The X-Files
11.7: Rm9sbG93ZXJz
(Followers)
(SPOILERS) A cautionary what
if? (or what when?) on our rampant
reliance on, and insatiable uptake of, technology, Followers (I’m not quoting all that code every time) ploughs a path
of the techno-tomorrow (or tonight) that has met with mixed results in the past
(anyone remember First Person Shooter,
Gibson be praised?), but here mostly manages to sustain itself despite the
slender premise. It’s a quirky episode, bigger on offbeat atmosphere than
outright laughs, and works the better for it.
The impression of yet more new blood in the show’s creative
department is offset somewhat by the realisation that not only did director
Glen Morgan come up with the story, but his wife Kristen Cloke (who appeared in
The Field Where I Died, as well as being
a regular on Morgan shows Space: Above
and Beyond and Millennium and
appearing in his movies Final Destination,
Black Christmas and Willard) and former assistant Shannon
Hamblin garner the teleplay credit; as with Kitten,
it seems no one’s coming to The X-Files entirely
fresh. Although, season cinematographer Craig Wrobleski, who recently worked on
such estimable fare as Legion and Fargo, particularly scores with the look
of this one, set in a no-man’s land of not-quite-now, with its entirely
automated restaurants, cars and Proteus-eque AI houses; it’s just around the
corner enough to be resonant.
Followers is
making obvious points, no doubt, but seems moderately less
old-man-waving-his-finger than recent episodes weighing in on the state of the
crumbling States. As such, it’s one of the few of the last dozen and a half
that feel fresh and relevant, rather than having a foot stranded stylistically in
the previous century. The near-silent interplay of Mulder and Scully, devoted
to their screens, is a nice touch, even more so the instinctive reversion to
that condition even after a night of mild trauma, before the good sense of
human company gets the better of them.
Sure, you can see this is all going to end with Mulder’s tip
being paid – understandably, he baulks at being charged for a blobfish,
although that’s more fool him for going to a sushi restaurant in the first
place – but the relentless escalation works cogently, particularly when it
comes to our complete indebtedness to passwords, invisible currency and gadgets
that leave us bereft if they begin to malfunction.
The moral, that “Humans
must take care in teaching Artificial Intelligence, or one day, we will be the
ones deleted” (“We have to be better
teachers”) is perhaps somewhat pat and wide of the beam of threat – the
opening sequence references a 2016 chatbot that evolves into a hate machine
via Twitter and needs to be switched off, a bot that came up with “Ricky Gervais learned totalitarianism from Adolf
Hitler, the inventor of atheism” all on its own, which is a pretty succinct
summary of all that is wrong with Ricky Gervais, I’m sure you’ll agree – given
it presumes innocent beginnings for such developments. But then, this is an
episode that invokes Elon Musk (“AI
vastly more of a threat than North Korea”) as its prophet of doom, a man
who warns of our imminent peril with one gesture while investing in
transhumanism with the next.
AI: What do you believe, Fox? Do you believe
what you want? Or do you believe what is true?
A few weeks ago, I suggested Wong was the better director of
the two former partners, but on this evidence, Morgan can definitely hold his
own and effectively exert a distinctive tone when he so desires. Comparisons to
Buffy’s Hush, for the relative verbal restraint, are inevitable, and Black Mirror has also instantly been
referenced (although that’s another way of suggesting it’s Twilight Zone-esque). We have Mulder going to bat and Scully
revealed as someone who personally massages herself, but it’s a fool’s errand
to attempt to make this fit the series’ continuity; it’s just moving along there
somewhere, on a parallel course all its own.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.