August 6, 2013

LIST: The 13 Best "X-Files" Episodes

NOTE: This is the beginning of a month-long extended multi-part look at various horror (/sci-fi/fantasy) series.  The schedule's been adjusted to:

09/24: Review: American Horror Story
??/??: The Twilight Zone


13. "Field Trip"
Written by John Shiban and Vince Gilligan
Directed by Kim Manners
Season 6


A trippy, reality-bending meditation on what the two agents mean to each other, courtesy of a cave-dwelling fungus that causes extreme hallucinations.  The agents encounter and escape the gooey goodness, but their return trips seem a little too idyllic, as Mulder finds evidence of aliens and Scully receives adulation for her triumphant skepticism.  Are things finally breaking their way, or did the fungus have a long-term effect on their minds?  "Field Trip" uses an interesting device to explore the curse of getting what we think we want.

12. "Anasazi"
Written by Chris Carter
Directed by R. W. Goodwin
Season 2


The X-Files coined the term "mytharc," given its occasional dips into the well of a long-running alien conspiracy.  The increasingly convoluted plotline weighed down later seasons, but the first few seasons deliver an elliptical and satisfying storyline.  The end of Season Two, "Anasazi," backgrounds a new discovery (an encrypted cassette tape!) against the lush, dusty orange of New Mexico.  The suspense ratchets as Mulder tracks the tape, Scully learns of her own connection to the aliens, and Mulder's father (Peter Donat) pays the price for his son's relentless quest for the "truth."

11. "Existence"
Written by Chris Carter
Directed by Kim Manners
Season 8


Okay, many other episodes are probably better than this, but "Existence" offered The X-Files its most dignified opportunity to end the series.  The finale closes the loops on Scully's endless (and deserved) desire for health and child, on Alex Krycek's duplicity, on the love between the heroes, and on the new stewards of the X-Files: John Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish).  Had the show ended here, with the new agents spun-off into a more distinct set of adventures (The X-Files: Hermosa Beach!), "Existence" could've become the capstone this series deserved.

10. "Drive"
Written by Vince Gilligan
Directed by Rob Bowman
Season 6


Yes, this was written by Breaking Bad's Vince Gilligan and stars Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston.  It's also goddamn good.  Between Seasons Five and Six, the show moved production from Vancouver to Los Angeles, and while it never recovered the imposing mojo of the Pacific Northwest, "Drive" cues into the desolate beauty of the American Southwest.  The premise - a man's brain will explode if he stops moving west - is a perfect little story engine, and Cranston becomes a sympathetic little runt of a man, a bigoted blowhard undeserving of the punishment he might receive.

9. "Small Potatoes"
Written by Vince Gilligan
Directed by Cliff Bole
Season 4


Fox Mulder is one beefy hunk of man, so why is his life so lonely?  Eddi Van Blundht (Darin Morgan) offers his own judgment in "Small Potatoes."  He's a former carnie who can reshape his skin to look like anyone.  So after Mulder and Scully show up to investigate pregnancies Eddie might be responsible for, he takes on a new persona: Mulder.  Priority one?  Bang Scully.  Obvious, really.  The episode uses this premise to kid the question of why these agents haven't ever been up-front about their love, and the answer offers a sad judgment of Fox Mulder, for whom victories are better off in the abstract.

8. "Darkness Falls"
Written by Chris Carter
Directed by Joe Napolitano
Season 1


This was the first episode of The X-Files I ever watched.  The foggy Vancouver forests looked imposing, pregnant with possibility.  The heroes were sharp - scientists first and foremost.  There was even an environmental theme: questionable logging practices have released a swarm of tiny bloodsucking, web-spinning bugs.  The bugs' fear of light is a genius move, highlighting the show's mastery of shadow, and the ending, with the heroes barely hanging on in a hospital, demonstrated a genuine sense of stakes.

7. "The Post-Modern Prometheus"
Written and Directed by Chris Carter
Season 5


Easily the most inexplicable episode of The X-Files.  "The Post-Modern Prometheus" lives up to its name, taking elements of Frankenstein and shoving it into a story full of yokels, Jerry Springer, Cher music, comic book authors, dancing, and an ending that lifts a middle finger to whatever reality it's retained.  The black and white places it firmly in the Bride of Frankenstein mode of Gothic camp, and John O'Hurley chews into arch dialogue.  This isn't the best entry point for the series, but come on, what's not to love?

6. "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man"
Written by Glen Morgan
Directed by James Wong
Season 4


Deepening villains always runs the risk of sacrificing mystery for "motivation" that fails to enlighten, but this episode, focused on "Cancer Man," suggests the unexpected: a yearning for romance.  Not in the love sense, but in the classical sense.  The black and white segments of his youth evoke a reverence for his early work pulling America's strings (via high-profile assassinations), while later segments show a tired man in a world of banal conspiracies - he rolls his eyes after putting Saddam Hussein on hold.  He tries to rediscover romance by writing hacky pulp fiction, but he'll never be as good at writing fiction as he is at rewriting the truth.

5. "Quagmire"
Written by Kim Newton
Directed by Kim Manners
Season 3


In some ways the absolute peak of "traditional" X-Files monsters-of-the-week.  By using the universally-recognized lake monster imagery of Ogopogo, Champlain, and Ness, "Quagmire" offers both ease of entry and a surprising switcheroo: much of the episode focuses on Mulder and Scully, marooned on a rock, talking.  The X-Files is unthinkable without the prickly skeptic/believer dynamic, and that conflict is given full measure here, right down to the dual ending that rewards the rational and entices the believers.

4. "Beyond the Sea"
Written by Glen Morgan and James Wong
Directed by David Nutter
Season 1


One of the first examples of the show getting personal.  Heartbroken by the news of her father's death, Scully can't believe it when Luther Lee Boggs (Brad Dourif) seems to have a psychic connection to his spirit.  He also seems to have knowledge of a serial killer on the loose, although Mulder doesn't buy it.  The role-reversal, rather than feeling inconsistent, deepens the two characters, and Gillian Anderson gives one of her best performances.  Up to this episode, the series felt like a superior variation on anthology television, impressive but grounded.  After "Beyond the Sea," the show flew.


3. "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose"
Written by Darin Morgan
Directed by David Nutter
Season 3


"It's not a gift, it's a curse!" say so many heroes who have it easy.  Clyde Bruckman (Peter Boyle) does not have it easy.  He's a psychic who's only skilled at knowing when and how people die.  And - go figure - there's a maniac on the loose who's killing fortune-tellers.  Traditional X-Files in theory.  In practice?  Brilliant.  Bruckman's power gives the episode a fatalistic streak, his knowledge only making us more aware of what cruel ends can await us, and the melancholy's leveraged with some terrific humor at the expense of psychic charlatans and the possibly-kinky fate of Fox Mulder.

2. "Home"
Written by Glen Morgan and James Wong
Directed by Kim Manners
Season 4


Maybe the show's most infamous episode, and one of the most unforgettable.  Not only because of the infanticide and incest, but also because the episode dares to find humor and poignancy in perversity.  On the surface, the episode follows Mulder and Scully into the home of a Southern family determined to keep their line strong.  Dig your shoe a little deeper, and the episode becomes the story of the great forgotten America, its freeways and highways and byways slowly diminishing the rural, destroying not only lives, but the capacity for mystery.  Oh, and it's creepy as hell, too.

1. "Jose Chung's From Outer Space"
Written by Darin Morgan
Directed by Rob Bowman
Season 3


This is one of the best episodes of television ever made.  Hell, maybe it is the best.  "Jose Chung" is packed, overflowing, overstuffed, ideas spilling over the edge and tumbling to the ground.  The story's about two kids who might've been abducted by aliens.  Unless the aliens were soldiers in disguise.  Unless the disguised soldiers were abducted by another, bigger alien.  Were they abducted?  Is it all lies?  Just what the hell is going on?  Mulder and Scully's investigation warps whenever a new witness takes the stand, from obvious lies into impenetrable mystery.  And in the end, the episode reveals that it's not about the aliens at all, but about the lonely people who were interviewed.  People yearning to connect, to reach out, to matter.
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