SPACE Episode 9 Season 1 of The X-Files

Huston we have a problem 2/10

I feel as if I have just spent 45minutes watching Mulder and Scully watch a NASA space mission that was in jeopardy from paranormal forces. Paranormal forces whose inception came from the famous 'face on mars' photograph taken from by the Viking 1 Orbiter during the 70’s. The famous photograph is shown at the beginning of the episode when it is questioned by a reporter over its possible indication to life on mars. Chris Charter must have seen the photo and drew all his inspiration for the episode from it and I mean all his inspiration. Maybe he thought it such a novel idea that he could run with it for an entire episode. Unfortunately it didn’t have the legs to carry the episode and without any added dimension the whole thing came across as lazy as if Carter put no real thought into it at all. A clever background story to the face’s origin might have had me salivating and an injection of Deep Throat conspiracy theory may have supplemented the story.

Sure had it not been for Mulders interjection in the last ten minutes the Space Shuttle Orbiter may not have re-entered Earth’s atmosphere without bursting into a big ball of flames, apart from this Mulder and Scully were left redundant throughout. Like voyeurs they observed as a confused mission control tried to regain some sort of grasp on what was happening to the sabotaged shuttle. Mulder appears to be quite struck with meeting his boyhood idols in Lieutenant Colonel Belt yet that old adage ‘never meet your heroes’ rears its head as Belts decision making is reckless and void of compassion for the men aboard the shuttle. It is in the end Mulders desire to believe in the greatness of the man that draws the real Belts away from alien control to receive the instruction to bring the shuttle in at a trajectory of 32 degrees thus saving the lives of the crew members and preserving the life of the space program. This episode shows how strong and unique Mulders faith really is as any normal man would have given up their belief in their hero under similar circumstance.

Another noteworthy point is the convincing mission control set. Ok maybe we might expect to see a larger room with technicians running all sorts of varying equipment. Nether the less it manages to pull it off and it is not impossible to believe. The techno jargon between mission control and the ship seems plausible and the NASA footage of the shuttle in space and landing offer nice touches.

I find it funny; I always thought Ghost in the Machine was my least favourite episode of the series until I wrote this post. GITM succeeds in bringing us a delightful conspiracy undertone that not only breaks up the episode but also give it a point. Space on the other hand is almost entirely pointless and that’s why I can only award it 2/10.

After that nonsense I am really looking forward to sinking my teeth into the next episode ‘Fallen Angel’ Thanks for reading.