THE JERSEY DEVIL Episode 5 Season 1 of The X-Files

Monster of the Weak 5/10

Synopsis: Mulders investigation into a murder in New Jersey leads to him hunting down the mythical Jersey Devil. Meanwhile Scully goes on a date.

After the luxury that was Eugene Victor Tooms in the previous monster of the week episode, the monster featured here was nowhere near as fascinating and creepy. The opening scene where a man get attacked and has limbs ripped off promises a creature of immense hostility, brutishness and coldness but what we got was a pretty women in desperate need of some Pan10 Pro V.

The story was all a little obvious and flat and just appeared to hurry on as quickly as it could. They added the Dana Scully on a date bit in to elucidate the fact that she too was to be married to The X-Files and have little or no personal life comparable to her partner. I understand the reasoning for its inclusion in the episode but personally I think this screen time could perhaps be shared with the hobo staying in Mulders hotel room. I am sure he was probably drinking the mini bar dry and ordering soft porn to his telly, but I guess we’ll never know.

A part of this episode I found quite interesting was when the agents meet up with Dr Diamond, one of Scully’s old teachers. He and Fox are talking about the evolutionary food chain;

MULDER: But what if something entered the food chain above us?

DR. DIAMOND: It won't happen, see our intelligence virtually insures us, barring the introduction of some alien life-form, we will live out our days as rulers of the world.

And there it is in black and white a heads up or warning maybe?

That was not all that was said. I’m probably reading way too much into this sentence but...;

MULDER: But, but what if through some fluke of nature, a human was born, who reverted to it's most animal instincts, a kind of carnivorous Neanderthal. Wouldn't he occupy a space above us on the food chain?

As soon as I heard this sentence I immediately thought of fluke form season 2 episode ‘THE HOST’ as an example of a freakish evolution in nature that sits aloft us humans in the food chain. I am also thinking this sentence can be applied to numerous villains from Monster of the Week episodes. But like I said I might just be reading way too much in to things.

One more thing before I go, anybody else notice the guy in the casino that checked the change slot in the telephone just before Mulder was going to call the park ranger. Not significant really just thought it was a nice touch and Mulder reaction made me laugh.

Time to rate and sorry X-Philes I want to give it a higher score but 5/10 seems fair. An uninspired story and a insipid monster. I think this is one of the episodes from series that tries to stick to close to real mythology, before the writer new to bend the 'truth' a little more.
Hopefully I will leave the next episode post on a merrier note, so look out for my covering of SHADOW coming soon.