X-Files 8.18 "Vienen"

Yeah, yeah, two weeks behind. And I don't even have a job to blame it on!
I am just that unenthused by X-Files these days! I will watch and review
8.19 & 8.20 this week--I promise!

In case it has slipped your mind, 8.18 was the one on the oil rig. I
thought the location was pretty cool and there were elements to the story
that worked, but, all in all, it was more confusing than anything else.
The show has spent so much time forgetting about the mythology--dumping
Mulder's sister, ignoring Mulder's abduction and STILL BEING COY about
Scully's pregnancy--and now they're suddenly resurrecting things like "the
black oil."

The episode starts with an Hispanic oil rig worker killing the
communications officer and then being nuked by his boss, who is under the
influence of the black oil, we later learn. The scene where all the white
light comes spewing out of the boss was pretty nifty, I thought.

Dogg find's Mulder in his office--Mulder's old office (they keep telling us
mulder isn't on the X-Files, but don't tell us what he's supposed to be
doing--is he working in another department, is he on medical leave, what?)
Mulder's ticked off because he sent Dogg some info about these nuked bodies
that washed up on a Texas beach. There was traces off the black oil in
them, and Mulder thinks this is an X-File. There's also a missing worker,
a Mexican national. Dogg assures Mulder that he's read all about the Black
Oil and the case of the "Piper Maru" (sigh, third season :D )and he still
isn't interested. Mulder is amused by Dogg's lack of enthusiasm for the
"X-Files" and wonders who Dogg pissed off to send him down to the basement.
In the pilot episode, Mulder asked Scully the same thing, but there was
more sexual tension.

Mulder and Dogg are summoned to a meeting with Skinner and Scully and that
mean ol' FBI director Kersh, who...is more like a dictatorial high school
principal than a creepy member of the Conspiracy. He's a jerk, but he
doesn't scare me. Turns out, the oil rig in question is part of a joint
operation between the US and Mexico, drilling in an as-yet-untapped part of
the Gulf of Mexico and the fact that a Mexican national was killed in a US
govt. business venture is a big deal. Kersh is furious that Mulder is the
one who contacted the oil company, bringing the case to the FBI's
attention. Kersh agrees to send Dogg, not Mulder or Scully who's too
pregnant to go. Mulder disses Dogg's ability to approach the case as an
X-File, Dogg doesn't care.

Mulder goes to the oil rig anyway, beating Dogg to his own investigation.
Mulder is talking to Mr. Glowstick, the oil rig boss, who now seems like a
normal oil rig kind of guy. Mulder is wearing a long-sleeved gray shirt,
mmmm. Dogg is wearing a military-green jacket over a black shirt, but who
cares? Glowstick tells the men that folks go crazy out here on an oil rig,
and that the burned dead guy was sabotaging the radio. He also tells them
that "a man can die out here going for a walk." Sounds more like a job for
OSHA than the FBI.

Dogg confront Mulder for stepping on his investigation: "One call to duh
deputy duhrectuh and I can get you canned, Mulduh." He's not looking for
any conspiracy, and tells Mulder that his reputation precedes him: "They
say you can find a conspiracy at church picnic." "Which church?" Mulder
replies. I liked their exchange, but, it's tired. It's the same basic
dynamic as Scully and Mulder (he paranoid, excitable, crusading; she
logical, calm and dutiful) but again, with no real chemistry between the
leads. Starsky and Hutch, they ain't.

Meanwhile, back at the FBI, Scully does indeed find the alien virus in the
dead oil worker--but the virus is dead too. So, lemme get this
straight...its too dangerous for Scully to go to the oil rig, but she can
cut up a dead guy who she SUSPECTS is carrying the very dangerous and
mind-controlling and VERY CONTAGIOUS alien virus???? I know why I don't
care about Scully's baby--she doesn't!!

Actually, this brings me to my major complaint with the whole Scully's baby
story--I am not even remotely invested in this alleged child, are you? I
mean, an eight year old is probably savvy enough to stand back for this and
say, "jeepers, maybe it's an alien monster baby!" And Chris Carter thinks
he's being clever by not having Scully express this fear anymore, even
though she never DID get a straight answer form the sonogram!? Zuh?! And,
let's not forget, Scully doesn't even know how or when she got pregnant.
It's a miracle?? And Scully's cool with that, since freaking when? Even
Mary the Mother of God needed an angel of the Lord to come down and tell
her everything was cool, yet Scully is just peachy, doing her autopsies and
giving these Mona Lisa smiles and no answer whenever anyone inquires about
the paternity/physical impossibility of the "blessed" event? I just don't
buy any of it.

ANYWAY, Scully is now distressed because the alien virus is definitely on
the oil rig. She thinks the rig should be evacuated, but Skinner is to
chicken to go to Kersh, "I'm not gonna tell him, you tell him!" Turning
Skinner from the vaguely menacing, intense, complex boss/accomplice/leash
holder that he was into Mulder and Scully's wimpy, loyal but pathetic pal
is one of the worst things to happen on the show in the last year or two.
From chief to chump.

Back on the rig, the new radio officer complains to Mr Glowstick that he's
getting all kinds of weird interference on the radio. Glowstick gives him
a little black oil, and the new guy is now a black oil zombie (hey, that'd
be a cool name for a band--better than Flickerstick, that's for dang sure.).
Kersh ain't trying to hear about any evacuation of the oil rig. Scully
tries to contact Dogg about the virus threat, and is surprised to get
Mulder on the line, "Fox, you got some 'splaining to do!" I liked when she
chastised him for "flouting orders," it was kinda like old times. Mulder
wants to know why the virus was dead in the dead Mexican guy. Dogg still
doesn't believe in no alien virus, and Mulder gives him one of his "you
can't handle the truth" tirades. Mulder thinks the government is drilling
in Mexican territory or some such. Dogg disagrees, but does what mulder
wants, which is to shut down drilling on the rig.

If you recall, we learned...I think in the movie, that the alien virus came
to earth eons ago, and it's underground and people accidentally have
unearthed it--it has attacked Navy sub crews, deep sea divers (Piper Maru)
and the like. It seeps into people and can seem out of them without
killing them, but it can make people do whatever they want. Mulder and
Krycek have both been infected with it. Just a little black oil
backstory--they gutted the Conspiracy by taking away Samantha, cancerman
and the other important men, and what do they bring back? The black oil.
It's not my fave angle, and I don't' *really* understand it. I mean, is
the virus working in conjunction with the spaceship aliens? the black oil
seem sentient. Whatever.

The oil company doesn't want any kind of Quarantine, and they want to keep
drilling. Kersh is furious at Skinner for authorizing Dogg to shut down
the drilling, and at Scully for performing an un-authorized autopsy. He
implies they should think about posting their resumes on Monster.com.
Someone sets fire to the radio room. It turns out to be Diego, the missing
Mexican worker. He attacks Dogg and holds him prisoner. He cuts Dogg with
a knife, and is relieved to see that Dogg has red-blood--no alien oil in
his veins. Dogg speaks "poco spanish" which is almost as painful as his
english, but he understands what Diego is trying to say--the UFO's are
coming.

Scully has a theory about the dead guy's immunity to the virus. He and
Diego aren't of Spanish decent. Both are from a very small community that
has a purely Indian gene pool. She's fretting about white boys Mulder and
Dogg and their chances for being infected, but the radio isn't working for
her to tell them they're in deep genetic doo doo and need to get off the
rig.

Dogg leaves Diego and is almost oiled by one of the workers. Watching the
oil drip out of the guy's eyes and mouth seems to make Dogg a believer in
the virus. Mulder beats the guy up. No, seriously, not the other way
around. Mulder and Dogg race to the radio room, and Mulder asks him if he
can fix the radio. If Scully had been, there, Mulder would have needed her
to do it. He's cute, but he isn't very useful on the technical end. Nice
theories, though. All the black oil zombies converge on the radio room and
try to bash their way in as Dogg gets though to Texas, "We need a choppuh!"
But they can't land on the rig because of the virus. Mulder realizes that
the radio waves are making the zombies swarm, or something, so he busts the
radio (that's why Diego and his pal kept destroying it). The zombies
vanish.

Dogg goes to get Diego, but he's dead. The zombies took care of him. They
realize that the zombies are now in the process of blowing up the oil rig.
Mulder and Dogg have to jump off the rig as it goes up in flames--a really
cool stunt from sideways camera angle but the blue-screen scene shot
looking up at the actors was terrible and lame.

The US loses the rights drill in the infected oilfield to Mexico. Mulder
FINALLY gets fired for disobeying Kersh. He tells Dogg to fight the good
fight for truth, justice, and the American way. Oooh, now that Mulder has
given Dogg his blessing to investigate the X-Files, count me in for next
season!! >:( How's it even gonna work? Is Dogg gonna believe in the Black
Oil and Reyes is gonna believe in everything else? I just...don't get it.


Next week, two new reviews, I promise! :) Go buy Stevie Nicks new album,
it RULES!!! Christine :D