“Uh-oh.” ~ Mulder

I had a brilliant idea today while sitting in my math class—this review will be done as an open letter to Mr. Frank Spotnitz.  I had the entire thing wrote out in my head and its been my experience that things never turn out quite as good the second time around, but I will try my damnedest to make this letter as good as the one in my head.  Not that he’ll ever read it, but it will make me feel better.

Dear Mr. Spotnitz, or, as I so lovingly call you, “Spotzy”—

 Kurt Vonnegut, one of the greatest living American writers, has stated before that he has rules to which he adheres to while writing his short stories and novels.  These rules are what he attributes his unbridled success to, now going on five generations.  One of his rules seems to apply so well to “The X-Files” that I fell I must share it with you, in case you don’t already know it.  It is this: every character in your story must want something, even if it is only a glass of water.  This allows the reader, or viewer, as the case may be, to identify more personally with each character and also gives the reader or viewer someone to root for, which is coincidentally another one of his rules, that you must have at least one character that your readers or viewers can root for, and you must make horrific things happen to him or her, so that the reader or viewer can see what they are made of.  “The X-Files” adhered well to these rules for the first few years.  Because you weren’t around in the beginning, I’ll relay to you what I, as a fan, saw in that first encounter with our favorite daring duo, Mulder and Scully.
    Mulder wanted his sister, plain and simple.  But in wanting his sister, he needed so many other things as well, things that he wanted too, but to a lesser extent.  All that he wanted was information that could lead him to his sister, and beyond that, he did not care.  Mulder wanted access to classified government documents that he thought held information about his sister, documents that someone was blocking his attempts to get.  He wanted to know of these men who hid things from him and thought that he could find the information he was seeking in the X-Files.  What he found was so much more—most of it having nothing to do with his sister.  But he never knew which discarded case of liver-eating mutants, six-foot fluke worms, or mind controlling psychopaths would lead him closer to her.  Over time, he began to realize that the FBI wanted to bury these files, thought they were a joke.  Mulder did not think they were a joke, and wriggled his way into being assigned to investigate them.  This led to the next thing that Mulder wanted: respect for his work on the X-Files and to prove to the FBI that these files were not a joke, that there was merit to all of these claims of paranormal phenomenon.  Sensing his intense devotion to his work, Section Chief Scott Blevins assigned Scully, then working as a pathologist at Quantico to work with Mulder as his partner, to “debunk” his work with a rigid, scientific perspective.  Scully, in my all be it humble opinion, did not want this.  She wanted to go back to Quantico and quietly live out her life as a doctor, unaware of the “doin’s a transpirin’” down in the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover building.  She did not care about Mulder, his sister, or high level, top secret, government operatives seeking to “deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate” information from the American public.
     Over time, Scully and Mulder’s wants changed, or evolved.  Eventually, Scully began to see evidence of Mulder’s claims of men keeping him away from the aforementioned information he was seeking and reluctantly began to see things that science could not explain.  Then she was abducted by extra-terrestrials and wanted to know what they did to her and why.  Mulder wanted this too, but also held onto hope for his sister.  Throughout the six and a half years (or perhaps seven and a half, depending on whether we are to believe the date stamp in the pilot episode), our agents incurred many times when they would investigate something, collect evidence, identify witnesses or possible suspects, and draw conclusions about an event or series of events.  They would believe that they had finally figured “it” out, that all of the puzzle pieces would magically fall into place, explaining everything to them that they had been searching for.  But at the last minute, their evidence would disappear along with their witnesses and suspects, leaving them with nothing but their own radical conclusions.  Despite this, Mulder and Scully never gave up on what they wanted.  Mulder still wanted his sister, and he and Scully wanted to know what they had done to Scully during her abduction too, but Scully came full circle, wanting respect for Mulder’s, and now her, work.  She wanted to find Mulder’s sister too, and wanted the men who took her, the same men who erased all efforts Mulder and Scully had put into uncovering the truth, brought to justice.

Peace.

Last season, after years of searching, Mulder found his sister in a highly comedic, two-part episode.  For twenty-seven years, Mulder had been chasing a lie—a ghost.  He could never find his sister because she had never been there to find.  She had “died” six years after she was abducted, in 1979, and despite personal testimony from his father (or who he believed at the time to be his father [“The Blessing Way”]), DNA evidence found in a secret mountain vault [“Paper Clip”], his own memories and experiences [“Conduit,” “Colony,” “End Game,” ad infinitum], and all good sense, he believed that his journey would now end, that he had now been rewarded with the truth.  He found his sister and what else was left?  His life from the time he was twelve had been spent searching for her, and now that she is found, what was he to do?  Answer: nothing, apparently.  Again, in my opinion, Mulder gave up on everything.  He no longer cared about the shadowy government figures, multi-nation conspiracies, and the like.  In short, he wanted nothing.  Scully, who had always been driven by Mulder’s personal quest, his zeal and passion, on the other hand, wanted something that no Phile could have suspected: a baby.
     What’s next?  Given the precarious position that David Duchovny put you in, the logical thing: Mulder would be abducted.  This would rid us of Mulder for a while and give Scully something to want, other than a healthy infant.  It also introduced us to a new character, Doggett, who of course, must want something.
     Therein lies the problem, Mr. Spotnitz, Doggett doesn’t want anything.  And now, after five months on the show, he still doesn’t want anything.  How can root for him?  How can we care what happens to him?  How can we identify with him?
     Mulder is back now, returned by the aliens who abducted him to a world turned completely upside down.  Scully is pregnant, Doggett has stolen his place on his X-Files, and he isn’t sure where he fits anymore, if he fits at all.  But now at least Mulder wants something, not altogether as encompassing as his decades long search for his sister, but its *something.*  He wants to know what happened to him, which is enough to get me to root for him again.  Now Mulder has to pick up where he and Scully left off and try once again to glean information from the said government figures about what happened to him and why.  He is, again, searching for the truth.
 I wonder if he knows how ludicrous and gratuitous the truth is becoming.
 When I began watching this show, I believed in Mulder and in his quest.  I believed that one day, he would be reunited with his sister and that the mysteries of the natural world would open themselves up to him, granting him all the knowledge that he could ever want.  I feel like a fool now, learning that Samantha was abducted by “walk-ins,” whatever the hell they are.  I no longer believe in Mulder’s quest, or in Mulder.  It seems to me that in the beginning of this show, its writers and producers strove to make the “mythology” which Mulder searched for believable, or, at the very least, plausible.  This was done well, in my opinion.  After “Three Words,” I must disagree with myself.  Since when did Mulder’s quest become laughable?  Since when did the mythology that you so brazenly support become a ridiculous set of nonsensical sci-fi words strewn together in an attempt to make a coherent plot?  Since when have I been shaking my head, not at Scully’s frustrating skepticism, but at Mulder’s gullibility?
     You may say that I’m just not paying enough attention to the mythology.  I say that you are wrong.  I paid attention to and cared about the mythology up until “The Red and The Black,” when everything just became completely incredible and stupid.  Can you believe that the mythology actually made sense to me up until this point?  After “TratB,”  I stopped watching mytharc episodes over and over, working to fit all of these pieces together.  I guess I finally realized that you and Mr. Carter have no clue whatsoever as to what you’re doing and how it will end.  Can you explain the mythology to me?  I would pay money to hear it.
     What does all of this have to do with “Three Words?”  Evidence, Spotzy, evidence.  Evidence that our show, *my* show is a shadow of what it once was.  No longer do I stare at my TV screen, intently studying all of the twists and turns in the story, unable to wait the see how this one ends.  That feeling ended after “Paper Clip,” to be honest.  But at least after that, for four more years, I care about our characters, the dynamic duo, Mulder and Scully.  To me, seeing their reaction/interaction was enough to keep me tuned in every week.

No more.

I couldn’t possibly care less what Mulder is doing now—he seems so empty, a shell of the man, pardon me, character he once was.  Scully?  Have you ever heard The Offspring song, “What Happened To You?”  That should answer the Scully question.  And don’t get me started on Doggett…

I have watched this show for two and a half years depending solely on the characters to lead me through.  Now you’ve taken them from me.  What’s next?

I could go into nitpicky details about “Three Words” but it will do no good.  Philes have been doing that for years and all it’s got them is a headache.

The beginning of “Three Words” was excellent.  You actually surprised me by the level of Mulder/Scully interaction here.  I thought I would have to depend on fanfic for that, and even though I still will for the fill-in-the-blanks game you seem to be playing, at least I can watch this over and over, if I so choose.  Some questions, if you don’t mind: why is Mulder so detached from Scully’s child?  Doesn’t he believe that it’s his?  That the IVF procedures really did work (I’m not a shipper—I’m not hoping for the old-fashioned way)?  Why did Frohike say that Mulder was dead six months when by your own admission he was only dead three?  Why didn’t Mulder check the Census data for Scully’s records, knowing that the aliens screwed with her DNA while she was with them?  Why have the aliens suddenly taken to putting HUGE implants in their abductee’s necks as opposed to the smaller, less detectable ones?  Or is this a new race of aliens?  What happened to Mr. Salt’s “Fight the Future” CD?

I could go on, but I think you see my point.

If I had never seen an episode of this fine show, I would’ve liked “Three Words.”  As it is, I didn’t enjoy it very much due to the lackadaisical mytharc insertions and ignorance of character consistency.  It did entertain me; at some points, I broke out in riotous laughter, especially during the scene involving Absalom, Doggett, and duct tape.  The previews for the next five episodes look just as hilarious.  “Push, Dana!” indeed.

In a nutshell:
Rating: 1 lounge chair out of 5

I thank you for you kind attention. Please do not sue me for slander-- I am just a simple college student concerned for her favorite TV show.