X-Files 7.13 "First Person Shooter"

Hey everyone. I thought it had it's moments. It was fun, but felt
derivative to me, not only of several films (War Games and Tron, for
goodness sakes) but of a couple shows they've done, like that awful first
season episode with the computer that kills. Killer machines is one of
those genuinely scary ideas that isn't usually done right--like "maximum
overdrive" that Stephen king movie? The scene where the soda machine
starts hucking cans at those kids in the park? Scary! but as a whole,
the movie sucks. One of the coolest ever was "Poltergeist." I saw it when I
was, I dunno, ten or eleven? Still scares the crap out of me. I'm a
little off topic, but this idea could have been scarier if, say, mulder
(and the writers and director) didn't play it so much for laughs. I
mean, two people ACTUALLY died, but Mulder seems to be having a grand all time
strutting around it that silly gear and cracking wise. I'm not saying he
can't make a joke to lighten the mood or whatever, but no one really
seemed to care--even the people who watched as a man they ostensibly admired
(the guru guy) got beheaded!

I'm with Scully with the game, the opening was sooooooo dull. Give me
galaxian and Pac man, and leave me out of these high tech shoot em up
games. AGAIN, we're in California, I mean, c'mon. I guess it sort of
fit, but I don't see why they can't just pretend to be elsewhere when they're
outside--so what if people who live in LA can recognize it as LA even if
they say its Pittsburgh or Montana or Alabama? This is the show that
went to "Iowa" in the first season--the Iowa with mountains and pine trees? I
mean, don't worry about it x-files, just go somewhere else.

This time, Mulder's professional and it's Scully whose leather clad and
cool--I wonder if she did that just to get Frohike all hot and bothered.
Scully's such a geek, but when she's with mulder and his pals, she's
supercool--you can tell she digs the contrast. Love Scully when she's
this irritated and superior. Mulder shows just how much of a tech geek he
really is, with all his programming suggestions, even the lone gunmen
seemed surprised. I thought Phoebe, the girl programmer was WAY too
obvious as the source of all the trouble, it was like 'Close up on
Phoebe, looking jittery and guilty" C'mon. I enjoyed the stripper/whatever, I
thought she was a kick. Mulder was suitably aflutter, but I liked how
Scully thought she could push this bimbo around and she really couldn't.

Mulder going into the game makes no sense, and I can accept that when
you're talking about ghosts or spirits or aliens, but HOW DOES A HUMAN
BODY GET INTO A COMPUTER CHIP? It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
And what was up with Mulder and Scully being in that little cubby at the
end--weren't we told that there were no places like that when they were
looking for Mulder? Huh?

Loved scully's attitude after mulder's in the game, when she's asking how
mulder could be in the game (answer, not possible) loved her yelling at
the lone gunmen with this attitude of "I am sooooooooo sick of you
a$$*&#%'s!!!!!!!" The element of Phoebe's creating this character as her
"goddess" or whatever never explains why this character was so
bloodthirsty and powerful and able to literally kill people: we never see any rage
etc. in Phoebe that would cause that kind of violence to be manifested. The
concept of scully as she relates to an all-male environment (raised in
the military, working in law enforcement) is interesting and worth more than
one line. It'd be nice to see her interact with her brother(s?) in a
story like that. I've wanted her to be investigating UFO stuff in the Navy
alongside or against one of her brothers since second season, but as the
season and series most likely draws to an end, my hopes of seeing the
Scully family again dwindles :(

Mulder's codpiece, LOL. Did Joel Schumacher direct this?

If anyone can tell me where I've seen Phoebe before, let me know. A
commercial? she's really familiar. She must be SHORT as Scully was
looking down at her (literally, not figuratively). Liked Scully scaring
that other computer guy and loved Scully's 'game face" as she blasted the
computer villains, but this episode: mulder gets sucked into a virtual
environment and Scully has to come in and kick butt and save him is VERY
similar to 5th season's (superior) "Kill Switch" which was written by the
same writing team that did this one. Liked how cool Mulder thought he
was, and that the computer realized it need to evolve into an Uberbabe like
Dana in order to survive, but, like that bad first season episode "Ghost in
the Machine" it's able to "outsmart" it's creator and rise from the dead. I
mean, that guy's smiling like, eureka, it's back! But...won't it keep
killing? Why did it kill, how did it kill? They don't know. So, it had
it's moments like I said, but the sum of it's parts was pretty weak. I
would have entered "shift alt bloodbath" on the ol' Scriptware and
started over.

No episode next week, which is a shame because there usually IS an
episode the week of MY BIRTHDAY and I'm able to REMIND EVERYONE in a more subtle
and timely manner. March 8th, mark it on the calendar and send me an
e-mail. No gifts necessary, I just need a little attention ;) I will be
29. Seems growing up that was always this horrible birthday for people.
I do not feel particularly traumatized nor is my biological clock in an
uproar. It pays not to ever really grow up, I'm telling you. People
always joke about turning 29 "again" ho ho ho, well, i've been turning 11
for 18 years.

Also, Californians, be sure to vote March 7th ( I already HAVE as the
state has forced me to become an absentee voter because my neighborhood has
such lousy turnout they aren't going to bother with a polling place--don't get
me started, I love voting and I feel ripped off having to do it by mail).

Doesn't matter who for, just vote because you can. And, in terms of
President, I'm not sure if it really matters, LOL. What a boring cast of
characters--first one to demonstrate any personality loses? Is that the
deal?

Anyway, have a great couple of weeks! Christine :D

X-Files 7.12 "X Cops"

Hello! Well, I thought that was delightful. I used to watch Cops all
the time when it started but it got redundant. Which is one of its
strengths, i mean, you see that despite our many differences as a society, stupid
people are pretty much the same in every city and state. I rememebr when
they had "Cops" in Sacramento, and one of the segments was about the cops
trying to catch a loose...cow? Some farm animal, and my sister Jen, who
was working at the state capitol at the time was saying how everyone
there was so mad and bummed because it made Sac look like such a hick town, and
all her co-workers were going around rather defensively, saying "we have
gangs! we have murderers! We're a crime-riddled city just like any
other!"

I just liked how the whole thing was so pitch perfect (the blurred faces
and nudity, the bleeped swearing, the running: running cops and running
commentary. Our heroes have spent so much time in California, it seems
like they'd mention it--"Here we are in California again!" This is the third
that I can think of in the last 4 or 5 episodes. This also served as a
"blair witch" episode (although I didn't see it.) Mulder also wears his
Leather jacket all the time now, like every day is casual friday for fox
now. I have to say, it's losing it's power. Soft grey T-shirt, I can
see every week, but the leather jacket is getting stale. Loved Scully hiding
from the cameras, and her general contempt for the whole thing. Love
surly Scully. My MAJOR COMPLAINT with the episode is that we didn't see Scully
get bleeped, because we know she swears like a sailor! As usual, Mulder
and Scully's car was too nice.

Loved Scully telling the cops crew they couldn't ride with her. Loved
poor sketch artists death--the blood throught the vest? Ewww, that was cool.
Loved the blond cop (former "as the world turns" soap hunk judson Mills)
as he tried to do the "Cops" philosphizing thing. I enjoyed how much Mulder
enjoyed the whole thing, getting into to talking to the camera and such.
Loved how, when Scully is in her element at the morgue, she loosens up
and gets talky when she gets to be bossy and smug at the autopsy. The Hanta
virus (spelling?) has been used in a couple episodes, seems to me...maybe
even in the movie, as a cover the government uses when they need to
evacuate civilians due to alien conspiracy stuff. I thought the monster
was cool. My monster would be: a) bunch of spiders, b) a clown, c) that
creepy little blond girl on those Juicy Juice commercials. I'm not sure
which would be scarier. Loved Scully's "I hate you guys" when she finds
the camera crew cowering in the closet. Just a lot of fun. Next week
looks, uh, intriguing, ha ha.

have a good week! Christine :D

X-Files 7.11 "Closure"

"Oh yay, a seance."

Well? The episode is titled "Closure." Mulder may feel like he has
some, but I sure don't--which isn't a complaint. I found the music at the
teaser and at the climax, with all the happy dead kids? Very creepy. Chris
Carter/Mulder's line about the murders being cruel "even for God" is the
same ol tired vague hostility I spoke of a few weeks ago: I think Mulder
and Scully actually fighting this out, Mulder's rage against God and
Scully's (apparent) faith in Him, would be good television, but all
carter seems interested or up to is a throwaway jab. 24 dead kids is a lot of
dead kids--and a lot of cleared cases. It would be nice if they would
have had our heroes getting a little credit or even a pat on the back from
Skinner for doing something good.

Harold Piller was so creepy to me, and I was surprised and not a little
disappointed when he turned out to be just a misguided psychic dad. The
actor will always be Dr. Chilton from "Silence of the Lambs": "I am not
some turnkey, Miss Starling." What a bummer about the sequel, huh? I
mean, the book was a horrific piece of garbage, but I had hoped they'd get
Jodie Foster back with a good script. now they're either going to recast Agt.
Starling or have another agent go after Lecter. That's not what I've
been waiting 9 years for, but...oh well.

Loved protective Scully and her "dis" of Piller "Uh, we've got real work
to do." Then she sees Mulder's in gullible/desperate mode and falling under
his sway. Again, still, the "walk-in" idea didn't gel for me. Good
Spirits save these children how exactly? From what? Do they stay in
freaky kid land or are they given other bodies to inhabit (I was so
afraid that would be Mulder's new quest: to find his sister's "new life."
X-Files tried re-incarnation before to disastrous results). ANYWAY, I still
don't get it. We get the year: it WAS 73, not 74 when Samantha was abducted.
The discussion of regressive hypno-therapy was great and accurate:
hypnosis is very spurious, because when you're in that state, you can't recognize
the difference between things you've imagined or dreamed and reality,
which has, unfortunately, led to false accusations and memories of all types.

Tangent: Ben Affleck just bugs the crap out of me, and the commercials
for that "Reindeer Games" movie looks like a fake Saturday night Live
commercial to me. And he's going to host SNL next week too, great. I
don't know what it is I just want to slug him everytime I see him (and
he's on every freaking magazine this week to so I'm in a violent mood.)
Mulder's mom is always giving Mulder little clues, even from the grave;
seems she could've just told him all this so he wouldn't have become the
work-obsessed, socially stunted emotional cripple we all know an love,
but hey, that's just me. "April Air Force base" is surely a euphemism for
"March Air Force Base" which is/was out near Riverside, Ca. I think it's
closed but I'm not really sure. I hate that we know Cancerman's name.
It's just not as cool, especially his pretentious three initials.

By this time, Scully barely raises an eyebrow at the fact that she comes
home to discover a bad guy is in her apartment. Dana, it's time to move,
seriously. As far as I can remember, this is their first real meeting.
Could be wrong. He makes reference to being ill due to an operation: the
one that made him a hybrid of some type instead of Mulder.

The handprints of Jeffrey and Samantha were touching, but it seemed weird
that Mulder was so willing to believe it wasn't a set-up--I still can't
believe it wasn't. Does leather jacket Scully have the same effect on
you guys as Leather Jacket Mulder does on me? :) Scully's seeming to take
Cancerman's story at face value, arguing his case, seemed odd. I also
didn't get it when Mulder said "You went to him?" and Scully's just
repeated what he told her rather than say "No, I came home and he was
sitting in my living room." It would have been nice if Scully had made a
reference to growing up on base housing herself as they crept around the
abandoned Air Force Base--or if she made some disparaging cracks: "Man,
The Air Force Sucks. Navy RULES!" No?

Loved surly Scully reluctantly taking part in the seance, though I think
she should have kept one eye open like a true skeptic. Mulder's "spin
the bottle" crack seemed to genuinely fluster her--"mulder, don't flirt with
me in front of the creepy psychic." AGAIN, I didn't really get what we saw,
in terms of the ghosts, because we saw "Spender" which was Cancerman in
his younger days, and since he's alive, I guess those weren't literally
ghosts, just figurative ones. Was that Mulder leading him Samantha's diary and
eventually her? Or Jeffrey finally being a brother? The diary stuff was
very effective, I thought, and as usual, Gillian doesn't need dialogue
for us to see that she's relating to Samantha as a fellow victim of the
tests.

All this stuff: the idea that Samantha was abducted, experimented on and
returned but not to the Mulder's, concurs with earlier plot points, going
way back into the second season, in fact: The Colony/End Game two-parter
presented us with a Samantha who spoke of a troubled past and
psychological problems. She turned out to be a clone. Then there was the woman Mulder
met at the diner who claimed to be Samantha--funny Mulder doesn't mention
her either--I mean, do they think we'd be confused? Don't they know that
for obsessed people like me it's only confusing when they DON'T make it
more complicated? I never really liked the actress they had playing
Samantha in any of those scenes. She doesn't resemble any of the young
Samantha's they've used in the past. Even in this episode, 14 year-old
ghost Samantha has lighter hair and eyes, whereas 8 year old abducted
Samantha always has dark eyes and hair (even in photos we saw last week)
Maybe it was the alien tests.

Mulder and Scully track down the nurse in Victorville, CA, which is out
near Ontario (?) The walk-in thing is brought up AGAIN, just to confuse
me. Is it a mass delusion used to block painful reality from entering
the person's mind? I loved Scully handling things for mulder, but think he'd
go talk to the woman, if he really thought she was his last link to his
sister. then he goes to scary dead kid land. (Was that supposed to be
heaven?) The reality is, monstrous things DO happen to children and
adults everyday, and yes, God does allow it. It's very difficult to accept and
impossible to really understand and that image of the kids playing in
thisworld where they are kids forever alone and playing, no parents--I found
it more ghoulish than comforting. I don't know what Heaven is going to be
like, but I'm sure music will play forward and not backward, that's for dang sure.

Ultimately, I liked his reunion with Samantha (choosing to believe it
wasn't a literal vision, of course) but his acceptance of his sister's
death was troubling...does he think she was killed at 8 in Massachusetts
or at 14 in California? I have to believe there's more to this story. I
personally believe Samantha WAS abducted by aliens, and it would be cool
if she was alive out there, trying to remember Mulder and find him. That
could have been this whole last season, if you ask me. Maybe that's
what's in store for us in the (hopefully) series finale--Samantha turns up. I
mean, what else can it be? This episode makes it hard to imagine another
year. It seems logical that, without the conspiracy, without Samantha,
both agents will start to need something else, a different challenge.
I'm looking forward to the "Cops" take off, looks great.

Be sure to catch me on Tuesday's "Who wants to marry a multimillionaire"
and keep your fingers crossed!!! Can you imagine? I will probably
watch a little of it, because it's so irresistibly tasteless. Last week, I
praised my homeland, Northern California. Tonight, I was given a big
reason why. In NorCal, they know what "Stormy" means. the fact that it
has been raining off an on for the last couple is a storm by Socal
standards--the news has these graphics of lightning bolts hitting the LA
skyline and stuff, even thought there hasn't been any lightning or even
any real downpours (haven't even had an inch, total, still Waaaay below
normal, still need to drain another Northern California Lake and kill an
ecosystem to get all that car-cleaning water for the summer). Then they have the
nerve, after showing traffic jams they claim are weather related (seems
to me we have them during the 350 dry days too) and maybe some palm fronds
that have fallen into the street, they have the nerve to say "And we're
not alone" and then they show ACTUAL flooding in Petaluma and then they show
all this terrible damage in Arkansas and Tennessee--trees down, power
poles down, buildings damaged. Yeah, that's comparable. NOTE TO SOCAL NEWS
MEDIA: If you can still get excited about how great the surf is and how
good the skiing's gonna be in Big Bear, guess what: it's not a natural
disaster. And my advice to Malibu: YES the hills are sliding, YES they
will catch fire this summer. MOVE. Malibu people are like Dana Scully,
though and aren't going anywhere.

Have a great week everybody! :) christine

X-Files 7.10 "Sein und Zeit"

Whoa! That was pretty danged good, at least from an emotional
stand-point.

I don't really "get" the supernatural angle, you know, were those
ghosts? Or just delusions? Delusions that know how to give good
directions. Highway 74--I thought 74 was a reference to the year Samantha
was kidnapped--or was it 73? I think it was 74. I'll have to research that.

Re: The intro: First, let me give a shout out to my parents and thank
them for teaching me the Lord's prayer instead of that freaky "should I die
before wake" scary prayer that's always used in TV and movies because
it's SCARY. The show Mr. LaPierre was watching was Harsh Realm, Chris
Carter's latest series that latest three weeks before Fox yanked it. I thought it
was pretty childish and out of place to make the reference at all,
particularly to throw a little tantrum about a TV show while trying to
make us care about the disappearance of a small child. My credibility with
this complaint went out the window though when we came back from commercial
and my first reaction was to swoon and say "Leather Jacket Mulder!" Chris
and I are both shallow, in different ways. The case takes them to what I
like to refer to as the better part of the state, Northern California.
Sacramento. Sac Town. My sister, who lives there, says they were
advertising the episode as "the Sacramento" episode, so maybe they filmed
some of it up there--it certainly looked like NorCal to me--the trees and
all. I love obsessed Mulder--no objectivity Mulder. Scully's concerned
at Mulder's mental state--he is at once moody and yet energized. Kim Darby,
the imprisoned mother, will ALWAYS remind me of "Don't be a Afraid of the
dark," a 1970's scary movie she starred in about goblins that I saw when
I was a kid and warped me for life--this was in the days when they ran scary
movies at 3:30 in the afternoon--do they still do that?

I thought it was kinda sloppy to have Mulder watching the news and
showing the Susan Smith and Jon-Benet clips. It was like they didn't trust us to
see the parallels they were drawing and story points they were borrowing
like the bizarre ransom note, so they had to MAKE IT REALLY OBVIOUS.
Plus, we have had so many tragic kidnappings in Northern California, it seems a
more local case would lend credibility to the news story--remember, Susan
Smith and Jon-benet Ramsey only made national news when bodies were
found--murdered children. But a disappearance? Sadly, it's too
commonplace to garner national attention. A local station would probably
focus on Polly Klaas or myriad others.

Liked Scully's obvious contempt for Darby's "murderer" mom. Scully is so
right-wing-throw-the-switch-fry-em-all. You can just tell. I liked
Darby's attempt to explain 'No one shoots at Santa Claus." Maybe she can
explain that Backstreet boys Song: "I want it that way." I don't get it.

Does he want her to say I want it that way, or not? I can't tell. Kids
today, with their boybands and their Pokemon...Anyway. I'm glad I grew
up in the 70's and 80's. I thought Scully's long coat was cool, but a
little too...Stevie Nicks for being on duty (Can't you see her spinning around
in the rain in that coat? It's not a "let's visit a prison and write
reports" coat.) I thought the image of Mulder's mom burning her children's
pictures (so they wouldn't have to watch?) was particularly chilling.

Skinner makes reference to "the twinkie Defense" coined in San Francisco
when Dan White got only seven years for assassinating mayor Moscone and
Supervisor Harvey Milk, due in part to a defense that explained his
actions on a deteriorating mental state brought on by, among other things, a
junk-food diet. I bring this up because, after Dan White was released,
he committed suicide by asphyxiation in his garage, which is similar to how
Mulder's mom chose to end her life. Interesting. All those empty frames
on the wall, the tape on the door--very effective, I thought. Mulder's
realistic denial and paranoia, Scully's compassion and strength. All
very moving.

The whole "walk-ins" element, old souls looking for new homes. I'm going
to write it off as a new age thing I don't wanna know more about, but
they might talk about it on the official X-Files website go to http://www.fox.com/ if
you're interested. they have research notes about every episode--you
know, real life inspiration for stories--even the ones I claim they don't
research at all!) But, if you remember, in second season's "red Museum"
the idea of walk-ins was the red-herring story. This the episode where
those teenagers get "He is one" drawn on their backs? had to do with the
government putting alien something into meat and it turning the kids bad?

ANYWAY, mulder talks a bit about "walk ins" in that one because their
first suspect in these kid abductions is this cult leader who subscribes to
this theory. Similarly, in this episode, it doesn't seem to have any real
bearing on the story, does it?

the Santa's village thing was creepy--is that one on the map for real?
the one I went to as a kid was near Santa Cruz. Scary but true: pedophiles
work where the kids are, no doubt about it.

Mulder laying his head on the phone to listen to his dead mother's voice
was very sad and I cried, OK? I loved how wrecked he was, and how
Scully's honesty hits him like betrayal at first, as he lashes out, then falls
apart:--it doesn't get any better than grieved Mulder and protective
Scully. Who needs a kiss when you can have him fall apart in her arms
and then have her take care of him all night? When Scully tells him that his
mother wanted him to Stop looking for Samantha, I was reminded of another
case where Mulder lost his objectivity: First season's Conduit, when that
little boy is taken up the space ship. Scully says "Mulder stop! Stop
looking for your sister!" It has been a long road, hasn't it?

When Skinner comes by and tells her they're going to Sacramento, you'd
think he'd have already booked her a seat--don't you think he'd want her
along to help hold Mulder together? Scully's annoyance at Skinner's
keeping Mulder involved in the case is interesting--you can tell she
thinks he needs time away, yet Scully worked through the death of her own
father (and lost her objectivity in a big way, I may add) in First
Season's "Beyond the sea." Her father also came to her in a vision after his
death and tried to tell her something, but she couldn't hear the words. She
then puts herself in some jeopardy as she begins to believe that a mass
murderer can put her in touch with her dead dad to find out what he wanted to say
(let's hope next week's episode isn't as big of a rip-off of that episode
as it (gulp)looks!)

Anyway, Scully also heard from her dead sister, so she's used to figuring
out what ghosts are trying to say-- who needs ya, Hayley Joel Osment?
The shot of all those graves was terrifying, all in all a good episode, and
hopefully next week is more original than it looks! Have a great week
everybody :D Christine>