Thoughts in a File Marked X

So, if Scully is pregnant, which she is, and if she brings the baby to term, which she does, why the nativity scene, if it was all done by hand? Unless Mulder read Playboy for its erudite essays instead of just looking at the pictures? Needless to say, we are into a stretch of the X Files for which I have little appreciation. I just hated that they turned the greatest female character in TV history into nothing more than a baby carrier. Don’t get me wrong. Please. Of course, having babies is an important part of being a woman. But, like who one chooses to have sex with, it shouldn’t be an individual’s defining moment. I welcome Stefano Gabban a’s recent plea not to be seen as gay – “I don’t want to be called ‘gay’, because I’m simply a man ... full stop.” Of course, he’s a man! What more excuse does he need? Sex has so come to dominate our world that one of our greatest designers, a man who has impacted our world through his creativity, is seen only according to his bed partne...

Timothy Leary's dead. No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in. Timothy Leary's dead. No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in. He'll fly his astral plane, Takes you trips around the bay, Brings you back the same day, Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary.      Moody Blues, In Search of the Lost Chord , 1968 Perseus was sent to bring the snake-haired head of Medusa back to Polydectes, the king of Seriphus. Of course, whoever looked upon Medusa was immediately turned to stone, so Perseus was, in effect, being sent to his death. And all because Polydectes fancied the young hero’s mother! The young must learn from the old the lessons they need if they are to succeed in life. It is a taut relationship because the old strive to retain control, while the young strive to breakaway. Too much control by the elders stifles – or kills – the life of the young. Not enough control and the young fail to learn all that they will later need. There is a sense, of course, in whic...

Ah, the inevitable death and rebirth of the hero! It is a motif which has run throughout the X Files and American film, for that matter. Remember Lone Wolf McQuade ’s (1983) supercharged disinterment after being buried by David Carradine ’s bad guy? Or, consider Arnold Schwartzenegger ’s Terminator dying at the end of the first film to be reborn a new man(?) in the second. It’s a very old mythic form, one which lies at the very heart of Christianity, but it has become almost the founder’s myth of America. Maybe because it sees its revolutionary break from Britain as a death and rebirth experience. It is, of course, the mythic centre of Jung’s psychology – the individuation process, in which we must constantly die to ourselves in order to be reborn as more authentic versions of who we are. It is, to say the least, unfortunate, then, that the present political climate of the United States is so destructive of all that might make such a rebirth possible. Steve Bannon might call for...

A whole new take on ‘ Delhi belly ’! It can be said that the whole episode never really rises above ‘ toilet humour ’. Certainly, it never rises above the rim! Of the bowl, of course! It has been a contention of this blog that we can read ourselves into the stories told by others and, thereby, gain insight into personal or human matters. In a sense, then, all stories are valuable – repositories of human wisdom and psychology, whether profound or profane. In that sense, there is even room for stories like ‘Badlaa’, for somebody somewhere will have need of the ‘ butt genie ’. For the life of me, I cannot imagine the mess a life must be in if ‘Badlaa’ is where one turns for answers or insights but, under certain circumstances, there is probably something meaningful to be found. For instance, whatever one might think of 7 th Grader Trevor teaming up with 6 th Grader Quinton to murder the monster-of-the-week, it’s a fine example of how adversity throws strange bed-fellows together an...

What is salvaged, precisely? Could it be Ray Pearce’s humanity? Of course, it could! A ray of humanity pierces his heart just in time to save him from becoming the monster he appeared. After spending the episode blaming others for his predicament, he is ultimately able to accept his fate for what it is. In as tear-jerky a scene as the X Files ever produced, Ray is able to die with dignity, a human death. At the end, Ray proves himself noble, as only a fully human being can. Larina Jackson (the fantastically named, Tamara Clatterbuck ), despite all her trying, dies a very unfortunate death, a death - unlike Ray’s - that should have been avoided. Larina, to her doom, never realises her own value and, consequently, dies a most unfortunate death - an accidental victim of another’s search for meaning.  She is looking to blame others every bit as much as Ray. She disguises it as caring, seeking gratification through the misery of others. Having no understanding of her own motives...

If ever anyone deserved to get away with ripping off a hundred thousand dollars from her employer it’s Tammi in ‘ Surekill ’. That she achieves this feat through equal parts intelligence and cold-blooded ‘womanly-wiles’, just makes it all the sweeter. All too often, women are the helpless victims of the monster-of-the-week. It’s nice to see a woman finally take on the monster on his own terms and come out considerably richer. As is par for the course, Randall, at the behest of his brother, Dwight, uses his special skills for nefarious ends. While it is drug dealers they are shaking down, we the audience are not overly concerned with their methods. Unlawful they may be, but no one has a tear to spare for their victims. They are the exterminators of vermin – both rodent and human varieties. If we are not overly put out by Dwight and Randall’s extracurricular activities, nor are we unduly concerned to learn that Tammi is ripping off the brothers in turn. One could almost appreciate th...

Ironically, for a show that emblazons ‘The Truth is Out There’ across the screen at the beginning of each episode, Mulder and Scully – and, now, John Doggett, - only come close to the truth when they look inside themselves. Of course, as I’ve maintained throughout this blog, all that the agents experience is a projection of the truths that lie deep within. It is necessary for this projection to occur that these truths be confronted and dealt with. For those of us, for whatever reason, who are unable to project our own stories, fiction serves as a substitute, allowing us to read ourselves into the stories told by others. Imagine that – TV performing that same task as Homer’s epics and Shakespeare’s tragedies! Freud and Jung revealed for us the true power of the unconscious and even showed us how we might utilise TV in their work with dreams. Dreams are a much more personal story, the very ones we may not, outside therapy, want to tell – or face. But, as Jung showed, the archetypes a...

Oh, wouldn’t you just love the opportunity to go back in time to put right that one action or choice that spoilt everything? Of course, this is not a desire which Nietzsche would have much respect for: “The question in each and every thing, “Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?” would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal? Friedrich Nietzsche ‘ The Gay Science ’ (Kaufmann’s translation) p. 342 According to Nietzsche we should be able to say ‘Yes’ to life and not cravenly seek to change a single nano-second of what has already been. It seems such an extreme idea – to have to live the exact same life over and over again – even in ‘Monday’ there were slight differences each iteration of the day. Certainly, there lies a number of impossibilities involved. For instance, if we were to live over and over a...

The prevalence of cosmetic surgery and photo-shopped images implies a need to appear forever young even as one continues to age. More accurately, what it is occurring is a general admission that life is finished, over, dead! Life is about constant change and development, triumphs and defeats – even, if we are lucky, moments of perfection, however transitory and, of course, imperfections. A willingness to experience all the vicissitudes of life not only keeps us engaged but adds value and meaning to what might otherwise appear ordinary and mundane. To disengage with life is merely death. To seek this disengagement is suicide, plain and simple. As overjoyed as his mother may be – daddy seems less so, maybe because he, on some level, recognises what it means – Billy’s return in precisely the same state of being as when he disappeared all those years ago, is a clear indication of his death. It is understandable that Lisa Underwood is unable to accept this reality, but her unwillingne...

What makes a whole town – a pretty small town, to be sure, but still a whole town – come to believe that a slug could possibly be a messiah? Not for me to make political allusions, but if ever you needed proof that the X Files was prescient! Seems fantastic, doesn’t it, that any disparate group of people could believe not only in the same thing but in something so obviously absurd? How devoid of meaning must their lives be to make them so susceptible to the ridiculous! It does make one wonder, though, how they actually came to believe in what they do. How did the slug persuade a town of relatively normal Americans that it was in fact something special? It seems to have no communication skills before it actually gets to creep under one’s skin – at which point, it appears to take over completely. A once ordinary person becomes a willing proselytizer for the cause - not convinced by the logic of an argument, nor persuaded by the example of good will towards all, they nevertheless wil...

There is a dichotomy at the heart of the X Files, maybe one that is as human as Garry Shandling ’s concern over dressing to the right or the left. There are enough episodes in which we see a way of life disappearing, the idea of small-town America fading from the map of the modern world. As this ideal vanishes, leaving us with a nostalgia for what ought to have been, even if it never actually was, we must face the future of our urban realities, in which neighbours may never speak and walking the streets is no longer a simple stroll home. This regret over the disappearance of small-town America expresses a deeper, more fundamental, loss – our connection with the natural world. We traversed the wide-open spaces of the land, seeking that place we could call home. Finding it, we covered it in concrete, muddied the water with our waste and discoloured the sky with our exhaust fumes. Not for us the pristine beauty of the natural world; it is a place to which we don’t belong. It is but ye...