Two down, seven (eight!) to go.
As the title of this post suggests, one thing that really struck me about season two of The X-Files is how big a role Scully’s background as a doctor plays.
As more of the metaplot, full of frozen alien foetuses, conspiracies, tracking implants, and cloned scientists is revealed, it’s very grounding to have Scully’s medical qualifications front and centre. She’s not just that douchebag sceptic who’s a sceptic for the sake of being a sceptic – like, say, far too many Internet Atheists these days – she has the knowledge to back it up, but also an open-enough mind to engage seriously with Mulder’s more out-there theories, rather than hand-waving them away. The irony is that decades later the stereotype – Mulder believes everything, Scully believes nothing – persists, when even after two seasons it’s patently inaccurate.
And Mulder doesn’t always believe, either – although it’s seriously disappointing that one of his greatest acts of scepticism comes out of meeting a victim of ghostly sexual assault.
Scully’s doctoring abilities stand out because in so many comparable shows these days – whether it’s a “normal” crime-fighting duo or a paranormal series – the medical/scientific expertise is often coming from second-tier characters rather than being a fundamental part of the A-team. Even the CSI shows roll out a pathologist to give a quick once-over of the body before the geeks get to work; Warehouse 13, which I’ve just got into thanks to TV channel The Zone, has the Pete/Myka partnership which is clearly modelled on Mulder and Scully but still provides Arty and Claudia to do the nerd work; and Fringe – another new one thanks to The Zone – creates distance by having a central medical/science character who’s generally incomprehensible to the rest of the team.
Whereas Scully can be on the ground, wrist-deep in corpse entrails, and saving the day (and often, her partner.)
I don’t want to knock Mulder’s centrality to the show – there are no X-Files without Mulder and his backstory, and despite his reputation for being kooky, Mulder is an excellent investigator – but Scully is equally vital, not just to balance Mulder, not just to act as the outsider/everyperson who needs things explained to them, but as an expert agent in her own right.
/endfangirling
Another great aspect of the show so far which I think many since have tried to repeat and failed to match: the metaplot. Every show these days has a Big Mysterious Overarching Mythology which is hinted at and usually half-revealed in the series 1 finale because they’re not sure if they’re going to get renewed. But there’s a difficult balance to strike: spoiling the whole secret in one go or relying on one key twist (he’s your father! There is no spoon!) versus making it absurdly complicated (why are we still arguing about the ending of Lost? I didn’t even SEE Lost!) and difficult to follow.
With The X-Files, as much as they reveal, you always know there’s more, but the idea that you’ll never know every aspect of the conspiracy or every explanation is built right into its core. The truth that Mulder really grapples with at every stage – even when he’s discovered there are alien clones creating hybrids, or DoD files encoded in Navajo, or a buried train car full of alien corpses – is that he can never know the whole truth. And probably even X or Deep Throat or the Cigarette Smoking Man don’t even know the whole story. It’s too massive to really comprehend; but somehow that doesn’t make it frustrating.
It’s like reading H P Lovecraft: the unexplained bits, which will never be explained because your pitiful human brain could not withstand it, are part and parcel of the horror. (This is also why reading August Derleth is much less fun: dude looooooooooves to explain literally everything to the point it’s not scary any more.)
Of course, many people just cannot stand not having everything explained – which I suspect is the primary reason that I love Prometheus, which everyone else hates, and loved the single season of Intruders, which many people hated. Possibly we’ve become too accustomed to M Night Shyamalan-style “sudden twists” which unravel every single little mystery.
But The X-Files is a classic, and – despite not having seen it through to the end yet – I can’t help but think that the awesome, unknowable scope of its metaplot is a big reason for that. It tells us a much deeper truth about our own lives: we never can know everything. But – and I hate to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld but he’s right – it can be comforting to know that there are things we don’t know.
Read all my X-Files season two recaps at Recaps in Hindsight.
