Arcadia by Caroline O’Connell	

Spoilers

"They’re a cute couple." Pat Verlander

I can just see them sitting around the offices of 1013 discussing this:
 Okay, we’ve wound up the whole conspiracy arc, so what do we do now? 
I know!  Let’s put them undercover as a married couple.  Oh the
hilarity!  The shippers will be in hog heaven and it will give Duchovny
the opportunity to wear his wedding ring without sparking a riot on the
internet!  Yaay us!

So into the pastel hued picture-perfect Falls at Arcadia come Mulder
and Scully aka Mr and Mrs Rob and Laura Petrie.  (For those of you not
familiar with American Pop culture, the Petries were played by Dick Van
Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore.  The equivalent here would be to call them
Terry and June.)  And don’t they make a cute couple!  Yeah, in Bizarro
world!  From the start you can see that Mulder is well into the charade
- the constant arm around Scully’s shoulder, talking about spooning up
like little cats together at night.  He’s loving every minute of it,
more so to annoy Scully than to further their case, I think!   As soon
as they’re behind closed doors they make it so obvious that they are
not meant to be a couple.  Breaking off embraces like they were afraid
of catching something.  I’m sorry all you lovely shippers out there,
but it’s true.   The evidence is there and this time it’s not one of
those "Parallel Universe or didn’t really happen X-Files."  They’re
comfortable enough around each other to throw clothes around and wear
that hideous facemask, but show no more feelings towards each other
than that.  Mulder isn’t housetrained enough for Scully’s tidy little
world.  He nearly peed in a juice carton for pity’s sake!

Somewhere in the midst of all this was the Stepford Community,
terrorised by a neat freak monster made out of rubbish.  This episode
was shown out of sequence due to problems with the special effects. 
I’m sorry, but Oscar the Grouch would have been a scarier monster than
what we saw and probably more entertaining too!  There was no real
sense of threat or danger to either Mulder or Scully - sorry, Rob and
Laura!  Having the monster crumble before it can get a good swipe at
Mulder just isn’t what we’ve come to expect.  

The trouble with Arcadia was that it wanted to be scary and dramatic,
but will be remembered for the humour generated by Anderson and
Duchovny who seemed to have as much fun playing Rob and Laura as we did
watching them. "Monday", based on another one-line idea carried the mix
of tension and comedy due to superior writing.  Arcadia needed more
than having Mulder and Scully as a couple to carry it off.  I will say
that some parts were as funny as I’ve ever seen on The X-Files. 
Mulder’s Scully-baiting in the kitchen had me laughing out loud (much
to the chagrin of the cat I’ve been minding all week.) but in order for
the humour to work, a consistent plot is needed and Arcadia didn’t
provide this.

5/10 (for the Rob and Laura scenes)

Stuff

Missed opportunity:  Instead of "Scully Explains It All.", wouldn’t it
have been so much more fun to have them in the basement finding out
they have to go undercover?

It’s like the Simpsons moving in to an entire neighbourhood of
Flanderses.  Hidilly ho, neighbourino!

Did anyone think all they needed was a dog drinking out of the toilet
and they could be Paul and Jamie Buchman?

Mulder’s watch must have been ruined by the water in his apartment. 
Last week it had a day readout, this week it only has the date.

I think the monster would have been perfectly justified killing Mulder
for that hideous pink flamingo.  Call the bad taste police!

Isn’t Gogolak a Manga Monster?

Tonight on Sky:  The X-Files in association with Omega watches, Lacoste
clothing and Tropicana orange juice.

Cal
"A rabble rouser.  Trouble with a capital T."