When The X-Files returns to FOX on January 24, 2016, what
can we expect? A six-episode mythology arc or a half-dozen all-new monsters to
make us hide under our FBI-issued trench coats? I’d wager that Chris Carter is
going to give us the former, and I will definitely watch it even though my
favorite episodes of his investigative sci-fi/horror series were
the ones that freaked us out with one-off parasite men, robotic cockroaches,
and inbred families. Personally, I’m a Monster of the Week guy.
Classic X-Files MOW’s such as “The Host”, “War of the
Coprophages”, and “Home” need no introduction to casual X-Files fans. They
are regularly praised in “Best Episodes Ever!” features in print and online
publications such as Empire, Entertainment Weekly, the AV Club, Vanity Fair, and Hollywood Reporter. But
what about the less known, less celebrated monsters of the week? Monsters need
love to. Didn’t we learn anything from Frankenstein,
or more on-topic, the monstrously overrated “Postmodern Prometheus” episode of The X-Files that James Whale’s movie inspired? Well, that’s what this post is
all about, Spooky!
After eliminating all the shows covered in the
aforementioned publications, I came to a few sobering realizations. There
aren’t quite 21 “great” underrated Monster-of-the-Week episodes, and there
isn’t a single underrated episode written by Darin Morgan. That wasn’t too much
of a surprise since Morgan gets my vote for the series’ greatest writer (sorry,
Vince!), but I was still hoping to give the man a little love in this piece.
So—for the record—I love you, Darin Morgan.
But enough about the love between a lowly blog writer and a
wonderfully talented TV writer. Let’s shift our love focus to the “ship”
between “I’ll believe anything!” FBI wackadoo Fox Mulder and “It isn’t
scientifically plausible!” FBI scientist Dana Scully. We’re also going to focus
on getting you, dear reader, to fall in love with these 21 Underrated Episodes
of The X-Files You Need to Watch Now!
1. “Shapes”
The chronological nature of this piece means that we must
start with one of those “not great” underrated episodes of The X-Files. While
mythology episodes such as “Deep Throat”, “Fallen Angel”, “E.B.E.”, and “The
Erlenmeyer Flask” are among the series’ best, the Monster of the Week shows had
a lot of growing to do in the series’ first season, though a small handful
(“Squeeze”, “Ice”, “Beyond the Sea”, “Eve”) are rightfully considered classics.
“Shapes” is not one such show, and it is often criticized for being
run-of-the-mill. However, there are several very noteworthy pleasures in this
underrated show. It’s fun to see the series dabble in traditional monsters. The werewolf in this episode is suitably creepy when it starts threatening our
heroes at the end of the show, and the creature’s human identity is a good
source of mystery throughout the episode. The Native American characters are
also handled well without an excess of the usual superstitious
stereotypes, and we even get one great skeptic in Sheriff Tskany. That
character is played by Michael Horse, and seeing him interact with his old Twin Peaks co-star David Duchovny is another underrated joy of an episode
much better than its bad rep suggests.
2. “Tooms”
The only reason "Tooms" gets ignored when ranking The X-Files' best is because "Squeeze" almost always makes those lists. Both shows feature Eugene Victor Tooms, a mild-mannered dude who emerges from his underground nest every sixty years to munch on human livers and squeeze through tiny spaces. "Tooms" is notable not just for being another effectively creepy hour with our old liver-loving buddy, but also because it is a landmark in X-Files history for featuring the first reappearance by a MOW and the first appearance by beloved Assistant Director Walter Skinner. Tooms's attempt to frame Mulder indicates a human level of cunning not present in "Squeeze".
3. “Blood”
The X-Files matured quickly in season two, and its first
Monster of the Week episode is the iconic “The Host”. The next one is not quite
as well loved as that gross tale of a humanoid fluke worm, but “Blood” is a
strong episode that really injects the cuckoo paranoia of the mythology
episodes into a MOW. Here we also see that the “M” in MOW isn’t always the
lycanthropic or liver-eating kind. In fact, the monster in “Blood” is a
chemical the local government is spreading around via pesticides and blood
tests. It causes the infected people to see subliminal messages that give
direction to their chemically-induced paranoia. The directions include “Kill
‘Em All”, “He’ll rape you,” and my personal favorite, “All done. Bye bye.” The
crazy sniper in the clock tower climax has been done to death, but great
character actor William Sanderson elevates the cliché with an infectiously
tortured performance.
4. “Irresistible”
This is the one episode on this list that really shocked me
in its absence from any of the “best episodes” lists I perused, and I’m still
not quite comfortable rating “Irresistible” as underrated. After all, “death
fetishist” Donnie Pfaster is among the honored few MOW’s that return to bother
Mulder and (especially) Scully (in season seven’s “Orison”). Nevertheless, I
jumped on this one when I saw that it failed to make the grade on those other
lists, because it is one of the series’ creepiest hours even though Pfaster is
less of a “monster” than anything else on this list.
In fact, there is nothing
supernatural at all in “Irresistible”, and Pfaster is not even the necrophiliac
that Chris Carter originally intended him to be before FOX’s censors said “no
he isn’t.” Pfaster just collects the fingernails and hair of dead girls and women,
and when he loses his job at the mortuary for indulging in his hobby, he takes
a more active approach in building his collection. As Pfaster, Nick Chinlund
follows in the eerily calm footsteps of Doug Hutchison’s Eugene Tooms, and if
anything, he’s even more unsettling. An often-criticized aspect of this episode
is the way it piles suffering on Scully, who only just revived from her the
alien-induced coma she experienced in the great “Duanne Barry”/“Ascension”/“One
Breath” mythology arc. Nevertheless, Gillian Anderson plays Scully’s barely
concealed trauma brilliantly and her embrace with Mulder at the end of the show
allows her the catharsis she was never allowed in the arc.
5. “F. Emasculata”
The X-Files changed network TV in several significant ways.
It really cemented the presence of the supernatural on the small screen
that Twin Peaks slipped in a few years earlier. Another way it changed TV is
that it never flinched from bathing our screens in blood and pus. Really, there
had never been an American series as gross as The X-Files before, and while
some previous episodes such as the classic “Die Hand Die Verletzt” and the
less-classic “Fresh Bones” trafficked in nasty images in support of the plot,
“F. Emasculata” is more like a show in which the plot supports the nasty
images.
Carter and Howard Gordon’s script is about a pustule-causing infectious
disease that spreads from the Costa Rican rainforest to the U.S. Director Rob
Bowman really revels in the explosions of those pulsating pustules, making this one of
the most stomach-churning episodes of the series. The horrific nature of the
disease also supplies this episode with tremendous, sweaty-palm urgency…but
let’s face it, the real charm of “F. Emasculata” is that it’s a great excuse
for some good old-fashioned gross outs.
6. “Our Town”
While “F. Emasculata” was explicitly gross, “Our Town” was
subtler about its nasty themes, and therefore, more insidious. Mulder and
Scully investigate ritualistic murders in Arkansas, which lead them to a
chicken factory that turns out to be doing some very funky things with its
chickens. Seeing Scully enjoying a bucket of extra-crispy ends up being just as gross as any
bursting zit in “F. Emasculata”. While he is not nearly as skin-crawling as
Eugene Tooms or Donnie Pfaster, Walter Chaco (of Chaco Chicken) is an effective
villain of the “I’d like to punch that guy in the face” variety, and
undercurrents of humor and rotten-at-the-core communities make “Our Town” as
enjoyable as it is unsettling.
7. “Oubliette”
Season three seems like the best season of The X-Files for two big reasons: the mythology episodes have the scope of epic Hollywood
cinema and Darin Morgan follows up on his delightful season-two debut “Humbug”
with his three finest episodes and three of the finest of the series as a
whole. A perceived decline after season three may be the result of the fact
that Morgan would never return again (at least as writer; he’d be back as the
dumpy star of season four’s “Small Potatoes”, a very good episode that clearly
has aspirations of capturing Morgan’s inimitably zany and satirical voice). However,
when examining all the season’s episodes, it’s clear that there are quite a lot
of non-classics, some deserving of that status, and some not.
One powerful show
is “Oubliette”, which finds the survivor of a terrible childhood abduction
experiencing a psychic connection with the latest victim of her former captor. Tracey
Ellis is a little too low-key as adult victim Lucy Householder, but Mulder’s
intense empathy with the character really heightens the emotions of
“Oubliette”. As the new child victim, future “Firefly” star and all-around great
person Jewel Staite really throws herself into the panic of her situation.
Between Staite and Duchovny’s work, “Oubliette” stands as one of the most
emotionally draining episodes of The X-Files.
8. “Syzygy”
OK, so there are better episodes of The X-Files, but I’m
not sure I enjoy any more than this very underappreciated third-season one.
In the previous episode, Darin Morgan’s “War of the Coprophages”, we really
started seeing Mulder and Scully’s uncertain feelings about each other boiling
to the surface—or at least, Scully’s feelings for Mulder as she becomes jealous
of a sexy entomologist named Bambi. In “Syzygy”, a strange cosmic convergence
makes those feelings go totally haywire. Scully is once again wallowing in
jealousy as Mulder flirts with a pretty cop. She takes to chain smoking. He
starts guzzling screwdrivers and attempting to solve “the mystery of the horny
beast.” That beast is actually a horned
beast that seems to appear burned into the body of a dead teenager in a small
community similarly going cosmically crazy. The actual X-file in “Syzygy”,
which is a sort of riff on Heathers, isn’t as interesting as Mulder and
Scully’s sparring, which makes this show a total delight for “shippers” who
aren’t quite ready for their favorite G-man and G-woman to actually get
together.
9. “Quagmire”
The usual rap about “Quagmire” is that it’s an overall weak
episode that contains one all-time classic scene. That episode is the story of a
Loch Ness Monster from Georgia that is allegedly eating the locals. That scene
finds Mulder and Scully stranded on a rock in the middle of allegedly
monster-infested waters and having a disarming heart-to-heart about Mulder’s
motivations and Moby Dick. It’s a
great scene that allows the characters to just talk for a bit, and it’s one
that the show would not always be totally successful in recapturing (see the
similar moment in “Detour”, which is fun, but much, much sillier).
However, I
think the whole episode is a lot of fun, though that might stem from my
personal fascination with sea monsters (and please don’t read “fascination
with” as “belief in”). This is one of the more lighthearted
episodes that can’t quite be categorized as a “funny one,” though there’s true
tragedy in the death of the series’ single most beloved character: Queequeg,
the little dog Scully inherited from Clyde Bruckman.
10. “Unruhe”
Season four continued the strong streak of The X-Files,
though a touch of the freshness was gone. Often, the season made up for that
with more outrageous and gross stories (yes, Johnny Mathis fans, this is the
season with “Home”). Vince Gilligan’s “Unruhe” has a villain who does some
gross stuff with an awl, though we fortunately never see this graphically. The
staleness is apparent when perpetual victim Dana Scully ends up in the creep’s
dentist chair. However, Gillian Anderson’s tremendous work once again causes us
to fail to consider the sexist implications of her plight while it’s happening,
as does Pruitt Taylor Vince’s simmering intensity as Gerry Schnauz, one of the
more underrated human MOW’s. Schnauz is capable of doing something rather
inhuman, though, as he snaps Polaroids that portray their subjects as
screaming, demon-encircled victims. The nightmarish photographs are among the
scariest visuals in The X-Files' fairly deep well of them.
11. “Sanguinarium”
For graphic gore, “Sanguinarium” is unmatched in X-Files history. Vivian and Valerie Mayhew’s traumatizing critique of
cosmetic surgery is often difficult to watch, from its violent liposuction, to
its nauseating chemical peel, to the more mundane image of a witch puking up
needles. As such, “Sanguinarium” gets the job done as a piece of visceral
horror, even if the script is a bit dodgy. I’ll admit that my affection for
this episode probably also has to do with the presence of another Twin Peaks alumnus: Richard Beymer.
12. “Paper Hearts”
A few episodes after the dumb thrills of “Sanguinarium”, The X-Files delivered a much deeper story with “Paper Hearts”, in which
Mulder begins having dreams that give him clues to a child murderer he once
captured. Don’t bust your brains trying to grasp the logic of that—Vince
Gilligan sure didn’t—because it will distract you from the riveting interplay
between David Duchovny and Tom
Noonan as this week’s human monster. Noonan’s smirking performance makes him
seem more relatably human than a Tooms or Pfaster, and therefore, more immoral
and repulsive. He doesn’t seem like some “crazy guy.” He seems like a sane guy
who simply enjoys destroying children and tormenting Mulder by suggesting that
Mulder’s long lost sister, Samantha, was one of his victims.
13. “How the Ghosts
Stole Christmas”
After a pretty strong fourth season, The X-Files entered
its fifth one looking pretty fatigued. The mythology just seemed to be jogging
in circles. The MOW episodes were pretty nondescript even when heavy weights
like Stephen King and Lili Taylor were brought aboard to write or act. The
series got a revitalization shot between its fifth and sixth seasons with a
feature film that was everything so much of season five wasn’t: exciting,
focused, and scary. The X-Files: Fight
the Future was also a big hit, likely drawing some new fans to their TVs on
Sunday nights.
Interestingly, though, season six made few attempts to recapture
the film’s scope and drama. Rather, the new season seemed more intent on
recapturing the most popular episodes of the previous dud season: an
entertaining marriage of Salem’s Lot
and Rashomon called “Bad Blood” and
an unwatchable marriage of Frankenstein,
Cher, and the biggest pile of garbage at the city dump called “The Post-Modern
Prometheus”. Both episodes pushed the series into goofier territory than it had
ever tread before. Season six followed suit with an unprecedented number of
“funny ones,” and the first was an unprecedented two-part “funny one” that used
timpani thumps to punctuate jokes like a Three Stooges short. This made
season six one of the series' frothiest seasons…but it also made it a consistently fun
one, and The X-Files had always doled out fun in pretty judicious portions in
the past.
One of the frothiest episodes was a holiday jaunt called “How the
Ghosts Stole Christmas”, a weird ghost story in which Mulder and Scully are
trapped in a house with deceased couple Lili Tomlin and Ed Asner, who are
trying to force the now totally-in-love FBI team to recreate their own
murder-suicide folly. I cannot confirm that any of this makes sense, but Tomlin
and Asner are a delight to watch, as is the ingeniously and puzzlingly
choreographed set. But, just so we know where we stand with the series now,
Mulder makes a fart joke. At least they gave the timpani player the night off.
14. “Terms of
Endearment”
Much more serious than “How the Ghosts Stole Christmas”, yet
still too goofy to really feel like the same show we saw in the first five
seasons, “Terms of Endearment” is another underrated entertainment. Once again,
there’s a guest star worth mentioning, though Bruce Campbell is not quite the
household name Ed Asner or Lili Tomlin is… at least not in homes where the
homeowner doesn't proudly self-identify as “geek.” Campbell, as any geek reading this
site surely knows, is the star of the crazy Evil Dead movies and such terrific
TV cult items as Xena: Warrior Princess and The Adventures of Brisco County,
Jr. In “Terms of Endearment”, he’s a dad whose children tend to be born
looking like the devil on a box of Red Hots (see what I mean? Goofy). This time,
Mulder’s harassment of a potential monster is less creepy and more jocular,
very much in keeping with the show’s shifting tone. The twist is a good one.
15. “Tithonus”
Now this feels more like The X-Files we’ve come to love,
though its themes of weird photographs, Scully skirting death, and middle-aged
weirdos facing death are all things the show has done before. What sets
“Tithonus” apart is the usual fine writing of Vince Gilligan, a particularly
aggressive Scully (Mulder sits most of this one out), and the explanation of
one of Clyde Bruckman’s strangest comments in that other episode about a
middle-aged weirdo facing death. That latter factor provides an element of
transcendence that really makes “Tithonus” an underrated episode worth seeking
out.
16. “Monday”
TV show’s such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Lost, Xena, and even Sesame
Street have tried the old “Groundhog’s Day Loop” gimmick, but The X-Files was one of the first (however, if you wanted the real first, you’d have to go all
the way back to 1961 when “Shadow Play” aired on The Twilight Zone). As it so
often did, The X-Files did its gimmick with style, keeping with the season
sixth’s goofiness by having Mulder repeatedly wake up on the water bed he
acquired in the ridiculous “Dreamland” two-parter, but also getting dead
serious by having him repeatedly attempt to stop an explosive bank heist that
keeps ending with him or Scully dead. It’s funny and tense and absorbing despite
the repetitiousness. Once again, we can thank the skills of Vince Gilligan (and
the very able John Shiban, whom Vince would put to work on “Breaking Bad” years
later). A big bonus is the opportunity to see former “Northern Exposure” star
Darren Burroughs on the screen again.
17. “Arcadia”
Much like “Syzygy”, “Arcadia” isn’t much in the X-file
department (the dictatorial president of a planned community’s homeowner
association employs a golem to off any resident who breaks the community rules)
but it's pure gold in the Mulder and Scully department. They pose as “Rob and Laura
Petrie” (oh, season six…there you go again) to investigate the deaths, and
every shipper’s dream comes true as they play house.
Well, maybe every shipper
wasn’t exactly dreaming about Scully smearing on a mud mask and banishing
Mulder to the sofa, but it is enormous fun to watch them trade pet names
(Scully christens Mulder “Poopy Head”), snuggle awkwardly, and so on. Mulder is
also great when executing blatant violations of the community rules by
installing a pink flamingo or a reflecting pool in his front yard. Perhaps this
isn’t season six at its silliest (“Dreamland” or “Rain King”, take your pick)
or most sublime (“Triangle”), but it’s probably the favorite episode of a lot
of fans of a certain swooning stripe. More should acknowledge how good it is
though.
18. “Three of a Kind”
Three paranoid nerds who call themselves the Lone Gunmen are
apparently Mulder’s only friends before he meets Scully (and he probably
wouldn’t consider eating cheese steaks and picking apart the Zapruder footage
with her). We first meet them in season one’s “E.B.E.” and learn their backstory
in season five’s “Unusual Suspects”, an episode that should be funnier and more
substantial. I won’t necessarily say that the follow-up episode, “Three of a
Kind”, is more substantial, but it is funnier, especially when Scully gets a dose
of brainwashing serum and the real Gillian Anderson (a lovable goof) starts to
giggle through her character’s icy façade. As for the real stars of the show,
Byers gets to reunite with the girl of his dreams, and they have a much more
satisfying farewell than the one in “Unusual Suspects”, Langly plays Dungeons
& Dragons, and Frohike gets to hear the words he never would when Scully isn’t
doped: “Hi, cutie!”
19. “The Amazing
Maleeni”
By its seventh season, the wind had really gone out of The X-Files. Duchovny and Anderson were clearly ready to move on, and attempts to
keep them interested by allowing them to write and direct episodes resulted in
his so-so shot at season six-style silliness (“Hollywood A.D.”) and her
pseudo-spiritual gobbledygook that might win the worst-episode-ever booby prize
(“all things”). There were still some good moments here and there, such as the
twisty magician’s caper “The Amazing Maleeni”, which showcased real-life
magician extraordinaire Ricky Jay. Introducing magic in its showiest sense to The X-Files was a pretty fresh idea, and the script by dream-team Gilligan,
Shiban, and Frank Spotnitz displays deft slight-of-hand. As always, some
choice Mulder and Scully playfulness really increases the fun.
20. “Je Southaite”
Season seven scaled back the constant comedy of the previous
season, though two of the most overt examples—“Hollywood A.D.” and the
found-footage spoof “X-Cops”—were probably the season’s most beloved episodes.
My vote for the best “funny one” of the last season with Duchovny working
(basically) full time has him meeting a cynical genie (or jinniyah to be
accurate) that a yahoo finds in a storage space. The antics of that yahoo and his
brother are tiresome, but Jenn the jinniyah is a wonderful character as
played by Paula Sorge, who somehow didn’t become a star after this. Mulder’s
attempt to use her to make the world a better place goes absurdly wrong, but
his final wish provides one of the series’ loveliest moments.
21. “Alone”
All done! Bye, bye, Mulder! Bye, bye great show called The X-Files too! When David Duchovny basically left the series after season seven,
Robert Patrick came in to replace him, and though he’s an excellent character
actor and the dynamic shift between partners was a nice development (now Scully is the
believer and her partner is the skeptic), there simply weren’t very many good
episodes anymore. Toward the end of the season, Mulder came back from his
alien-induced limbo, and we remembered what the show was missing: him. Seeing
him work on a standard MOW with Doggett also makes the new guy a more
interesting character, as he feels on the outside of Mulder and Scully’s
relationship seasoned after seven seasons of TV. Doggett is also saddled with a new
partner as Scully goes off to have her space baby.
The partner is actually
one of the fun things about “Alone”, as she plays the role of X-Files superfan
by being an X-files superfan who'd read all of Mulder and Scully’s reports, knows
every case, and wants to be an ace paranormal crime fighter just like her
heroes. She ends up getting more of that than she can handle when she ends up
in the pantry of a lizard man. This episode feels like a final gift to Monster
of the Week fans with its fan-substitute character and constant references to
classic episodes, very few of which appear on this list. After all, how many
viewers would get references to a roster of such underrated episodes?
