"Orison"
Airdate: January 9, 2000

When it comes to non-consecutive sequel episodes, The X-Files tends to follow a specific formula: Find a good character, resurrect that character's storyline, and then kill him off in the fourth act. (You know, just when we were getting interested again.) While occasionally the results of this have been good ("Squeeze" and "Tooms"), more often than not they have paled in comparison to their predecessor ("Pusher" and "Kitsunegari"; "Fallen Angel" and "Max"), with the possible exception of any episode featuring the character of the original Arthur Dales, because all of them sucked equally hard. Lucky for us, the compelling, frightening episode "Orison" bucked the trend.

Five years ago, fetishist and murderer Donnie Pfaster was sentenced to life imprisonment after an attempt to abduct Agent Scully resulted in his capture. If we needed any reminder of just how old this series has gotten, thinking back to the airdate of the episode's predecessor "Irresistible" (in 1995) will do it, and the fact that "Orison" succeeds is even more surprising given the time lapse. But the continuity is near flawless. Pfaster, well-played by Nick Chinlund, has escaped from prison with the help of a priest, and goes in search of Scully to finish the crime he attempted years before.

Yet this is far from a Scully-in-distress episode. While Scully-centered shows of recent years have gone so far as to find her falling for a stalker/murderer/hack writer, "Orison" portrays her as scared yet strong. And, thankfully, Mulder did not sweep to her rescue -- if anything, Scully's own independence and resilience lay at the focus of the story. The same can actually be said for the other female character, a prostitute who, when confronted with the secret life of Donnie Pfaster, did the sensible thing -- threw candle wax in his face and got the hell outta there. Sounds simple, really, but you'd be surprised on how rarely these leaps of logic are made by the female species on post-fourth-season X-Files.

"Orison" also marks the X-Files debut of Chip Johannessen, who wrote some of the strongest Millennium episodes (most notably the female-centered "In Arcadia Ego") before the series imploded into a raging suckfest during its third and final season. Johannessen is back in full form, however, and "Orison" plays like everything Millennium should have been -- a dark psychological study with supernatural overtones. I have no idea why Johannessen did not write the "Millennium" episode of X-Files, but you'd only need look at "Orison" to know that he was the man for the job.

-- Sarah Kendzior

The X-Files airs at 9pm EST/8pm MNT, Sundays on Fox.

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