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"You lied. You have seen it before, I can tell. You lied to them."
"I would never lie. I willfully participated in a campaign of
misinformation."
When I watched this the first time I kept thinking I'd somehow seen this before too. "Shadows" is what you get when you cross X-Files with a Valerie Bertinelli made for TV-movie. Heck, guest actress Lisa Waltz even kinda looks like Bertinelli. While there have certainly been worse episodes, this outing stands as Morgan & Wong's weak link in season one. Rather than giving us much Mulder and Scully, "Shadows" focuses too much time on Lauren Kite and her problems with Howard Graves the poltergeist - who is sort of like Casper with a mean streak. Even the teaser, which I will admit did at least contain bodies, wasn't much of a grabber. The only real paranormal or X-Fileish thing we saw was a Ben Franklin knickknack moving about three inches - oooo, creepy.
That's the biggest problem with the episode - it just wasn't scary.
At all. I mean here we have a ghost who does things like spill coffee or tightens a bracelet. Ho hum. Instead of scary, it was pretty tame fair, and not all that interesting. The feel good ending has always annoyed me as well. Gee, the case is solved, the girl is happy, and we end with our chatty heroes planning a site seeing trip together to "a big bell with a big crack and you have to wait in a long line." Oh no! The coffee almost spills again. Whew! It was just a big truck! Thank God, or else we might have had to see Mulder and Scully off to Omaha for more of this excitement.This episode also has two Scully moments that really really bother me. The first is the way - in keeping with that annoying tradition started early on of always having Scully arrive seconds too late to see anything paranormal - they have her miss out by actually being stuck in the car unable to unfasten her seat belt. I can't even begin to say how much that little bit irritates me as it just makes her look so incompetent. Easily the worst excuse ever for once again just missing something important. The next is the interview in which Scully uses a rather manipulative technique of faux female bonding to get Lauren to cooperate. It just rings false to me. Mulder isn't the only one left wondering "What are you doing Scully?" even though she explains her reasons adequately.
Well, Mulder and Scully must be doing something right because they are already recognized by all the shady organizations as being the ones to go to for "expertise in extraordinary phenomena". Why they are allowed to pursue the case, however, is beyond me unless they take Blevins' recommendation of them as tacet approval and things in the basement have been real boring.
What does work in "Shadows" is the Mulder/Scully interaction that Morgan and Wong have always excelled at. The early Mulder and Scully are really starting to synch by this point and their back and forth, such as the headache comparison after the great Taurus possession, are fun to watch. I especially enjoy the little face Scully makes during this scene when the car lights go out - she just hates that. We have Scully already steeling herself against Mulder humor, ignoring him as he makes his Elvis quips and the like to continue with her theories and rational explanations. There is a wonderful moment when, after spouting off one such theory, Mulder says to her "You may be right" and it stops her cold as she answers "Wait. You think I'm right?". That's one you have to laugh at. Poor Scully just doesn't get to hear that often. It's funny, how in hindsite banter like: "Hey Scully, do you believe in an afterlife?" "I'd settle for a life in this one." can make the viewer a bit wistful these days.
-There was an actual scene in here that we *had* seen before. Apparently, not wanting to waste time actually filming Scully typing at her computer, they reuse a scene from "Squeeze" - you can even see the evidence photos from that episode on her desk. Thankfully, the voice over was at least new material.
-Why is it that people always ask "Do you want some water?" when folks are upset? It's not like you're crying because you're thirsty...
-I think this episode contains the last reference to Section Chief Blevins until we see him at the end of season four.
-I couldn't help but think when the corpse's arm moved "Hey Scully, at least it didn't blink at you."
-One of the more equal opportunity scripts - the other investigative team had a male/female pairing as did the thugs.
-Mulder was pretty darn sneaky pulling off that glasses trick while Scully spent her time of so intently examining and reexamining, and, just to be sure, re-reexamining a corpse's arm.
-I did enjoy the early appearance of Psychic!Scully as she can already sense when Mulder is lying.
-Adding more fuel to the "Scully is a horror movie junkie" fire she references both "Carrie" and "Poltergeist" in this episode.
-I loved the look on Scully's face when, alone in the elevator, Mulder puts his arm around her, draws her close, and then breathes hard - on his glasses. He really doesn't have any concept about personal space.
-We get a date stamp on this one of 9/22/93 from the videotape at the ATM.
-Speaking of that tape, it also provides us with a time flub for the episode. The legend with the kids in the teaser reads that it is two hours later after Lauren's attack, and the cop says he found the bodies about 10PM - so something doesn't jive with the 9:45PM time stamp the video shows.
-This episode does tell us another amazing thing about Scully - she has packing skills beyond any mere mortal I've ever met. When they switch rent cars the agents move their luggage from one vehicle to the other and all Scully has is a single average size duffle. Yet, throughout this little adventure she manages to wear at least five impeccably pressed suits. As someone who travels a lot, I was quite impressed.
-Well, while we're talking about clothes why not segue to "Frank's Fashion Spot": I don't know what the heck the costumer was thinking putting Scully in that dark green suit with an orange blouse and (ugh!) white hose. It looked more like a Halloween costume than anything else to me.
-Scully asks Lauren "Have you seen this person before" pointing to what looks pretty much like an unrecognizable smudge on the photo. Yeah, right Scully. Maybe after about 6 shots of tequila you could recognize that blur as a person. Even more amazing, Lauren actually does.
-Speaking of Howard Graves and his photo appearances, one would think a ghost would at least ditch the suit and tie for more comfortable haunting togs.
-Our Little Sailor: This week's Scully swearing happens as the car races backwards: "What the hell is going on?"
-Boy, isn't Mulder hard at work when he gets Lauren's call. He's spending his time straightening paper clips.
-Mulder just can't seem to decide where he wants to holster his gun. Sometimes he has it in the small of back that Scully seems to favor and then next time we see it at his right side.
-For some reason I really find it funny when Scully barges through the door at the end and the first thing she does is straighten her hair before blurting out "Oh my God" and sounding just a little like a valley girl.
-This is the episode with the inside joke where Howard Graves' parking space is about to be converted to one reading "Tom Braidwood".
-The graveyard guy certainly was creepy - not only did he sometimes sound a bit like he was trying a bad Peter Lorre impersonation - he also apparently memorizes how everyone in the graveyard died and important personal facts about them.
Autumn
"They're here!"