Conduits Of Little Green Fallen Angel Men.

[Guest ModernDayMoriarty]

The other day I was experiencing 'Post-Millennium blues'. That is, I'd just watched through all 3 Seasons (over a period of time of course!) and had just finished. So my ritual of watching a few episodes a day was brought to a terrible conclusion and I experienced all over again the 'Noooo!' of realising there were no more episodes to watch and how criminal it was that MLM had been cancelled etc etc.

Eventually, I pulled myself together and decided to return to the X-Files with a view to submitting a few reviews (to a different site than this as it happens). So I selected S2 having already done many S1 reviews and decided to 'start at the beginning'. So, 'Little Green Men' then... I just thought I'd put a few ideas down about it and wondered what people thought of the episode as a quick whip round on the Internet revealed a fairly divided take on the episode.

It's the only Season opener not written by Chris Carter and is one of very few Mythology episodes not wriiten by him. It is the first episode I think to have the 'unusual opening', i.e of space or of atoms splitting or whatnot. Also, it is very slow for a mythology episode indeed. There is hardly any action and a surprising amount of exposition given that the characters are usually apart!

For me, LGM is a bit hit and miss. On the one hand, the work done on Mulder and his state of mind is superb. His desolation at losing the X-Files, Scully, letting everyone down after they trusted him... it's very sad to see him like this as he rarely let things get him down for long in S1. DD is excellent in the episode and the whole arc from this to 'One Breath' really sees I believe his finest moments on the XF from a purely acting point of view.

However, the episode is as I said, very torpidly paced. The opener is intriguing but doesn't get us fired up at the end. The transition from space all the way down to Man (Mulder) is very good but the hope it holds out (a recorder turning on) hardly carries much of a Wow! of the kind we have come to expect from XF openers. It was a visual show and worked best when it underscored its points with arresting visuals. This episode fails to do that until right near the end. The information on the telescope, the suggestion of aliens... this is all fine but it's said rather than shown and that hurts the excitement.

Take for example, 'Beyond the Sea'. Would it have been as powerful during Bogg's monologues on his terror of the electric chair and how he felt himself possesed by the dead of the chair if we had not had those haunting black and white flashbacks playing of the events. Of the minster reading to him and his dead reletives looking on in satisfaction? I argue that it would not be as powerful at all. And so it is in LGM - without having any visual frame of reference, it is hard to get that excited about him going to this place - there is only muted expectation because we still don't really know what's gong on. Indeed for most of the episode that is just the problem - nothing really is going on!

That isn't to say that the scenes are bad necessarily. They are very interesting generally revealing Mulder's pains and showing that he isn't alone - he just thinks he is because he has become too paranoid. But it isn't enough, that isn't the style that XF works best in. The ending too is quite good but rather truncated. The last 10 minutes or so see a sudden whirl of action that wakes up some and jars others. Another problem is that the episode tells us rather more than felt natural because it throws too much into the mix too soon. Mulder -tells- us he misses scully, tells us he is down at heel, wonder aloud if aliens really exist, wonders aloud what he'd do if his Sister's abductors came. And then all these questions are happened basically as soon as he gets through saying it. Like with the new interpretation of his siter's abduction, we aren't given time to digest this before it is being used. Seeing the abduction in flashback? Fine. Having the aliens turn up in exactly the same way in the same episode as you first show it? Bad.

Lastly and perhaps the most important point, is that it had been done before really, just as well if not better in S1. The Howard Gordon/Alex Gansa episodes 'Conduit' and 'Fallen Angel' include basically all of what we see here. Mulder haring off trying to atone for failing his sister, manically chasing down evidence against the clock at the risk of his career and his life, Scully coming to save the day, a contact protecting him from full disciplinary action etc etc. Other than Mulder's new determination that believing isn't enough anymore, nothing here is exactly new.

But it does set up the S2 arc quite nicely and the performances are great (but they were in 'Fallen Angel too). The episode for me is simply a retread of 'FA' with a different tone, like the adventure had gone out of it. It is a good indication of Mulder's state of mind but it isn't as exciting as the S1 episode and mirrors it far too closely for my liking.

So, what did people make of LGM? Don't be shy!

[Guest canadian girl]

I think you've summed up LGM quite well. The episode is a bit of a rehash ie the same plot in a different setting. I guess that Mulder being censured is a common thread through all seasons of the X Files (ha, ha) . I also agree that Fallen Angel is a more compelling episode.

I've recently aquired all the X Files Seasons and am so thrilled about it. I'm slowly working my way through.........I'm on Season 2 and watched Firewalker the other night. :grin:

[Guest ModernDayMoriarty]

Which is basically just 'Ice' again! So M+W rip off Howard Gordan and he rips them off right back! 'Ice' was just 'The Thing' rehashed anyway though so... I actually quite liked 'Firewalker', more so than 'Ice'. I don't know why but I just never really cared for 'Ice' the same as everyone else seemed to.

Anybody else?

[Guest canadian girl]

You're so right. When I was watching Firewalker that's the first thing I thought. Ah.........a group of scientists alone with an unknown agent infecting them........where have I seen that recently? Oh right, in Season One's Ice.

I guess it's hard not to recycle some ideas occasionally and put them under different guises. I suppose Darkness Falls can be compared to Firewalker and Ice too.

I watched Red Museum last night and have questions about that. Such as, what happened to the teens while they were kidnapped? We know who kidnapped them and why but not what traumatized them so badly. And that Purity Control stuff that the doctor was injecting certain kids with must have been around in the late 1970's because that's when all those kids would have been born. I suppose that's possible .....alien DNA was available after Roswell? What did the growth hormones injected into cattle have to do with the alien DNA or was that just a handy comparison?

I was tired when I watched it.

[Guest ModernDayMoriarty]

My memory of 'Red Museum' is rather hazy because I really don't like it very much at all. It is indeed a very muddled and confusing episode. Standalone episodes that include government involvement are rarely very good as the government are best left in the mythology episodes or it appears they are behind absolutely everything!

From what I can remember (and I'd need to watch it again as I'm really rusty on this episode), the town cattle are being injected with hormones that inadvertently promote violent behaviour whilst the kids are being injected with purity control to try and make them superhumans or alien/human hybrids or something. Thus the government treats everyone, animals and humans as cattle to be used.

As to FW, DF and Ice... well they represented the 'trapped in the wilderness' episodes of which there are many, many examples. The above mentioned, 'Dod Kalm', 'Quagmire', 'Detour' etc etc. Not sure why they kept recycling this kind of episode as it wasn't very interesting to watch.