SHAPES Episode 19 Season 1 of The X-Files

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.