The Fractal Hall Journal

“Improbable” completes the excremental trifecta of Worst X-Files Episodes Of All Time, taking its stinky seat with “Rain King” and “Fight Club”. I think I’m at the point where it’s impossible to distinguish which one is worse. They just seem to meld into one huge effluvial turd. There’s pointless song-and-dance scenes, an utterly bollocks plot about numerology that makes the main characters look like credulous buffoons, cringeworthy dialogue and Burt Reynolds on irritating form shaking his tired old arse at the camera. And by “irriating”, I mean “like fibreglass powder to the bumhole”. But ultimately, the biggest sin these episodes commit, besides being comedy episodes that aren’t funny, is being just plain boring.

Fractal Fact: Reynolds isn’t the first film star to turn up unexpectedly. Other “wait, isnt that…?” moments on the Nostalgia Trip have included Shia LeBeouf as a dying kid, and one of the Wayans brothers as a copper.

Six episodes left of the series, and it finally gets good. Apart from the occasional decent scene, the S9 really has been inessential to say the least. By this point, surely they must have realised they were going to be cancelled, if only to give them a chance to write a suitable finale? If they’d have pulled their fingers out earlier, maybe they could’ve delayed the axe and given a Doggett/Reyes continuation a chance.

“Scary Monsters” is the first one of S9 that really feels like an X-File, a really creepy tale of monstrous crawleys attacking a family in a remote house. Every main character gets something interesting to do (even if, once again, Reyes has to be the agent who needs saving), and there’s a hilarious bit where Scully does a post-mortem on a cat in a takeaway tray. Compared to the embarrassing attempt at humour of the last episode, it shows how the show can be funny without having the main characters look like fucking idiots. “Jump The Shark” is meant to be the final episode of “The Lone Gunmen” spin-off, and isn’t very good. Every other LG episode was really good, strong enough to make me want to watch a show based on the characters. This one just falls a bit flat, with an absolutely awful performance from the British actress/assassin who was a regular on the other show, and if it’s a fair reflection of the other 10 episodes or so, I don’t think I really want to watch it. And to top everything, they kill off the nerds, which is really shitty. I mean, Mulder doesn’t even turn up at the funeral. In fact, the send-off is so poor (plus, you don’t actually see them buy it) I’m just going to get in a fanboy huff and assume they’re not really dead.

“William” is a very good arc episode, suffering from none of the unnecessary complexities of the rest of the super-soldier storyline. It’s simple and heartbreaking, a tale about family and trust, about how Scully has to give up William for adoption because otherwise he will never be safe. The central mystery- is a hideously scarred man who knows a lot about the X-Files really Mulder?- is intriguing, and the twist about his true identity is executed perfectly. Because the man is Jeffrey Spender, close enough genetically to Mulder to cloud his DNA test, and on a mission to save his nephew, by injecting William with a compound made from super-soldier kryptonite that turns him into a normal baby.

There are a few outstanding questions- when did Spender and Mulder (and Skinner, for that matter) find out Cancer Man really was Mulder’s father? It was mentioned in a dream sequence in S6, but never followed up on, so presumably the realisation and fallout happened off-screen. Did everyone think Spender was dead after his father shot him in the X-Files basement, and if so why were the two agents never creeped out that Mudler’s brother got blown away in their workplace? Or did they all assume he’d done a bunk? And finally, why does Scully think her son would be safer with people who don’t have clue about the dangerous soldiers who are hunting him? I assume that, somehow, she knows that they won’t be able to locate him now he doesn’t have any super powers. These are all minor points, however, in a really standout episode.