The X-Files
"Within"

Airdate: November 5, 2000

"What the -- this isn't The Sopranos!"

It begins with reddish, murky shots of a baby floating through what appears to be amniotic fluid. Gurgling sounds and pattering drumbeats play in the background as the pregnant Agent Scully sleeps peacefully, unaware that a chorus of Enya on crack is about to follow her wherever she goes for the next hour. Suddenly, the scene changes. The music builds. The camera filter turns a decidedly less friendly blue. The amniotic fluid clears to reveal... Mulder, choking on an umbilical cord! Scully wakes in alarm. She's not having Mulder's baby, she realizes with a start. Her baby, that snug little creature in her womb is, in fact, Mulder!

Now that's gotta be painful.

Yes, it's back, another season of The X-Files, that dark, Duchovny-less alley down which we still dare to walk, where even the words "Co-Executive Producer John Shiban" will not turn us away. There are a few changes -- Mulder's status has been reduced from Main Protagonist to Dude That Falls From Sky in Credits -- but it still has that old late-season charm. Mere minutes went by before the first close-up shot of Scully's breasts. Yes, it's back, another season premiere, another lesson in futility, written by none other than He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

If "Within", the first of a two-parter whose sequel, "Without" (subtitle: Plot, Continuity, and Meaning) airs next week, intended to assuage the fears of fans who have scant interest in the series beyond Mulder, it failed miserably. The "new" X-Files picks up with the introduction of John Doggett (Robert Patrick), an FBI agent who exists to fill the Scully role, now that Scully's filling the Mulder role and Mulder's filling the role of malleable flesh toy. (More about that later.) Doggett is written as a pragmatic foil for all of Scully's crazy thoughts about aliens and "the truth"; problem is, Scully's essential plotline is that of a baby-producing hysteric, an incompetent agent at best and a emotional wreck at worst. She throws water at her co-workers, she leaves her apartment door wide open while she chases her landlord out the window, all the while longing for her secret agent man to return.

"Nine seasons? Good thing that was only a dream."

Unfortunately, she's not going to be seeing him any time soon, at least looking pretty or sane. David Duchovny's season-long feud with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was the most dramatic storyline of The X-Files last season, and now he's facing the punishment. "Within" introduces us to Mutilated Mulder, whose distorted face-flesh pulled taut by a metal contraption until little pinpricks of blood appear -- screams for a contract renegotiation. I suppose, in some way, it's only fair -- after all, Scully was abducted, robbed of her ovaries (although they seem to have forgotten that part) and implanted with a metal chip. Maybe Mulder will come back mysteriously pregnant as well.

That would certainly be more interesting than Doggett, one of the blander characters The X-Files has ever produced. Watching "Within", the rare episode that manages to actually use Walter Skinner properly, I couldn't help wondering why they didn't just put terrific, pre-existing characters like Skinner and Krycek in the forefront instead of sticking us with this deadly-dull Mulder-Not. Robert Patrick is a great actor, and his performance as a family man turned compulsive gambler in last season's Sopranos was the kind that should have gotten him a leading TV series role. However, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named seems to have cast him based on his emotive range as the T-1000. Perhaps he's there to provide counterbalance to Pregnant Hysterical Scully, but isn't that a little, you know, clichéd? Oh wait. Right. This is The X-Files.

"Please, throw this in my face like a hysterical bitch." "Gee, okay!"

One formerly intriguing character who does manage to make an appearance is Gibson Praise, that psychic, alien Jonathan Lipnicki from a few seasons back. Gibson is the key to finding Mulder, as he currently goes to a school of the deaf conveniently located near where Mulder was abducted. Even more remarkably, Scully/Skinner and Doggett all manage to show up at the school at the same time, all manage to chase Gibson up a mountain, and all manage to see him with... Mulder, standing at the edge of a cliff, ready to push him off! Wow! Gee, do you think the Alien Bounty Hunter will show up in "Without"? Will there be mistaken identities? Will Doggett be confused? Oh the suspense of it all...

Though remarkably tame for a He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named episode, "Within" is still a loser any way you slice it. Mulder/Duchovny fans see their favorite character torn apart, often literally, while Scully fans must endure an onslaught of godawful New Age music wherever the agent goes. Shippers get a really raw deal -- Scully's pregnant and still no sex?! It's noromos, however, who probably have it worse. Eight years of soul-searching quests, of actually trying to make sense of that alien plotline, of believing that Mulder's search symbolizes some deeper, philosophical meaning. And what does it all come down to?

Mulder didn't do it for the truth. He did it all for the nookie.

-- Sarah Kendzior

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

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