see what it was trying for but perhaps failing to quite achieve. Instead, I re-discovered a massive turkey that is really a Mad Max movie in name only (appropriately, since Max was an afterthought). This is the kind of picture fans of beloved series tend to loathe; when a favourite character returns but without the qualities or tone that made them adored in the first place (see Indiana Jones in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , or John McClane in the last two Die Hard s). Thunderdome stinks even more than the methane fuelling Bartertown. I hadn’t been aware of the origins of Thunderdome until recently, mainly because I was

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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