"Hungry"
Airdate: November 21, 1999.

What is it with everyone eating brains lately? Just a mere five days after Glenn Quinn nearly lost his cerebellum on the vastly superior Angel, along comes a X-Files episode detailing a diet-obsessed cannibal with a taste for gray matter. Unfortunately, the storyline of "Hungry" is the only remotely cerebral aspect of this convoluted monster-of-the-week episode. If anyone is lacking in brain matter here, it's fallen-from-grace scribe Vince Gilligan.

I wish I didn't have to write that. I love Vince Gilligan episodes as much as any X-Files fan, and it is only because I consider him the last gasp of writing talent the show has that "Hunger" comes as such a disappointment. How the man who once gave us the wry, self-depreciating wit of "Small Potatoes", the emotional poignancy of "Paper Hearts" and the sixth-season redeeming quality of "Tithonus" now knocks out dialogue like "Stop spankin' it and get my food!" is beyond me. I don't expect much from The X-Files these days, and for, say, Jeffrey Bell, "Hungry" would be an out-and-out masterpiece. But Gilligan is good. Gilligan is probably the best this series has. And I expect more from him than, well, "I used to dip my boys in the coleslaw."

Taking a cue from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Hungry" attempts to use the paranormal (cannibalism) to express a societal ill (eating disorders). The episode fails miserably, and not just because its protagonist/villain physically resembles an untimely fusion of "Time to Change"-era Peter Brady and R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe. Chad Donella (Disturbing Behavior) plays Robert Roberts (hee hee -- so clever!), a fast-food employee driven to murder by his desire for human brain. (Hey, what X-Files fan of recent can't relate?) He also appears to have some sort of eating disorder, vaguely mentioned but never developed during sessions with his oblivious shrink. Donella is mind-blowingly awful in "Hungry", his screechy, cracking voice becoming more and more unbearable with every minute of screen time he gets. And he gets plenty -- from the onset we know he is the killer, and the bulk of "Hungry" is a pseudo-profound, humorless psychological study of one of the most uninteresting X-Files monsters in years.

Since the departure of the great Darin Morgan after the series' third season, Gilligan has served as a sort of comedic replacement, the only X-Files writer to regularly and successfully combine humor, horror and heart. Unlike his fellow staff members, Gilligan's episodes always had compassion for the monster they depicted, and until "Bad Blood" (still a good episode), they never contained condescension or contempt. "Hungry" marks a huge step backwards in this regard. Gilligan's disdain for Roberts comes through in his cliched and one-sided characterization, and this makes an already unappealing character downright dull. What point is there in watching an episode whose lead protagonist is so unlikable that even the writer cannot contain his disgust?

There are other problems with "Hungry", problems like Agent Mulder screaming at a man who has, um, no ears. Problems like the theft of plot elements from older X-Files episodes, whether good ("Tooms") or awful ("Sanguinarium"). But the biggest problem lies with the fact that Gilligan has proven himself capable of so much more than this. "I do believe that deep down inside, even the worst of us want to be good," remarks Roberts mid-way through the episode. Too bad that doesn't always apply to the best of us as well.

--Sarah Kendzior

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

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