Season 1, Episode 7
Director: Jerrold Freedman
Writer: Alex Gansa, Howard Gordan

Day 7. One week into this 201-day journey, and I’m still going strong. The exercise is proving fascinating both in terms of a 90s-era time capsule experience with shoulder pads, silk suits, and big floral print dresses all over the place and in terms of where the hell was I when this was originally on air. Overall, the “Squeeze” episode is clearly the superstar of the first seven episodes. It’s canon.

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It is extremely unfortunate – for The X-Files, that is – that I recently watched John Badham’s 1983 classic WarGames. That film blended early computer technology, a timeless sense of wonder, and a brilliant lead performance by Matthew Broderick to tell the story of an A.I. (“Joshua”) attempting to win the game of Global Thermonuclear War at any cost. The X-Files seventh episode, “Ghost in the Machine,” tells an admittedly more advanced version of the same story. However, WarGames feels as if it were written by someone who at least casually understood computers and technology while “Ghost” feels as if it were written by someone who wishes they casually understood computers and technology. That aside, “Ghost” completely lacks the humor and amusing back-and-forth banter between Mulder and Scully. If I’d been disappointed in a few early offerings, then this is The X-Files first real dud.

The episode opens at the headquarters of software company Eurisko where two men are arguing over the direction of the company: founder Brad Wilczek and CEO Benjamin Drake. Drake proposes a cost-cutting measure of shutting down the computerized brains of the building – the Center Operating System (COS). As he drafts a memo outlining his proposal, COS apparently “reads” the text and orchestrates an elaborate death for his CEO nemesis. Mulder and Scully are approached by Mulder’s former partner, Jerry Lamana, who is investigating Drake’s death. Seems that Lamana is a terrible FBI agent and needs Mulder’s superior skills to solve the crime. Lamana ultimately steals Mulder’s notebook (clearly a crime punishable by death) and attempts to solve the crime himself only to be killed in an elevator shaft by COS. The episode wraps up when Wilczek, arrested for the two murders, develops a virus that Mulder ultimately installs in the computer, effectively killing COS. There are even cries of surprise and sadness from COS, a la HAL from 2001. But is COS really dead? And do we care?

“Ghost in the Machine” rises and falls on its understanding and relationship to technology, and as another “monster of the week” episode, it struggles to find ways to make COS a threatening entity. The “killer” electrocutes and drops his victims in elevator shafts. He surreptitiously logs into the FBI computers to read their reports. He even uses massive winds to (comically) blow Scully around some airshafts and almost into a giant circulating fan. None of this feels especially scary, a huge negative given this was their first Halloween episode (the prior episode “Shadows,” featuring an actual ghost, was much scarier in retrospect). Plus, the episode loses a great deal of authenticity when it describes techies as “neat and scruffy,” a simplistic characterization of tech-minded people by those who clearly don’t understand them at all.

But just to satisfy The X-Files faithful, they throw in a cameo by Deep Throat just to anchor it to any sense of mythology the show, at the time, was trying to build. The cameo felt tacked on and unnecessary, an explanatory scene to offer Mulder explanations he didn’t need. Not because he didn’t want to know the truth but because he’s smart enough to figure that truth out on his own.

And in case you’re wondering, “Joshua” could kick “COS” in his virtual ass.

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Season 1, Episode 6
Director: Michael Lange
Writer: Glen Morgan, James Wong

There’s not a whole lot to say about The X-Files episode six, “Shadows.” It’s a fairly straight-forward ghost story in the show’s “monster of the week” vein, meaning it contains no contribution to the overall series mythology and little advancement in the characterization of the two leads. “Shadows” is eerie and fairly well made for an episode of television horror, but it literally vaporized from my mind as soon as it finished.

The episode begins with administrative assistant (secretary back then) Lauren mourning the suicide of her beloved boss Howard Graves. The same night, she attempts to withdraw money from an ATM machine but is attacked by two assailants. Cut to “two hours later” and a couple wanders down the same dark alley and stumbles upon the assailants’ dead bodies, strategically placed and falling into view in that classic horror movie way. It actually felt very Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, if you ask me. Once the bodies are examined, Mulder and Scully are brought in to compare the bizarre findings against unsolved cases in the X-files. Each body contains an electric charge, is still 98.3 degrees after being dead several hours, and has a crushed throat despite no obvious external influence.

The secret to the episode is the ghost of Howard Graves has aligned himself to his assistant Lauren (he lost a daughter that would have been the same age as Lauren) and protects her whenever she’s in danger. The ghost also shows Lauren the circumstances of his death – it was a murder, not a suicide. Graves’ partner was up to no good and had to “off” Graves to preserve his scheme. Mulder and Scully do their best to solve the case, but it’s basically the ghost of Howard Graves that saves the day, outing his former partner by revealing a hidden disk full of incriminating information. At the end, Lauren leaves town and is no longer haunted by Graves’s ghost.

So, what to make of “Shadows?” Absolutely nothing. Given that my personal well of X-Files analysis was running dry, I sought out information on the Internet and discovered that FOX brass gave the creative team notes to have Mulder and Scully “help people” more often. Hand it to the network for helping to produce this mediocrity that lacks any of the unique X-Files touches. My favorite aspect of the episode was Scully’s dogged skepticism in the face of unassailable odds. They have pictures of Howard Graves’s ghost, and she’s still carrying that “there must be a rational answer” flag. There are a couple of neat allusions to Benjamin Franklin hidden within the episode: Graves’s desk plaque, the setting of Philadelphia, the current of electricity running through the bodies, among others. Yawn.

They can’t all be winners, I guess.

Season 1, Episode 5
Director: Joe Napolitano
Writer: Chris Carter

The X-Files‘ fifth episode, “The Jersey Devil,” kicks things off with a captivating and effectively scary beginning. In 1947, a family sings on their way into Atlantic City. A few miles outside the city, the car blows a tire, and the father gets out to change it (fortunately leaving their son in the car – Ralphie would say a whole lot more than “fudge” out here). A few beats later, the father is knocked down screaming and is dragged into the woods by an unseen entity. The next morning, his dead body is found missing its legs, the apparent victim of some form of cannibal. The investigating police soon trap the perp in a cave and open fire on it.

Cut to modern day New Jersey where a homeless man was found mauled in the same woods, contributing to the local mythology of the Jersey Devil. Mulder and Scully aren’t officially called to investigate the case but show up on the scene nonetheless, running afoul of the local authorities. Mulder stays in Atlantic City to conduct his own informal investigation in the slums outside the forest where he befriends a homeless man and eventually sees a figure resembling sketches of the rumored Jersey Devil. The figure – a wild woman bearing some resemblance to an early Neanderthal – is ultimately caught and shot to death in the woods.

This episode falls into the “monster of the week” category, but, aside from its atmospheric start, it isn’t particularly scary. In fact, it takes a more academic approach on the material over a more traditional X-Files supernatural slant. Duchovny is given one of those in-depth monologues the writers seem to really like to give him, but he carries this one off better than others I’ve seen. Perhaps he has a better acting partner in this episode than in other instances – this time sharing the dialogue with an engaged actor playing a University of Maryland anthropology professor. Mulder’s exploration of the skirts of Atlantic City also highlights how seedy it was in the early 90s (and very well could still be) and gives the episode a “Very Important Moral Lesson” on which to hang its hat.

Since Mulder’s scenes largely focus on the investigation, series creator Chris Carter, who penned this episode, chooses to broaden the appeal of the previously “cold” Scully by having her attend a child’s birthday party, lament on her dating life, and actually go on a date with a divorced father. Clearly, this subplot is also meant to initiate sexual tension between Mulder and Scully, but I find it a little strange that an episode about a ravenous and wild female is juxtaposed with an exploration of Scully’s ticking biological clock. After the “whore got what’s comin’ to her” current in “Conduit,” the proximity of these two plots further highlights an unsettling attitude about female sexuality that was, apparently, prevalent in early 90’s science fiction.

I will admit to laughing, though, when Mulder corners the wild woman in an abandoned Atlantic City warehouse and she looks at him with those “come hither” eyes. When he talks about her later, he raves about her beauty. It’s the kind of thing only a geek like Mulder would say.