Sit, Stay,
Play Dead 4/10
Synopsis:
Mulder and Scully’s investigation into a shooting over a land dispute turns out
to be more than just an open and shut case when a savage animal is introduced
into the mix.
The episode
is by no means an attention grabber let alone attention retainer. It is a werewolf yarn and
we all know what a werewolf is and how they work; man gets scratched/bit, man
turns into werewolf. Although it seems we are taking our prevailing knowledge
for granted as it appears that The X-Files universe is unaccustomed to such myth.
So as I watch Mulder and Scully investigate and learn about this nameless
phenomenon I find myself reaching for my laptop.
Today I was
off on a Native American Google search tangent that started with The Wounded
Knee Incident mentioned by Ish during his first exchange with Mulder. I went on
to learn more on the Native Americans’ plight against the U.S government , their
battles to preserve the lands, their culture, their weapons, their farming
methods, their hunting methods, their religion, their casinos. All the while Shapes
listlessly stumbles from scene to scene offering little more than soft background
stimuli.
This emphatically
predictable story was in no way buoyed by the script and direction, which in
places was downright awkward, the pinnacle of which has to be Mulders chucking
in of the line ‘I want to believe’. When used without the class and the coherent
context found at the end of Conduit this epic X-Files tag line is reduced to
nothing but a cheap catch phrase.
Scully fairs
little better. Her most poignant character trace is the ability to dismiss incomprehensible
occurrences with logic and it is a trait we all appreciate, after all its part
of what makes The X-Files so great. Although her ability to dismiss the ‘shape
shifting’ Kyle Parker as a mountain lion is blind to the point of denial and
not the ‘I saw it but I won’t admit it’ denial but the ‘repressed memory that
may one day give me a brain tumour’ type of denial. The latter even played out on
film to a certain extent when Kyle Parker gave off several loud roars as he was
‘shape shifting’ in the bathroom, the shot of Scully attempting to gain entry
to the bathroom is silent. See no evil, hear no evil.
I think that
the transformation scene of Kyle Parker into a werewolf still looks great today
and finally my Google search tangent had a challenger to my attention. Alas it
was a short lived battle of which Google prevailed.
There were
other moments in which my curiosity peaks along the way. The castings of
Duchovnys’ Twin Peaks co-star Michael Horse for example. As Sheriff Charles Tskany
he practically reprises his role of Deputy Tommy Hill in a nod to the early 90’s
supernatural drama to which X-Files owes for some of its inspiration.
There was
also the backstory to these ‘shape shifting’ events which are attributed as the
first ever X-Files. Apparently Edgar J. Hover himself initiated the investigation
in 1946. The case, seeming unsolvable was swept under the carpet by Hoover(pun intended),
which is a conspiracy in itself I suppose.
I find this
episode unintentionally funny which is some sort of bonus I guess but this and
its other entertaining facets are too few and far between in an episode guilty
of sticking to closely to the myth ultimately causing it to be too banal. I did
however get more out of watching this episode than expected, an education into
the plight of Native American Man. 4/10
Musings:
- Or rather musing; Mulder breaches the gap left from a history of bloodshed between the U.S. Government and Native Americans. He offers an olive branch which is accepted. Is karma now at work? Is this act of philanthropy what helps the Navajo Indians bring Mulder back to life in ‘The Blessing Way’ Not trying to put too fine a point on it put Karma does play a large part in the Native American belief system.
