Purity Control, Deadalive And Prescription Medication?

[ethsnafu]

Hi folks,

Colour me stupid but I am reaching out to the ardent Philes amongst you may be able to help me with a query. I am aware that you good folk have debated, digested and cogitated these things to death but I hope you have enough zest left in your typing fingers to settle my addled mind.

I have embarked upon an X-Files Mythology Marathon of late and I have just finished Deadalive which left me a little perplexed. Mulder, it would seem, was infected with the very virus the Syndicate fought so hard to find a means of resistance to. When Alex Krycek destroyed the phial of Purity Control, and all hope seems to be lost, the following conversation occurred between Scully, Doggett and Skinner.

DOGGETT: He's going to make it?

SCULLY: I don't know. I... I really don't know how we could've known.

DOGGETT: What?

SCULLY: That by keeping him on life support we were incubating the virus. We were hastening it along.

DOGGETT: How'd you figure it out?

SCULLY: When Skinner pulled Mulder off of the machines, his temperature dropped rapidly without affecting his vital signs.

DOGGETT: You mean Skinner saved him.

(SCULLY nods.)

DOGGETT: What about the vaccine?

SCULLY: If we can stabilize him and his temperature we can give him courses of antivirals. I think it could work.

Are we to assume, ergo, that as long as life support is not administered and a simple course of antivirals are prescribed that the threat of the Black Oil is not as great as once presumed and the need for the Syndicate to develop a vaccine was unnecessary as bog-standard drugs like Amantadine and Rimantadine were more than capable of combating the threat?

Help me X-Files fans you are my only hope.

Eth

[ethsnafu]

...and while I am here.

Still musing folks. I know this is simply something that couldn't have taken place for the plot to have remained possible but surely Mulder would have been autopsied as was Billy Myles? An FBI agent is found dead, his tissue in a prominent stage of decomposition bearing injuries that had been likened to torture in the previous episode and there's no explanation to account for this. Given that his disappearance was an ongoing investigation there's no way an autopsy would have not have been performed.

Hmm. Maybe the script just needed a little something, no matter how implausible, to explain why this didn't take place. [initiates fan fiction mode] Couldn't something have been inserted to show Scully pleading with the FBI to let him be after all he had been through or some other such scene.

What do others think?

Eth

[Earthnut]

I remember the episodes and wish I had them to watch. Sorry, but the Nut will be of no help here. I do look forward to reading member's posts on this subject.

The Spook will probably come up with a pink answer. We could give Mulder Pepto-Bismol, it's pink isn't it?

[Libby]

Eth, from what I can recall, the fanwank (awkward word, but it works) for the non-autopsy/non-embalming of Mulder's body was that it's confirmation that he is Jewish and therefore Orthodox Jewish burial practices would have applied. I'm not sure that I'd go along with that - so perhaps the whole virus thing is that whatever an autopsy/embalming might have done, the virus would have undone all that, being as it's alien and so forth.

[ethsnafu]

Ah. So if it's assumed to be fanwank then that would imply that the fans believe it was depicted in that matter to elicit a squeeeee in respect of their theories regarding Mulder's supposed religious beliefs. I see. I'm with you mind, I'm not buying it but I'm prepared to let that one go as not really all that important in the grand scheme of things.

Edit: My bad, I never knew there was another definition of fanwank. I have only ever been exposed to the Whovian appropriation of the term to relate to anything the writers put into a script for no other reason than to make the hardcore fans squeee. I see it can also mean any attempt by said hardcore fans to fill in a plot hole with convoluted explanations to excuse it. Thank you Urban Dictionary. You are my friend.

I'm still addled as to the virus solution. It's not that a deus ex machina was employed here (which is usually the source of ire in fandom) in fact it's exactly the opposite. In this instance nothing at all dramatic needed to be done to cure Mulder beyond stopping trying and giving him a course of bog-standard medication. I remain perplexed.

Eth

[Orodromeus]

Ah, season 8 and its Supersoldiers! The moment the XF mythology passed from solid biowarfare science fiction to pulp SF with a twist of fantasy. I don't have much to add compared to what's been deduced already, but still, not everything is incoherent.

Earlier in the episode, Krycek tantalizes Doggett with a vial of orange liquid, and we're led to believe that this would be the same vaccine against the Black Oil developed in seasons 5-6. This, and the fact the Supersoldiers-to-be were taken by the Colonist aliens, makes us think it's the Black Oil operating. I believe it's a variant of the Black Oil virus since it acts very differently from the classic virus, which either takes control or triggers a gestation in no time.

SCULLY: That by keeping him on life support we were incubating the virus. We were hastening it along.

DOGGETT: How'd you figure it out?

SCULLY: When Skinner pulled Mulder off of the machines, his temperature dropped rapidly without affecting his vital signs.

DOGGETT: You mean Skinner saved him.

(SCULLY nods.)

Most Supersoldiers-to-be were dumped randomly in fields or the sea and left on their own to complete the conversion process, out on the cold. From several episodes (most notably Fight the Future) we know the Black Oil virus is much more active with higher temperatures and so when the host is all cosy in a hospital bed the virus is bound to be more active (that's not far-fetched: that's the same reason why fridges exist: to prevent mould and bacteria from acting too fast). So Mulder returned to a safer place by removing him from intensive care, just like placing him in a cold bath worked in End Game (not the same virus, but I believe they're linked somehow).

DOGGETT: What about the vaccine?

SCULLY: If we can stabilize him and his temperature we can give him courses of antivirals. I think it could work.

This new virus produces what appear to be mindless drones and not a developed, complex, intelligent entity; the virus producing Supersoldiers is bound to be simpler than the original Black Oil virus from which it is derived. The fact that the conversion process takes so many months is another sign of weakness. So the new modified virus was so simplified that an aggressive but convenional treatment did the work; it's possible that Mulder's history in Tunguska helped him shield him a bit (but I don't think so, I think he no longer carried anything alien on him since the operation with CSM in Amor Fati). Obviously this is a bit of fanwanking (in the only definition of the word I knew by the way!) to cover up for an anti-climactic conclusion to the story.

Note that despite his mind games, Krycek never had seen this Supersoldier conversion process before (I believe so), so his offer to cure Mulder with the vaccine was just Krycek's theory of how things worked: he hadn't tested it on any Supersoldier-to-be.

And, Jew or not, circumstances were so extreme and the manhunt for Mulder mobilized so many FBI resources, that an autopsy would obviously have to be conducted. Add to that Krycek's irrational scheming that was written just as to have more Skinner/Scully melodrama (why not have Krycek kill Mulder directly?), compared to the very enjoyable This Is Not Happening, DeadAlive was quite a letdown.

Shameless plug of my DeadAlive analysis

Shortly put, healing Mulder this way, after spending a great deal of the mythology on the search for a vaccine against the Black Oil, after having him buried for 3 months and not having conducted an autopsy, is a far-fetched, convenient and rather lazy way for the writers to reintroduce Duchovny to the show.

[ethsnafu]

Fascinating points. It evidently needs fanwank to pull it together and make it coherent if you ask me. Now I see where you are going with regards to reducing an infected individuals temperature in order to slow the progression of the infection but I'm not sully understanding what you're inferring from the following.

So Mulder returned to a safer place by removing him from intensive care, just like placing him in a cold bath worked in End Game (not the same virus, but I believe they're linked somehow).

That said, if the script was intended to imply the theories you state, and I have no reason to think that wasn't the case, then it needed to be much more accessible to the viewer because for obvious reasons viewers merely concluded that this was a bog-standard Black Oil infection that was someone how cured by conventional low-level medical intervention.

Even if the virus was a mutation that beget super-soldiers rather than greys it still, IMHO, cheapens the storyline a little that nothing more than conventional medication was needed to prevent this process. There absolutely no drama in the resolution as the next time an individual is infected in this way the tension is none existent as it's merely a case of popping them into bed and phoning a local GP. I would have preferred there to be some stakes in the case of infection but this led me to conclude it's more a case of 'don't panic'.

I think we can all agree the lack of an autopsy was flimflam right? It was essential for this not have happened for the plot to retain integrity but it was evidently a use of artistic licence without a shred of credibility which is a shame.

I do agree with you that "This Is Not Happening" is a much stronger episode and my expectations were rather high for DeadAlive.

I'm off to read your shameless plug this minute and do keep shamelessly plugging. I enjoy reading your work.

Eth

[Orodromeus]

Thanks again! I'm glad that my big fat chunks of text do end up being useful to *somebody*.

"So Mulder returned to a safer place by removing him from intensive care, just like placing him in a cold bath worked in End Game (not the same virus, but I believe they're linked somehow)."

What I meant was that in DeadAlive, the cosiness and the warmth is what caused the virus to grow. Like in Fight the Future, the Texas warmth caused the Black Oil virus to thrive.

I'm making a parallel with Colony/End Game, where Mulder is exposed to the Alien Bounty Hunter's "green blood", which I think is grossly derived from the Black Oil as well. Scully discoverd that the toxin in the "green blood" becomes ineffective on humans in the cold. So she fought against the local doctor who wanted to treat him conventionally (ie warm him up) and placed him in a cold bath to 'cure' him. Similarly, in DeadAlive, conventional treatment would have harmed Mulder.

That said, if the script was intended to imply the theories you state, and I have no reason to think that wasn't the case, then it needed to be much more accessible to the viewer because for obvious reasons viewers merely concluded that this was a bog-standard Black Oil infection that was someone how cured by conventional low-level medical intervention.

Actually I don't really agree that this particular point should have been made more accessible to the viewer. I doubt that anyone can pretend that he/she grasped all the implications and intricacies of the plot of Tunguska/Terma with one single viewing. The XF has always been confusing to the casual viewer and rewarding for the one that's obsessively digging.

But I agree that what they made out of the story is completely anti-climactic, invalidates Jeremiah Smith's importance in the previous episode, and diminishes the menace the invasion represents.

[ethsnafu]

I see what you're saying Oro but I'm just slightly confused between the parallels you draw between Deadlalive and Colony/End Game. You are right in stating that it is shown that the progression of the infection is controlled by lowering the temperature of the host. This is a deliberate intervention to that end. In Deadalive Mulder's temperature drops as a result of Skinner's attempts to kill him by removing him from life support. Whatever causes his temperature to drop is not due to any attempt to lower his temperature as Mulder remains in the hospital throughout the episode with the environmental temperature stable throughout. When you mention that...

"So Mulder returned to a safer place by removing him from intensive care, just like placing him in a cold bath worked in End Game (not the same virus, but I believe they're linked somehow)."

I couldn't quite follow how taking him from Intensive Care to the OR necessarily fits with your description as the temperature in both environments would be consistent. I apologise if I am simply not grasping something here. Wouldn't be the first time.

When I spoke about the narrative needing a little more inference I did so based on the premise that what you assert is the truth of the episode. The problem with fanwank as far as explanations go is that it remains fanwank in the absence of anything in the narrative to support it. It is based on the suppositions and guesswork of ardent fans of a show who refine and debate their thinking in online forums until a working hypothesis is the end result.

I don't believe showrunners should tie everything up in a bow. I am a Millennium fan after all. In the case of Deadalive if this was a show about a new variant of the virus that was responsible for the creation of super soldiers there should, IMHO, be something in the script that alludes to that. It needn't be the vial labelled 'super soldier vaccine' but if that's the story you are intending to tell and a great number of your audience failed (as I would imagine they did) to grasp that when watching it the first time your story has failed them.

The basics of a story have to be in there somewhere, they cannot be contained in the gaps between the words. The larger implications to the characters, to the mythos and so on should be the areas which require fanwank not the very basics of what the heck is happening on screen.

Does that make sense. I do ramble. I know I do.

Eth