I think this is episode of television works brilliantly on the level of psychological horror, but as science-fiction? Not so much. I have to give the writers credit for being able to create so much tension with a premise that makes no sense whatsoever. The dialogue is great, the music is great, the direction is first-rate, the acting is...serviceable.
The teaser is perfect at setting the scene and getting the viewer hooked: the two guys covered with sweat and blood committing mutual suicide after conveniently recording a video for the outside world.
"It goes no further than this. It stops with here. Right now." These lines get paraphrased by Scully when they stick the worm in DaSilva at the end.
There are so many great throwaway lines in this episode.
MULDER: Obviously, they either think we're either brilliant or expendable because we've pulled the assignment. OR BOTH, MULDER!
Morgan and Wong do a wonderful job of establishing character. I love the geologist from UC San Diego who only studies the ice around the keg and listens to his favorite football plays on cassette tapes. Another great scene that introduces characters well is the meeting at the beginning where they are all exchange credentials. Hodge and DeSilva are civilian counterparts to Mulder and Scully: smart, highly educated, as cynical as 5th season Mulder and just as paranoid. Much like Mulder and Scully will in later seasons, they bicker like an old married couple, although they aren't together. Hodge is much too casual about DeSilva being carted away in an isolation bag for that kind of intimate relationship.
HODGE: Well, now that we know who we are, anybody care to take a guess as to why we're going?
And DaSilva's line is even better.
DASILVA: Come on, you're F.B.I. You have to know more than we do.
HA HA. CLEARLY SHE'S NEVER SEEN THE SHOW.
The actor who played Bear is Jeff Kober. I remembered him from the series China Beach as Sgt. Evan 'Dodger' Winslow. His opening lines are great, too.
BEAR: Credentials. The only credentials that I have is that I'm the only pilot willing to fly you up there. You don't like those credentials... walk.
Once they get to the site, the real horror show begins. The writers put a lot of "scientific" jargon in the dialogue, and keep the pace fast enough that no one much cares that it's all crazy nonsense.
SCULLY: Mulder, that pilot developed surface symptoms within a few minutes. Within a few hours, that parasite had total control. What would happen if this got into the population? A city the size of New York could be infected within a few days.
An ammonia-based space parasite that survives in ice for hundreds of thousands of years, starts out microscopic and gets big enough to be seen wriggling in the victim's neck, all within a few hours? How did it evolve to survive in oxygen-breathing mammals at all if it was stuck down there in the ice for eons?
It's best not to think about any of this too hard.
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winterfish
We are not who we are: Part 1
Date: 2014-06-21 07:36 pm (UTC)The teaser is perfect at setting the scene and getting the viewer hooked: the two guys covered with sweat and blood committing mutual suicide after conveniently recording a video for the outside world.
"It goes no further than this. It stops with here. Right now." These lines get paraphrased by Scully when they stick the worm in DaSilva at the end.
There are so many great throwaway lines in this episode.
MULDER: Obviously, they either think we're either brilliant or expendable because we've pulled the assignment. OR BOTH, MULDER!
Morgan and Wong do a wonderful job of establishing character. I love the geologist from UC San Diego who only studies the ice around the keg and listens to his favorite football plays on cassette tapes. Another great scene that introduces characters well is the meeting at the beginning where they are all exchange credentials. Hodge and DeSilva are civilian counterparts to Mulder and Scully: smart, highly educated, as cynical as 5th season Mulder and just as paranoid. Much like Mulder and Scully will in later seasons, they bicker like an old married couple, although they aren't together. Hodge is much too casual about DeSilva being carted away in an isolation bag for that kind of intimate relationship.
HODGE: Well, now that we know who we are, anybody care to take a guess as to why we're going?
And DaSilva's line is even better.
DASILVA: Come on, you're F.B.I. You have to know more than we do.
HA HA. CLEARLY SHE'S NEVER SEEN THE SHOW.
The actor who played Bear is Jeff Kober. I remembered him from the series China Beach as Sgt. Evan 'Dodger' Winslow. His opening lines are great, too.
BEAR: Credentials. The only credentials that I have is that I'm the only pilot willing to fly you up there. You don't like those credentials... walk.
Once they get to the site, the real horror show begins. The writers put a lot of "scientific" jargon in the dialogue, and keep the pace fast enough that no one much cares that it's all crazy nonsense.
SCULLY: Mulder, that pilot developed surface symptoms within a few minutes. Within a few hours, that parasite had total control. What would happen if this got into the population? A city the size of New York could be infected within a few days.
An ammonia-based space parasite that survives in ice for hundreds of thousands of years, starts out microscopic and gets big enough to be seen wriggling in the victim's neck, all within a few hours? How did it evolve to survive in oxygen-breathing mammals at all if it was stuck down there in the ice for eons?
It's best not to think about any of this too hard.