Cult-TV Theme Watch: Serial Killers

Vampire, Werewolf, Mummy, Zombie...Serial Killer?

At first blush, the formulation in the above sentence may seem strange.  But there can be little doubt that in the past quarter century of horror cinema and genre television, the serial killer has emerged as an important addition to the pantheon of famous"monsters."

A serial killer is (broadly) defined as a person who has murdered at least three people and done so according to some internal clock or schedule.  In general, serial killers are extremely intelligent, and boast some history of trauma or instability at home.  Serial killers were often abused as children, and began their "career" in death by harming small, defenseless animals.  The late 1980s and early 1990s brought a new awareness of the serial killer into the mainstream national dialogue. Ted Bundy, who killed more than 30 people, was executed in Florida in 1989.  Aileen Wournos, a female serial killer, was apprehended by police in 1990.  Perhaps the most notorious serial killer of this era was Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered seventeen victims between 1978 and 1991, before his capture.

The new popularity of the serial killer as a movie and TV "monster" coincided with a period in the pop culture during which audiences had begun to demanding more gritty naturalism, and less theatricality or artificiality.  The serial killer movie format, often a police procedural, not only studied the psychology of this new monster, but detailed the scientific - forensic - methods by which to catch the beast.  No longer were crucifixes, holy water or "faith" going to do the trick.  Nope, we needed DNA samples, fingerprints and other tricks of the new trade.

The 1990s represents the great era of serial killers in film and television. This was the epoch of Silence of the Lambs (1991), Hannibal Lecter and his cinematic progeny (in Copycat, Scream, Se7en, etc.)  

On television, Chris Carter's brilliant initiative, The X-Files (1993 - 2002) often featured serial killers in standalone "monster of the week" episodes, including "Irresistible," "Grotesque" and "Paper Hearts," thereby setting this human "monster" deliberately alongside fictional creatures like Fluke-Men, shape-shifters, the Golem, the Djinn and more.

Carter's second series, Millennium (1996 - 1999) tread even more deeply into the territory of serial killers, gazing at human monsters that seemed made by our modern society, and which exposed some crucial aspect of life in the 1990s.  I've always made the claim that Millennium uses the individual serial killers in the program in much the same fashion that Star Trek utilized the different planets visited by the Enterprise.  Each week on Millennium, Frank Black had to countenance a different serial killer, and study, investigate and understand the context that had created him or her, as the Enterprise would look at the problems and accomplishments of each world it explored.  In undertaking his task, Frank was able to reflect meaningfully on some important or controversial aspect of American society as it neared the millennium.

Serial killers were featured on Millennium in episodes including the Pilot, "Dead Letters," "Kingdom Come," "Blood Relatives," "Wide Open," "Weeds," "Loin like a Hunting Flame," "The Thin White Line," "Lamentation," "Broken World," "Paper Dove," "The Beginning and the End," "The Mikado," "Through a Glass Darkly," "Darwin's Eye" and others.  

 Again, in many of these situations, the "monster" was merely the dramatic avenue by which Carter, Spotnitz and the other series writers could explore some intriguing aspect of our culture.  "Loin like a Hunting Flame" gazed at the line between reality and (sexual) fantasy in the new age of Viagra.  "Weeds" examined the notion that gated communities could provide safety for well-to-do residents, and concluded that the wolf might already be lurking inside the affluent sanctuary.   "Wide Open" also gazed at the idea of safety and security, and wondered whether security systems could prevent the "darkness" from entering our suburban homes.  "The Mikado" brilliantly and diabolically tallied the ways that new technologies could be exploited by a monstrous serial killer.

What I have always admired so deeply about Millennium is this notion that by facing the darkness created by serial killers, Frank actually observes and critiques the world that created such monsters.  Sometimes it seemed the world he faced seemed like one without real emotional connection between people ("Blood Relatives") and sometimes it felt like a world that had lost all sense of mercy or decency ("Through a Glass Darkly").

After Millennium, the most significant serial killer series in TV history is likely Dexter (2006 - ), which focuses on the anti-social Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a blood-spatter expert who would have been a creature as monstrous as any Frank Black ever captured had his father, Harry (James Remar) not intervened early and become his mentor and role-model.  Now Dexter, according to Harry's Code, kills only those "monsters" (other serial killers) that the law cannot reach.  Dexter's monstrous drives and appetites have been harnessed and directed, so much so that many people view the character as a hero, not just a protagonist.

What makes Dexter so intriguing is not merely his pro-social vigilantism, but rather the fact that the series positions the character -- again a Star Trek reference -- as a character very much like Lt. Data or Mr. Spock.  Like those predecessors, Dexter is an outsider from humanity, observing the "emotional" human race from some distance.  

Because (again like Spock or Data), Dexter lacks the capacity to feel or understand feelings, he can with great dispassion comment meaningfully on human contradictions, curiosities and frailties.  He is the serial killer as alien outsider, wishing he could be human, but knowing that his humanity is but a mask.  He'd like to belong, but he can't.

Lately, serial killers have been the beneficiaries of another interesting twist. In programs such as True Blood (2008 -- ), all manners of supernatural monsters exist and intermingle with man's world.  We've met vampires and werewolves, for instance.  But in the first season, the real evil is presented not by such creatures of the night.  Contrarily, it is a human serial killer, Rene (Michael Raymond-James), who symbolizes the ultimate danger, and therefore the ultimate villainy.  I suspect this development is a literalization of the notion that the evil lurking inside the heart of man, is, in some sense, the scariest thing we can imagine.

Creatures that go bump in the night are scary, but men that do so are downright terrifying.  We know they are real, and that in this case, there are such things as "monsters."

CULT TV FLASHBACK #83: Harsh Realm (1999-2000)

"A world exists...exactly like ours. Your family and friends. And though you may not know it, I was sent to save you."

-Opening narration to Chris Carter's Harsh Realm (1999), voiced by Lt. Thomas Hobbes (Scott Bairstow)

In 1999, Chris Carter and 1013 Productions, producers of The X-Files (1993-2002) and Millennium (1996-1999), created a third genre series for Fox television. It was called Harsh Realm.

The series -- about a virtual reality version of America existing after a terrorist attack on New York City -- was advertised with the tag-line "It's Just a Game" and broadcast just three episodes before an abrupt cancellation. In all, nine hour-long installments were made.

The abrupt (and inconclusive...) end to Harsh Realm was intensely disappointing, especially to the dedicated fans who actually followed the series on Friday nights at 9:00 pm (the same slot that Joss Whedon's Dollhouse now struggles in...). Viewing numbers were low in terms of network TV expectations, and the series had been under promoted (though TV Guide named it one of the best new shows of the year).

Making matters worse, Harsh Realm faced more than its share of controversy during its short life. For instance, the series was widely derided by critics as an uninspired copy of 1999's The Matrix, even though Harsh Realm was in production concurrently with that blockbuster. More to the point, Harsh Realm was shot in Vancouver on the same budget as your average network medical drama and thus simply could not compete visually with the trail-blazing Keanu Reeves epic.

Perhaps more significantly, the creators of Harris Publishing's Harsh Realm comic book sued Chris Carter when the TV adaptation failed to acknowledge them or their artistic contributions to the series. [NOTE: Actually, the comic was acknowledged in the end credits in the first episode.] The comic-book creators were victorious in their suit, and beginning with the second episode, Harsh Realm episodes featured during the opening credits a title card which specifically noted that the series was "inspired" by the comic-book work of James D. Hudnall and Andrew Paquette. Finally, some years after the TV series' cancellation, Harsh Realm star Scott Bairstow apparently had some...uh...legal difficulties, and did some jail time.

In short, any good historian could probably enumerate abundant reasons why Harsh Realm never achieved the large-scale, avid following of Chris Carter's other video endeavors, but virtually all of them have nothing whatsoever to do with the program's actual quality.

Because, in point of fact, Harsh Realm is constructed upon the same sturdy pillars of good story-telling, symbolic representation, strong characters and dynamic world view that so ably supported The X-Files or Millennium. Indeed, James D. Hudnall and Andrew Paquette should have been credited for their original work from the beginning and to do otherwise was wrong-headed folly.

Yet by the same token, the TV series Harsh Realm takes relatively little of substance from the comic book beyond the "grunge speak" title. To wit, the TV series features brand-new, original characters and boasts an entirely different narrative thrust (it's a military/political struggle rather than the comic's noir-ish detective story...) Of course, the TV series also appropriates the comic's central concept of a virtual reality world, but the TV "harsh realm" and the comic-book "harsh realm" are completely different in every significant way: both visual and thematic. The comic book virtual world is based on overt fantasy concepts (a world of goblins, elves etc...) whereas the TV show more closely adheres to Chris Carter's personal view of the 1990s world: one of bureaucracy, conspiracy, geo-political turmoil, and domination of the many by the few.

After a brief preamble involving Lt. Thomas Hobbes (Bairstow) on a peace-keeping mission gone wrong in Sarajevo in 1994, the action in Harsh Realm shifts rapidly to Fort Dix, New Jersey in the year 1999. There, a disenchanted Hobbes plans to leave the Army permanently in just a few short months. He wants to relocate to California with his beautiful fiancee, Sophie (Samantha Mathis). But even as Hobbes plans to start a new life, he is ordered to report to a secretive, white-haired colonel (Lance Henriksen) for a new, classified assignment. Hobbes is escorted to a secret bunker and -- after a "final supper" -- ordered to "play a game," a virtual reality game called...Harsh Realm.

This "Harsh Realm" game - a simulated war scenario -- was created by the Pentagon in 1995. Utilizing information from satellite cartography and the latest U.S. Census, the war gamers have created a duplicate of America, down to every last location, person and even pet. But there's an important difference between the worlds. In this virtual version of America, a suitcase nuke was detonated in New York City at noon on October 31, 1995 ("Camera Obscura"). Four million Americans died in 2.5 seconds. "Ground Zero" was located... in Manhattan. The game developers hoped to test American military (and civilian peace-keeping) capabilities after such a catastrophic terrorist attack, but they never could have anticipated what occur ed next.

The hero the Army first sent into the game world -- the most decorated veteran in United States Army history, Omar Santiago (Terry O'Quinn) --took over Harsh Realm. Out of the ashes of the apocalypse, this soldier carved out a brutal, military dictatorship for himself. The so-called "United States of Santiago" now encompasses five states...and a great percentage of the Eastern seaboard. Santiago believes "one man can have it all here..." and ruthlessly protects his position of authority.

Hobbes's mission is to "take out" Santiago by any means necessary. To "remove" Santiago's virtual avatar from the Harsh Realm simulation and restore freedom to the virtual country.

Unfortunately, Hobbes' superiors haven't told him the whole story. He can't return to "the real world" (and consciousness) until Santiago is dead, but much more troubling...if he dies in the game (or is "digitized"), Hobbes also dies in reality. And, Hobbes' isn't even the first man to make this attempt to beat Santiago. Literally hundreds of soldiers have gone to Harsh Realm before him...and none have been successful. None have returned. At the conclusion of Harsh Realm's pilot, we see a Raiders of the Lost Ark-esque shot of all the games players: a hospital room that seems to stretch to infinity; with slumbering men and women on hospital beds, tended to by inscrutable technicians; their minds wired to a different reality.

Back in the real world, Sophie is informed by the Army that Hobbes' died on a secret mission, but she is soon approached by a beautiful -- and perhaps treacherous -- informant, Inga Fossa (Sarah-Jane Redmond), and told about a conspiracy of silence. That if she wishes to be reunited with the love of her life, Sophie must expose the lies of the U.S. Government. This mission becomes even more important to Sophie when she learns that she is pregnant with Tom's child. Fossa promises to get a message to Tom in Harsh Realm...

Once trapped inside the wild terrains of Harsh Realm, Hobbes joins up with other fugitives who are also on the run from Santiago. Mike Pinocchio (D.B. Sweeney) is a rogue soldier who volunteered for duty in the virtual world and was once Santiago's top lieutenant. Now, he's a rogue and scoundrel, a gun for hire. Hobbes' other associate is the mysterious Florence (Rachel Hayward), a mute warrior with the unusual power to instantaneously heal the wounds of others.

Over the course of nine episodes of Harsh Realm, Hobbes' attempts to complete his mission and finally get home. In "Leviathan," he travels to the poverty-stricken Pittsburgh Encampment, where he and Pinocchio are captured by soldiers of fortune and nearly sold to Santiago. This episode meditates on the idea of the human soul, and asks if a Virtual Character can possess one.

In "Inga Fossa," Hobbes steals into Santiago City and locates Santiago's secret portal, from which he can travel from Harsh Realm into the real world and back. Hobbes nearly returns home, until he is told by Fossa of Santiago's "Final Solution." Santiago is planning "The Ultimate Terrorism," the destruction of the real world so that only Harsh Realm, and Santiago's domain will continue to exist. Hobbes decides it is better to stay in Harsh Realm and defeat Santiago there...

In "Reunion," Hobbes ends up a slave in a work camp with Pinocchio, and encounters a virtual representation of his dying mother. In the real world, Sophie visits Hobbes real mother, who is also dying of cancer. A double death (in Harsh Realm and in reality) spurs a strange miraculous (if brief...) connection.

In "3 Percenters," the fugitives arrive in the Adirondacks and meet a strange, ostensibly "peaceful" cult hiding a dark secret. "Manus Domini" finds Hobbes, Pinocchio and Florence protecting a tribe of pacifics "Healers" -- women like Florence -- from Santiago. In "Cincinnati" (one of the best installments), Santiago heads to Ohio to personally assassinate the leader of the Resistance, A Native American whose forces have overrun the city.

Finally, the last episode of Harsh Realm, "Camera Obscura" takes Pinocchio and Hobbes to Ground Zero in Manhattan, where a disfigured, manipulative priest keeps two families in a perpetual state of conflict for strange, personal reasons.

Over the nine episodes of this short-lived series, the virtual reality world of Harsh Realm is developed and expanded upon in fascinating, unexpected ways. "Leviathan" reveals that in Harsh Realm there is no religion...no God, no belief in an afterlife. It's a world "without Christian values," according to one character, and that line of thought becomes an existential undercurrent of future segments. In "Manus Domini," for instance, Hobbes ponders the Healers and their origin. Why do they exist? Why did programmers create them? Or, were they created by a "higher power" after all? One beyond the ostensibly "faithless" world of the game.

In terms of technology, Harsh Realm introduces a number of "game"-oriented concepts. It turns out that "unprogrammed game space" exists, and can form short-cuts from one part of the realm to the other. "Reunion" reveals the existence of "skull bugs," mechanical control devices implanted in VC (and human) brains that...can burrow through brain matter...bloodily. "3 Percenters" presents the idea of a programming error: of VC characters who can absorb and replicate the personalities of others...much to the detriment of the originals. It's sort of Harsh Realm meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And "Cincinnati" introduces the useful "digi-wand," a handheld device by which a digital character can re-shape and re-fashion his features...the equivalent of virtual plastic surgery. Santiago uses it for diabolical, wicked and brilliant strategic ends. Then there's the Camera Obscura of the final episode, a strange oracle or "seeing" device that appeared at Ground Zero after the nuclear explosion and is believed to foretell (or perhaps manipulate...) the future.

In terms of unique characters, Hobbes, Pinocchio and Florence meet not only the mute, female Healers and the "VC" in Harsh Realm, but steely-eyed Trackers ("Reunion"), deformed Mind Readers ("Manus Domini") and bounty hunters armed with digitizing devices ("Leviathan"). The series encompasses pastoral settings ("Manus Domini"), urban locations ("Camera Obscura") and, like all Chris Carter productions, is gorgeously presented. The camera work, in particular, is highly cinematic, despite the relative lack of visual effects.

The big drawback in terms of Harsh Realm, ironically, is the sense of "sameness" that underlines the pilot, "Leviathan" and "Inga Fossa." In all these episodes, either Hobbes, Pinocchio or Florence are captured and rescued, while in the real world, Sophie puzzles out the mystery of Hobbes' "death." Excepting the pilot, the next two episodes are probably the weakest in the series...and these were the only episodes that aired on network television. The shows are good, just a little plodding; a little dull. But beginning with "Reunion," the quality of Harsh Realm takes a noticeable and dramatic uptick as the stories become more creative, more out there, more involving. The run from "Reunion" through "Camera Obscura" is quite extraordinary, with distinctive, memorable, engaging storylines.

Like his other series, Chris Carter's Harsh Realm is a deeply-layered work, one rife with symbolism, social commentary and perhaps most importantly, clever literary allusion. The series, for example, is very clearly a deliberate variation on the Greek epic poem, The Odyssey, by Homer. In that tale, Odysseus -- a soldier -- attempted to return home from Troy but the journey took him a decade. Ten long and miserable years away from his wife, Penelope. The Odyssey, much like a TV show itself, was highly episodic, with Odysseus encountering a variety of nemeses, including sirens, Lotus-Eaters and the Cyclops Polyphemus. Harsh Realm also concerns a heroic soldier's "long journey home," his separation from his wife/fiancee, and as mentioned above, Hobbes becomes involved with a number of nemeses who are both more and less than human. The tenth, unproduced episode of Harsh Realm was even called "Circe," after a character (a witch...) featured in The Odyssey.

In The Odyssey, Penelope had to deal with suitors, who hoped to persuade her that Odysseus was dead. Even this plot point is echoed explicitly in Harsh Realm, as the Army attempts to convince Sophie of the same thing about Tom, though in this case to protect a conspiracy not to inherit wealth.

Harsh Realm also appropriates some core concepts from Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness (1902), which involved a man on assignment to capture a fellow countryman, Kurtz. Kurtz had developed a reputation as a "universal genius" amongst the indigenous people in "The Dark Heart of Africa." Heart of Darkness was refashioned as a war drama in Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), and given the military framework of Harsh Realm, perhaps it is more appropriate to reference that production here. Because Santiago -- like Brando's Kurtz -- has gone "native," in essence setting up the "local" world of Harsh Realm as his personal kingdom. This idea is true to Conrad's story, which warned against the dangers of imperialism. That's the core idea of Harsh Realm: an interloper (and his military minions...) invade the virtual reality world of Harsh Realm and develop it exclusively for their use. The "VC" are just a resource to be used...not "real" people.

The hero of Harsh Realm, Thomas Hobbes, is not just Odysseus, either. He is named after the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), the author who wrote Leviathan in 1651. Leviathan -- which also happens to be the title of Harsh Realm's second episode -- concerned autocracy...and its benefits. The philosopher Hobbes believed that government should control religion, the military, the civil apparatus and even the judiciary. He felt that man's natural state was lawlessness, and it was this "natural state" which caused man such hardship, tragedy and strife. Harsh Realm's Hobbes appears to be the antithesis of this autocratic philosophy, at least as far as the nine extant episodes go. He is a man who believes in freedom and liberty, and seeks to free Harsh Realm from Santiago's iron, tyrannical grip. One can never know for sure, but there is an undercurrent in the series that suggests Hobbes may not always feel this way. As he goes along, from episode to episode, he witnesses the lawlessness and inhumanity of Santiago's world. Had the series lasted several years, and Hobbes succeeded in destroying Santiago, one wonders if he would have imposed a Hobbes-ian peace upon the scattered societies of Harsh Realm, essentially becoming the new figurehead. The last scene of the show might have seen Hobbes displacing one Kurtz to become Kurtz himself.

We never saw that happen, but even Mark Snow's score -- which sampled bits of Mussolini speeches -- hinted at some of the autocratic themes and narratives Carter's show deliberated on. How much government? What kind of government? What's the right balance? Today, these ideas are more relevant even than they were in 1999.

As for the Han Solo of Harsh Realm, Mike Pinocchio, his name obviously comes from Curt Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883), the story of a puppet who dreamed of becoming a real boy. In the world of Harsh Realm, Pinocchio is a "real" soldier who -- for his own secret reasons -- decides he wants to live as a "virtual" boy in a fake world. As Pinocchio's wooden feet were burned off in The Adventures of Pinocchio, so does Pinocchio lose a leg in the series episode "Manus Domini." In fact, as we learn, Pinocchio was disfigured and (lost a leg) in the real world, and that's the reason he ultimatelychose a "dream" life rather than to continue in the real world. Thus we might say that, like Hobbes, Harsh Realm's Pinocchio is the inverse of his literary namesake.

"Florence" the healer seems named after Florence Nightingale, the legendary angel of mercy. And Harsh Realm's final episode, "Camera Obscura" brilliantly re-stages -- at a post-nuclear ground zero -- the story of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (1883). In this tale, two warring families (not the Capulets and Montagues but Stewarts and McKinleys) threaten to annihilate one another over a petty squabble. Meanwhile, young Aethan McKinley (Romeo) and Fallon Stewart (Juliet) have fallen in love in secret and carry on a relationship. They are encouraged to do so by an interfering "man of God," not Shakespeare's Friar Lawrence, but the deformed, prophetic priest played by Robert Knepper.

As many others have noted, there are other literary allusions in Harsh Realm too. As Hobbes is about to enter the Harsh Realm virtual world for the first time, he gazes down at his chair, and scrawled (madly...) on the arms of the chair are the words "Siege" and "Perilous." If you are familiar with Arthurian legend, you may remember that this writing harks back to the so-called Perilous Seat at the Round Table, the Empty Chair reserved for the greatest of knights or heroes (the one who brings back The Holy Grail). That too, is Hobbes' destiny, perhaps metaphorically. Santiago might be the Holy Grail of Harsh Realm, or Hobbes' white whale.

Harsh Realm balances these classic references and allusions with Carter's particular and peculiar (and wonderful...) brand of up-to-the-minute speculative imaginings. You may recall how the first episode of The Lone Gunmen (in March 2001) forecast the 9/11 attack on Manhattan down to the target (the Twin Towers) and the choice of weapon (jet-liners). The same episode also predicted that such an attack would be a tremendous boon to defense contractors...who would suddenly be developing new weapons for our military industrial complex. That too, proved accurate. Harsh Realm also hints rather dramatically at the shape of things to come in the early 21st century and particularly the War on Terror Age. One episode, "Leviathan," laments Santiago's "culture of fear," something we can all relate to after those color-coded DHS Terrorist Attack Warnings. Another episode, "Cincinnati" seizes on the phrase "failure of imagination" as the reason for a battlefield defeat; the self-same phrase employed explicitly by the 9/11 Commission tasked with studying the reasons why the September 11th attacks were successful. Harsh Realm (especially "Camera Obscura") also obsesses on the "ultimate terrorism," a suitcase nuke detonated in an American city. Fortunately, this hasn't happened (and hopefully will never happened), but it is a scenario that, after 9/11, has been widely raised (and feared) by media, security agencies, and the populace.

Also, Harsh Realm undeniably pointed towards the 21st century in terms of technology. In 2003, the virtual platform Second Life arrived, an alternate world where Residents (Virtual Characters based on real life users) had their own currency, clubs, economy, property and spent copious amounts time "in world." Granted, Harsh Realm's virtual world is far more immersive and tactile, but Second Life is certainly a step towards the world Harsh Realm imagined.

The history of television isn't just about numbers; it's about being in the right place at the right time. Imagine, just for a moment. that a program like Firefly or Harsh Realm had aired on cable, or heck -- even the CW. If they had done so, both shows would have likely lasted seven years, been heralded as masterpieces, and would have drawn "blockbuster" level (for cable) ratings that far outstripped those of recent "hits" like Battlestar Galactica (2005-2009) or Supernatural. But because these turn-of-the-century shows aired on Fox, not a smaller channel, they didn't get the numbers that were predicted...and they disappeared after too short a season. I can't claim Harsh Realm is as good as Firefly, but I can state, with confidence...it was headed in that direction. The last several episodes of the series showed incredible development and improvement. The world, characters and situations of Harsh Realm had, by episode nine, become intriguing, and truth be told, more-than-a-little addicting.

If you enjoy The X-Files and Millennium, I suggest you visit Harsh Realm...but be patient. Get to the poetic episode "Reunion," which suggests a kind of emotional/human bridge between the worlds (and the idea that virtual avatars may share our souls with us...), and you'll be glad you hung on. Get to the brilliant "Cincinnati," in which Santiago shows us why he is the most fearsome man in Harsh Realm, and you'll be convinced that you're watching a genre series of unparalleled genius. Get to "Camera Obscura" and its post-apocalyptic Treasure of the Sierra Madre-esque parable about man's quest for wealth (especially gold), and you'll be convinced that Chris Carter caught lightning in a bottle again, for the third time.

Only...those great episodes never even aired in 1999. So the Harsh Realm of the series title doesn't merely refer to a comic book or a virtual world. It actually references something far more dangerous: the cutthroat, no-second chances world of network television at the beginning of the 21st century, a period of decline. Harsh Realm died as dramatic TV died; as reality TV was born. A smart genre series of paranoid speculation and deep philosophy gave way to Who Wants to be a Millionaire five nights a week, Temptation Island, Survivor, Big Brother and the like. Dramatic TV came out of its slump in 2004 (with the advent of Lost, for instance...) but by then Harsh Realm was "virtually" a memory.

X-Files Double Feature

If you live in the Los Angeles area (and I don't, unfortunately...) this news item might be of some interest, especially for X-Philes:

"The "Inspired By" team, in association with 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment... will be holding a fundraiser screening of Fight the Future (1998) and I Want To Believe (2008) back-to-back!!

This is a charity event being held to solely benefit the organisation Neurofibromatosis, Inc. 100% of the proceeds from the screening will be sent in Ms. Anderson's name on behalf of Philes worldwide."

This X-Files double feature is being held December 6, 2008 from 2:30 pm to 7:30 pm at the Regency Fairfax Theatre at 7907 Beverly Blvd.

Tickets are on sale now (here) for $50.00. That price buys you the X-Files double feature, refreshments, a commemorative programme (and a brief speech from Neurofribomatosis Inc.) If you can't make it to the West Coast for the screening, there's also an option for "long distance" support.

TV REVIEW: Fringe: "The Cure"

In something of a switcheroo, this week's installment of Fringe, "The Cure," plays more like an episode of Chris Carter's late, lamented Millennium (1996-1999) than of Chris Carter's The X-Files. Well, I guess that's what passes for originality on network television these days...

In "The Cure," our heroes, the Bishops (Walter and Peter) and FBI agent Olivia Dunham, investigate the strange case of a woman in Milford, Massachusetts who has been mysteriously but effectively "weaponized;" her brain transformed into a microwave generator that can "fry" innocent bystanders around her (meaning that their eyes bleed out...). The behind-the-scenes culprit is a nefarious physician working for INTREPUS, a giant pharmaceutical company (and competitor to Massive Dynamic). When a second woman is kidnapped and time starts to run out, Peter (Joshua Jackson) makes a Faustian bargain with Blair Brown's character, Nina Sharpe, and helps Olivia bring down the evil doctor with a God complex.

Meanwhile, Olivia also reveals -- rather unbelievably -- that she is being stalked by her own variation of Frank Black's Polaroid Killer (a serial killer who kept mailing photographs of Frank's family to him at his new address in Seattle.) In Olivia's case, the stalker is an abusive stepfather whom she shot several years before. Now, every year, the recovered stepfather sends her a birthday card reminding her he's still "out there." Yep. Because he cares enough to send the very creepiest.

First, this subplot is highly derivative of Millennium, right down to the coda which finds Olivia unexpectedly receiving the suspicious "card" or "mail" slipped under her front door.

Secondly, the background story that Olivia describes to Peter (about her stepfather...and shooting him...) is rather unbelievable. An incident of this nature this would have likely disqualified Olivia for consideration as an FBI agent. Not merely has she committed a crime (shooting someone several times...), but she's quite obviously become psychologically-scarred about it; or at the very least erratic. I found it even more unbelievable that her swarthy buddy in the FBI knew all about her stepfather's birthday cards, and jokes about it with her. Hmmm...how about an investigation instead?

This hackneyed bit of character "development" feels uncomfortably like a plot point added late in the creative process; one meant to drum up some meager human interest in Olivia, since she is the series' dullest character. Actually, the element I found most interesting about this week's Fringe is that the preview for upcoming shows only revealed a single image of Olivia Dunham, and very briefly (she was almost unrecognizable too, wearing a surgical mask). Instead, this entire coming attraction focused on the increasingly amusing banter between Peter and Walter. 

As for the rest of "The Cure" it plays rather like a second-rate hybrid of several Millennium episodes. We have the human test subjects in an experiment here, familiar from such episodes such as the first season's "Walkabout" and the second season's "Sense and Anti-Sense," plus the gory, bloody demises of "The Time is Now." The Pattern this week is much more Millennium Group than Syndicate, involving an organization acquiring "cures" to diseases for some hidden agenda.

I'll end this review on a positive notation: Dr. Bishop doesn't have all the answers this week!  Fringe's rigid formula is broken in "The Cure" when Dr. Bishop admits he's never seen anything like this "weapon" before. He never worked on a case involving it, and he has no deus ex machina device standing at the ready to combat it. What a relief! Also, on the positive side, the banter between Peter and Walter is, as I noted above, growing increasingly amusing. Dr. Bishop vets some funny material this week about recreational drugs being "entertaining" and an off-the-wall reference to sexual bondage. Peter's reaction to the latter is pretty damn funny.

If Fringe is to survive, the approach to take going forward is precisely the one that "The Cure's" coming attraction adopted: minimize Olivia and play-up the quirky father/son Bishop relationship.

TV REVIEW: Fringe: "Power Hungry"

The genre convention of an individual who can harness electricity (either accidentally or with an agenda), has informed many a TV series over the years. From Brimstone's "Executioner" and Reaper's "Charged" to Smallville's pilot back in 2001, audiences have seen this notion portrayed frequently. Even series regulars and recurring characters have sometimes been imbued with the ability to control electricity. Think of Brennan Mulwray on Mutant X, Gwen Raiden on Angel or Johnny B. on Misfits of Science.

This week, the new Fox series Fringe goes blandly where those other series have tread before in the underwhelming "Power Hungry." This story involves a down-on-his luck loser, James Meegar, who accidentally causes electrical equipment (like elevators...) to malfunction; sometimes with fatal results.

"Power Hungry" opens with a classic X-Files-style scenario and introduction. James (a disdained or discredited outsider/loser: an X-Files archetype) fails at a pitch to woo a lovely receptionist. His strange powers run amok commensurate with his embarrassment, and he accidentally causes an elevator to fall several stories...and crash. James alone survives the incident, which is then investigated by the Fringe science team as a "power surge of unknown origin."

All I can say (politely...) regarding this sequence is that -- in pacing, in characterization, in set-up and in visualization -- it is so dramatically reminiscent of an X-Files prologue you half-expect to hear Mark Snow's signature theme song at the end of it. The best part of the prologue? We get a cameo from last week's Man in Black, The "Observer." Nice continuity.

Again, it is not necessary to rag on Fringe for dredging up old, time-worn stories. That's what genre series do, to a large extent. It's not the story that matters; it's the handling of it, the vetting of it. And it is here, alas, that Fringe once more selects the rote, familiar path rather than something bold. fresh or, if you pardon the pun, energizing. Remember my list of Fringe cliches (already cemented after five weeks on the air)? Well, here's a refresher, applied to "Power Hungry."

1. We get another of Dr. Bishop's patented cutesie-poo insane moments. He minces around on a carpet and tries to shock Peter with a finger of static electricity. As usual Dr. Bishop is deadly serious when the script requires him to be; amusing when it doesn't. He has the most selective and "useful" brand of insanity ever!

2. The mystery of the week once more involves - as Dr. Bishop actually states this time - "a case" where he has "seen this" [human-created power surges] "before." Yep, he worked on a study years ago involving pigeons (!) that could track individual human electrical patterns. This is more than helpful, because the Deus Ex Machina of the week involves Bishop up-fitting pigeons to seek out and find fugitive James Meegar. Again, for a series that concerns fringe science, there is precious little scientific research actually going on here. Every single case seems to involve something Dr. Bishop already figured out in the 1970s and 1980s. This means that once Dr. Bishop figures out the problem of the week, he now merely references an old case and - voila - mystery solved. I can't fully express how dull and stupid this aspect of Fringe is. It might be more interesting if Fringe was actually set in the 1970s and 1980s, and concerned Dr. Bishop learned all this very interesting stuff in the first place.

3. The case is related to the myth-arc, or as Fringe terms it, "The Pattern." We know this is so, because the Observer is present at the elevator incident. And also because John Scott -- the dead agent played by Mark Valley -- was researching the case before he died. And that's another cliche too: John Scott shows up and brings up conflicted feelings in Olivia Dunham, our hero.

Hey! You know something? I just realized, I could write this show in my sleep. Anyone could. The ingredients are by now so repetitive, so familiar, so utterly predictable that the series appears to be running on automatic pilot. All I can say is: I hope this means J.J. Abrams is working on Star Trek...

The rote, robotic aspects of Fringe (meaning the story lines...) might be forgiven if the characters were as dynamic, as human, as individual and real as, say, Mulder and Scully. But they're not. I've warmed to Peter (as played by Joshua Jackson), but the screenplays continue to make this "genius" an absolute idiot. Why is he constantly asking how things are possible if he's such a genius? Fringe seriously needs to stop using this character as the "spur" for exposition, and endow him an intelligent, imaginative and curious side. As he is now, Peter just gets to quip a little, look pissed off, and set-up his Dad's scientific explanations. It's getting old. Real. Fast.

But by far, the series' greatest deficit is Anna Torv in the lead role. She projects no real humanity as Olivia Dunham. Take for instance, her final interaction in "Power Hungry" with James Meegar, the loser with the power to harness electricity. Poor James has just had mechanical implants drilled into his brain and has essentially been tortured. And this is after accidentally killing his boss, his mother, and his would-be girlfriend! James is being loaded in an ambulance when Olivia approaches him. Desperate, James begs her to tell him what the hell is going on; what is happening to him. She doesn't. Instead, she coldly explains she has "questions" for him. So...is Olivia a human being? Or was she built by Dr. Bishop too? As viewers, we need to know the answer to this question: does Olivia have any sympathy for James? For the fact that he was made a human guinea pig in the larger "Pattern?" Or does she not care a whit? Is Olivia so single-minded and obsessed with the case that she can no longer see the human picture?

One way or the other, as viewers we need to know what Olivia feels. I want to identify with her emotions and point of view, regardless of that point of view. I want her to be more than a cipher who each week "fronts" an investigation and then brings down the perp. My newest recommendation to the makers of Fringe is this: ditch Olivia Dunham (and Torv) and re-focus the series entirely on the Bishops, father and son. They are about a million times more interesting (cutesie-poo insanity and all...) than Olivia is.

Sometimes it is useful in a review to compare the approach of one series with another. Allow me do that in closing. The Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles also had a "pattern" to follow (the Terminator feature films), yet the creators of that series have gone out of their way to intelligently and inventively expand that pattern....overturning viewer expectations and making the series wildly unpredictable. Fringe, which is so derivative of The X-Files, has by contrast settled irrevocably into bad cliches, superficial characters, and lazy, derivative stories. In my opinion, Fringe should be canceled now. Terminator should be saved.

The Time is Now

Now this is genre news you can use! Or at least I can use it. An Internet campaign to bring back Frank Black -- the hero of Millennium (the incomparable Lance Henriksen) -- has officially launched. The actual goal: get a Millennium movie starring Lance Henriksen (and created by Chris Carter) on the launching pad.

Millennium (1996-1999) remains one of the creepiest, most symbolic, and most beautifully-visualized genre TV programs of all time. This is a snippet of how I described the series in my book, Terror Television (page 473):

From frame one of episode one, Millennium announces its ambition to be much more than filler between fast food commercials. Each story, including the pilot, opens with a white-lettered quotation from a literary or religious source, and then serves to unveil a drama which echoes or contrasts with that opening selection. Yeats ("Pilot"), Dostoyevsky ("Dead Letters"), Herman Melville ("The Judge"), Jean-Paul Sartre ("522666"), Robert Louis Stevenson ("The Well Worn Lock"), Cicero ("Walkabout"), Nietzsche ("Broken World", William Rose Benet ("The Paper Dove") and, inevitably, Shakespeare ("Monster") are just some of the great figures Millennium has referenced and then mirrored.

...The opening quotations serve an invigorating purpose: they remind active viewers that there is a connection between past and present, a universality of human condition. The situations Frank Black encounters are situations that Shakespeare or Cicero might have contemplated or written about. The opening quotes of Millennium connect the series to a literary and historical past...

...[I]t is illuminating to witness how Millennium was devised in sheer artistic terms - from its opening quotations to its very interesting application of symbols and imagery (an application which catapults it to the same plateau of high quality as David Lynch's Twin Peaks.) That oft-mentioned yellow house, for instance, is a resonant, important symbol. Viewers naturally associate the color yellow with brightness, and with bright happy things like the sun. Of course, the house represents Frank Black's bright place away from the darkness and horrors which he sees on the job and even inside his own tortured mind.

...In the first season, the house is seen primarily as a sanctuary, a place of safety. In the second, it is a representation of paradise lost and the object of a heroic quest. In the third season, the house is but a memory, a sad one, but one that remains intact inside Frank's head. Frank visits his former home in the episode "The Sound of Snow" and it has been painted pure white. Frank -- ever perceptive - still sees into the past, still sees his yellow house, standing there on Ezekial Drive. Perhaps he still sees the yellow in the white because he is aware (as we are) that any chronicle of Frank Black will always involve that yellow house in some fashion. For it is not merely a shelter, not merely a comfortable abode, it is Frank's ideal, the very place of joy and innocence that he seeks to protect and find inside himself every day. It is an externalization of the perfect place he cherishes in his mind as paradise or bliss. It represents family, safety, sanctuary, succor.

One can argue that the yellow house of Millennium also represents an escape from the evils of the outside world, yet contrarily, it is also the very reason Frank faces the heart of human darkness every single day. By facing "the black" inside and out, Frank preserves the yellow, inside and out. So the yellow house could also symbolize, on a more basic scale, small town America. Frank must save it from the encroaching evil all around as the millennium turns. Thus the yellow house is not just beautiful architecture, it is a brilliant (and artistic symbol) because it immediately shares with viewers an insight into Frank's personality, his interior architecture, if you will...

Just re-reading these passages makes me really, really miss Millennium. I remember the episode that satirized Scientology (on Millennium amusingly termed Self-osophy). I remember the trilogy featuring Lucy Butler (Sarah Jane Redmond)r - one of the most diabolical and seductive villains ever to appear on network television. I recall the transcendent and transormative beauty of "Luminary," about a search for a missing young man in the Alaskan wilderness. I recollect - with horror - one of the most macabre (and goriest...) scenes I've ever seen on television: an American nuclear family felled suddenly by disease around the Sunday dinner table in "The Fourth Horseman."

A Millennium movie could be made relatively cheaply today. All it needs is Lance Henriksen, Terry O'Quinn, Brittany Tiplady and a clever Chris Carter/Frank Spotnitz script. And Mark Snow's evocative, sad violins. If you believe in the cause...the time is now. This is who we are.

Biggest Quarter EVER

Dear Readers,

I just wanted to say a heartfelt "thanks" to all of you -- the readership here on Reflections on Film/TV.

Because of you, the blog is today completing the biggest quarter since I began this site in Q2 2005. The previous highest quarter was Q1 2008 -- when The House Between 2.0 aired and the blog attracted a record number of views.

Well, now the blog has exceeded that already exceptional high by a whopping six thousand views.

In part, this is because my review of X-Files: I Want To Believe drew record audiences back around August 1st; but its also because many readers who found that review have decided to hang around to see what's next.

Thank you for making this record happen; and I hope you will continue to stay tuned as we finish out 2008 and move into 2009. Much more retro and cult goodness yet to come...

With appreciation and affection

JKM

CULT TV FLASHBACK # 57: Strange World (1999)

I felt a tingling sense of deja vu while watching the alarmingly-derivative Fringe (2008) pilot the other night, and it wasn't merely because the whole thing seemed like the dumbed down, Cliff-Notes versions of the far superior X-Files.

No, my memory banks kept tripping on another sci-fi TV series that sought to aggressively mine some of the same "fringe" territory as this new J.J. Abrams series.

That program was called Strange World (1999) and it aired on ABC from March 8 to March 16, 1999. Although thirteen episodes were developed and crafted by uber-producers Howard Gordon (24) and Tim Kring (Heroes), the program was only broadcast three times on ABC before the network unceremoniously pulled the plug. At the time, I remember being terribly disappointed by the quick cancellation, because the series felt like it might actually go somewhere interesting, despite the fact that it tended to orbit similar kinds of stories as The X-Files or Millennium.

Strange World focused on Dr. Paul Turner (Tim Guinee), an M.D. who had been exposed to a deadly toxin during the Gulf War. (Remember the series aired before we were back in Iraq...). In the early 1990s, Turner returned Stateside only to learn that he was being kept alive by a mysterious antidote, one administered by a secret cabal's representative, the Mysterious Japanese Woman (Vivian Wu). While attempting to resolve this mystery, Turner also took a job at US ARMIID (United States Army Medical Institute for Infectious Diseases) to investigate, and I quot:, "the criminal abuses of science in the United States."

So yeah, this is pretty much what Oliva Dunham is doing in Fringe. Oopsy.

What kind of stories did Strange World tell? Well, they were few in number, I can tell you that! More importantly, the plots involved the terrifying side effects of illegal scientific experiments (gee, just like the engineered plague we saw in Fringe's pilot!).

One Strange World episode, "Lullaby," centered on pregnant women learning they were pregnant not with human babies, but with developing human organs that could be "harvested" by the shadowy conspiracy. Another episode (the pilot), concerned an illegal and unethical cloning operation. The last story aired on ABC, "Azrael's Breed," involved a scientist who was pushing "the boundaries of death" by injecting the brain cells from dead people into the minds of the living to create so-called "death memories."

The X-Files outlived good imitators (Nowhere Man), bad imitators (The Burning Zone), and sometimes just mediocre ones (Sleepwalkers, Prey). Strange World seemed pretty promising, as I recall, though in fairness Guinee looked as though he was the victim of a cloning plot involving David Duchovny.

The facet of Strange World that I found most appealing (and which granted the series some sense of urgency) was the personal nature of Turner's quest. His life depended on discovering the answers to the weird weekly cases and scientific riddles. He knew he was a "pawn," a piece of a larger puzzle and so had to sort of "gut check" himself to make certain he was operating by his own agenda, not the (unknown) agenda of the cabal.

Okay, so Strange World is not a great show, but maybe it is one that would have matured and improved if given a little time and support. I wonder if Fringe, which has some Strange World DNA mixed in with its corrupted X-Files genetic material, will survive longer...

If you're interested in Strange World, I understand that the Chiller Network has aired all thirteen episodes. I know I'd love to see the show again today. I suppose there's no fan base out there pushing for an official DVD release...

TV REVIEW: Fringe (pilot)

The pilot for J.J. Abrams' series Lost (2004 - ) is -- without any exaggeration -- the finest I've ever seen. That's not a comment on the direction the series has ultimately taken (don't get me started, please...). Just my honest assessment of the involving, intense first episode. It was...amazing.

By direct contrast, the pilot for J.J. Abrams' new genre series, Fringe is one of the absolute worst that I've seen in a good long while. With Fringe's disappointing initial outing, we very much have a modern case of the Emperor's New Clothes: the pilot is alarmingly naked in terms of real human interest, and shockingly devoid of originality in terms of conception, look and execution.

There's been a lot written in the press lately (hype) about how Fringe is not a rip-off of The X-Files. Don't believe a word of it. This show is such a flat-out rip-off of Chris Carter's work it's actually an embarrassment. Allow me to enumerate (briefly) some of the many similarities between the two productions:

1. Fringe, like the X-Files is set in the milieu of the FBI. With agents, search warrants, stake-outs, car-chases and "investigations."

2. Fringe, like the X-Files, finds solutions to unusual problems (like a nasty new airborne disease/terrorist WMD) in the notion of "extreme possibilities" (the paranormal/fringe science) On The X-Files, this description meant any number of things (NDEs, Astral Projection, psychokinesis, etc.). First up in Fringe: "a synaptic transfer" that allows two minds to meet in the dream world. You may have seen this idea played out already in Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) with Linda Blair and Louise Fletcher. Lower. Lower...

3. Fringe, like The X-Files, focuses on an untrustworthy authority figure. In fact, this character-type was a regular staple of The X-Files. Specifically, I'm referring to the incredibly sympathetic notion that someone derided, dismissed or de-valued by society at large (perhaps a criminal, perhaps a madman, perhaps just an unconventional thinker...) could be the best source for understanding "the truth" about the featured mysteries. Even "Spooky" Mulder fits this type to some degree. As do the conspiracy theorists, The Lone Gunmen. As late as this summer's X-Files: I Want to Believe, we saw this character type at his most raw and troubling, in the form of the psychic pedophile priest. On Fringe, we get quirky, inappropriate Dr. Bishop, both a madman and a criminal, one who possesses many secrets.

4. Fringe, like The X-Files, focuses on the "The Mytharc" or "Pattern." The X-Files was famous for an exploration of a larger conspiracy, one including the FBI, heads of state, and various departments in the United States Government. The conspiracy had a secret, malicious agenda. In Fringe's pilot, we're introduced not only to a specific episodic mystery (an airborne, self-eradicating germ) but the conspiracy operating behind it. There's not a Cigarette Smoking Man hanging around yet, but we have Blair Brown (replete with a cheesy robotic arm...), a representative of the company Massive Dynamic. She and her corporation are working behind the scenes on the by-now rote malicious and secret agenda.

5. Fringe, like The X-Files, centers on a male/female pair-up. It's Duchovny and Anderson on The X-Files, and Joshua Jackson and Anna Tory on Fringe. I should point out an important difference here. On the X-Files, Scully and Mulder actually boasted fields of expertise. Mulder was a behavioral psychologist (and one of the best profilers in the FBI). And Scully was an M.D. The characters on Fringe seem to have no specialties at all. Peter Bishop (Jackson) is simply tagged a "genius" (that way, a writer has to do no research whatsoever - the character is just SMART!) and Olivia Dunholm (Tory) is merely your average gun-toting, ambitious FBI agent. Each character is about as interesting as wonder bread. Without the crust.

6. Both shows have the same home: The Fox Network. Wonder how that happened?

So yes, pretty clearly, Fringe is a dedicated rip-off of The X-Files. iI's also a rip-off of a short-lived, obscure series from 1998 called Strange World, which concerned "medical mysteries" like the one featured in this pilot. My problem: it's not a good rip-off of either show.

The X-Files is such a classic not merely because the subject matter (the paranormal) is fascinating; not merely because the conspiracy is intriguing. But rather because it boasted the good sense and artistry to create two characters (Mulder and Scully) who viewed their world in vastly different ways. As viewers, we saw the world interpreted through each lens. The writing and acting were so utterly brilliant that moments of heavy exposition played not like boring recitation of fact...but foreplay. We fell in love with Scully and Mulder because they were both smart and passionate. And I don't mean passionate about sex, necessarily, but in the manner they interpreted "the facts" of any given case. Ideas represented the currency of the show. Bold ideas; boldly interpreted.

Whereas on Fringe, there's only the veneer of intelligence, not intelligence itself. In other words, all the concepts and ideas in the pilot are pulled from smart sources (like The X-Files and Altered States), but don't feel organic to this enterprise. You can't import intelligence, and you can't import wit. This was the same problem I had with Orci and Kurtzman's brain-dead Transformers (2007) movie. There was no authentic human element to grasp. Similarly, Fringe already seems anti-science, railing against "science" and "technology." In The X-Files, the villain was the misuse of science and technology, not science and technology itself. There's a distinction there. One asks us to examine human nature (how do we apply our knowledge wisely and morally?) and the other is blatantly anti-intellectual.

So what we're left with in this pilot is a dull police procedural with a conspiracy underneath, and a touch (and I mean a touch...) of the paranormal. Oh, there's a car chase, well-staged. There's a creepy prologue (also an element of The X-Files' formula), here set on a plane in flight. There are some nice special effects involving a man with translucent skin, but the X-Files has already done that too (in Fight the Future and the Season Six premiere.) Worst of all, in Fringe's pilot there's no joy, no fun, no sense of curiosity at all. It's a mechanical, heartless product...a machine grinding out sausage for the masses.

I'm going to keep watching, and I hope the series gets better. I would always rather write a positive review than a negative one. And I have been wrong before, that's for dang sure. But for the time being, I'm going to call a spade a spade: Fringe is a charmless, brazen rip-off of The X-Files. One that copies all the specific elements of that TV classic, but has zero understanding of why it worked in the first place. Fringe is positively soulless. In fact, that's the creepiest thing about it.

The Truth is Out There...

Entertainment Weekly has a fascinating post today from Whitney Pastorek about X-Files: I Want to Believe and the rising tide of critics and fans who have been defending this quality movie from the ludicrous and mean-spirited reviews it's been facing.

Here's a snippet:

...I sure as hell have been shocked by the dismissive, occasionally vicious beating it's taken from critics. My hometown Houston Chronicle, for example, gave it one star and called it "stupid, lackadaisical and schlocky." My mother, on the other hand, walked into an H-Town multiplex on Wednesday, and walked out calling the movie "wonderful."

So, what's going on? Are my mother and I just that stupid, lackadaisical and shlocky when it comes to our taste in movies? I'd like to think that's not true. And there are complimentary, thoughtful reviews from the likes of Roger Ebert, Salon.com's Stephanie Zacharek, and John Kenneth Muir to reassure me we're not crazy. More likely, I think this introspective little movie fell victim to a number of traps...

Frankly, I find this increasingly vocal (and publicized...) push back against the so-called critical consensus a fascinating thing. My own suspicion is that there are a number of folks writing today (and "counted" by Rotten Tomatoes as legitimate film critics) who boast very little understanding of film as art, film history, or even film techniques. The only thing they actually review are their own prejudices and expectations. People should object to ignorant, ill-informed reviews.

I sincerely hope the push back is the beginning of a trend...

X Marked The Blog

Wow!

It's been a roller-coaster here for the last thirty-six hours as thousands (and I mean thousands...) of readers "found" my review of X-Files: I Want to Believe and linked to it across the Internet in forums, on blogs and so forth. At one point late yesterday afternoon, I feared this site (particularly comments section) was going to crash from all the activity. Watching my statistics counter in real time was unreal: clusters of readers were all hitting at once. Amazing!

From the bottom of my heart, I'd like to thank everyone who commented on my review; and also the dozens of X-Philes who private e-mailed me to share their thoughts on the review. Judging from how polite, decent, thoughtful and organized this bunch is, I'd wager The X-Files has a lot of life left in it.

In fact, there was only one comment I had to reject in the whole vast slew -- and it came from a hater of the film (and the franchise) who used unnecessary and inappropriate language. Even the X-Files fan who didn't like the movie (which is his or her right, naturally...) spoke eloquently and respectfully here.

Regarding the movie, I stand behind my review fully, and will add this additional thought: once international box office figures are tallied, DVD purchases and rentals are factored in, and a cable TV sale is made...there's little doubt this film will have been judged a financial success. History shows us that even when an franchise entry doesn't become an "instant hit," that doesn't mean the franchise is over. Back in 1997, things looked pretty grim for a hero named Batman, didn't they? Look where that franchise is today.

In terms of this blog, I'm back to work today, and I hope that some of the thousands of visitors who came here for the purpose of reading the X-Files review will stick around, explore the archives. and become regular readers. X-Philes might want to start with my retrospective of the classic episode "Home."

Again, my appreciation.

John K. Muir

MOVIE REVIEW: The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008)

Belief isn't easy to come by these days. But - despite most reviews - I still believe in The X-Files.

Perhaps the biggest problem with this new film (sub-titled I Want to Believe) arises not from the stars (or the production itself), but from ourselves, and -- specifically -- our expectations.

Based on the savage reviews proliferating on the web and in print, audiences and critics apparently desired a Wrath of Khan, when what they actually get is...The Search for Spock.

In other words, X-Files: I Want to Believe is a more intimate, cerebral adventure than it is a "big event" summer movie. There are virtually no optical special effects in this movie. I could detect no (or very little) CGI. There are few action sequences.

There is little violence of any kind, actually (I don't believe a single gun is fired...). Mulder and Scully never even carry fire-arms, as far as I can detect. And there are no explosions whatsoever.

All the fireworks, rather...are purely human; emotional. Accordingly, the climax is one that relies on the specific nuances of human interaction and relationships, not fights, chases, or gun-fire. The film's success hinges on such old--fashioned elements as atmosphere and mood. A wintry, oppressive location -- West Virginia -- is practically a supporting character here, and the build-up of real suspense is generated through effective use of solid film techniques such as cross-cutting. This is good work, beautifully photographed; it's merely out-of-step with the kind of movies being offered in our cineplexes today.

Honestly, I Want to Believe's greatest failing has nothing to do with what it is; but rather what it is not; what people apparently "wanted" to believe about the form it would take.

One of The X-Files' trademark phrases was "Resist or Serve" and I remembered that catchphrase with bemusement while I watched I Want to Believe. The new movie daringly resists formula and classification. It flouts expectation, and what I've detected so far in the criticism of the film is a total unwillingness to engage with what the movie actually is about. I suppose if a movie isn't exactly like Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, or Dark Knight, well...critics don't know what to make of it.

Audiences apparently feel the same way: the film opened in fourth place this weekend and grossed a disappointing ten million dollars (roughly the same opening week haul of Serenity in 2005). Yet The X-Files I Want to Believe was made cheaply - at under thirty five million dollars. Just a bit of history: that's what it cost, or thereabouts, to make Star Trek V: The Final Frontier in 1989. Almost twenty years ago. At the very least, Carter and his team were frugal...and that fact may be a saving grace for the franchise. Which - reviews to the contrary - has a lot of life and energy left in it. It's only a "dull" or "boring" movie (as critics assert), if you choose not to engage with it.

I Want to Believe picks up six years after the finale of the popular Fox series (which ended in 2002). Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) are living together in a small but comfortable house, and Mulder has grown a beard and pretty much retreated from the world. Despite the fact he knows his sister is dead, Mulder has not given up searching for "the truth" about what happened to her. Meanwhile, Scully is a successful medical doctor at a Catholic hospital and enmeshed in the treatment of a very sick little boy; one with a terminal illness.

It's a quiet, relatively "normal" life for the most part; a normality that is shattered when the FBI solicits Mulder's help in solving a new and urgent "X-File" (in return for a pardon...). An F.B.I. agent named Monica Bannon has disappeared in the snows of gloomy West Virginia, and a fallen priest named Father Joe (Billy Connolly) claims to be experiencing psychic visions related to her case. In fact, he leads a team of FBI searchers to a burial ground of body parts in a vast, foreboding ice field (a beautifully-filmed, tense sequence).

But Father Joe may not be credible...in part because of his past. He's a convicted pedophile, you see. Mulder and Scully each boast a different perspective on Father Joe (naturally...), and their viewpoints are so contradictory that these opinions threaten to fracture their (now longstanding...) emotional relationship. This case revives Mulder's obsessive, brooding nature; and it reminds Scully of the darkness she has sought to escape.

So...what is The X-Files: I Want to Believe really about? In a deep, meaningful way, it concerns the concept of redemption. I don't mean that the movie pays lip service to the notion of redemption as that concept currently exists in the superficial popular culture lexicon (see: Angel). There's nothing comfortable or easy about how this film portrays the central moral dilemma. The crimes Father Joe committed against the innocent are utterly monstrous, as Scully rightly points out. Father Joe knows that society will never forgive him, but wonders if God can do so.

And here's where things get....murky. Father Joe castrated himself at age 26 in order to "kill" the horrible, seething appetite that led him to commit such crimes. And now, Father Joe chooses to live in a group home for pedophiles, one where sex offenders live in shame and police each other's behavior. It is a sort of Hell on Earth to live amongst such scum, especially for a Man of God. Are these signs he has changed?

And, of course, Father Joe claims he is experiencing psychic visions about that missing FBI agent, and wants to help the police find her. Is he to be trusted? Would the Divine empower a man like Father Joe with second sight? If his visions are real, are they from God? The Devil? Or is he just an accomplice in Monica's capture...?

The underlying moral quandary is this: What great "right" can undo a great "wrong?" In the fantastic and noble tradition of The X-Files, Scully and Mulder view Father Joe and his predicament in radically different ways. The series always concerned the opposing viewpoints of these two characters, and how their beliefs (and biases) shaped their perception of reality. It's the same thing here. Scully believes Father Joe is a depraved attention-seeking monster, that his visions are a hoax and a cry for attention. Mulder wants to believe that men like Father Joe can change, that redemption is possible, and that Father Joe's psychic visions are legitimate.

Pretty serious stuff. No summer movie featuring a convicted pedophile in a central role is ever going to find popularity in America. That's a fact. We go to movies to escape, generally, not to engage and this may simply be one bridge too far for mass audiences. Father Joe's inclusion and role in the story is a courageous (perhaps even self-destructive) choice on the part of writers Spotnitz and Carter because the film's central dilemma makes audiences confront the idea of real redemption in a very tangible, very challenging, very realistic way.

It is easy to forgive someone who seems heroic; someone who is beautiful; or someone who had an excuse for what he did. But what about forgiving someone for committing the worst crime (a crime against a child...) imaginable? I'm not saying you should forgive; that anyone should forgive. However, if you are not willing to forgive Father Joe, there are repercussions to that decision. The biggest one is that you can't say you believe in redemption, can you? If you don't let "good works" account for something in the cosmic tally of morality, you can't claim you believe in forgiveness, either. Nor can you claim to be a Christian, because forgiveness is the very crucible -- the beating heart -- of Christianity. I'm not condoning any particular interpretation....just commenting on the moral implications of this film. It will challenge your beliefs, and force you to evaluate what you think when the decision "to forgive" is not easy; not superficial.

I still can't believe a mainstream film (and a franchise film; and a sequel, for god's sake...) tread so deeply (and bravely) into this unsettling territory, but I'm glad it did. The X-Files: I Want to Believe effectively holds a mirror up to all those who claim belief in Christ's teachings yet actually thrive on hate and draconian notions of punishment and morality. In doing so, it comments explicitly on our times; an epoch when religion is often used to codify hatred of "the other" in our society (and in other societies). This paradigm - this Father Joe Dilemma - is true to everything The X-Files has always been about.

The mystery concerning the severed body parts (and the agent's disappearance) has apparently disappointed some critics and viewers too, but it is also very true to The X-Files' history. The series has always concerned our two world-views (belief vs. skepticism/Mulder vs. Scully) vetting mysterious "horror stories" and in the process giving them new life and energy. Spontaneous combustion, demonic possession, ESP, vampires, werewolves, succubi, golems, out-of-body experiences, and other old concepts in the genre were always re-purposed for the show to incorporate the latest advances in paranormal and medical literature and study. I Want to Believe explicitly continues that tradition with a plot concerning organ transplants, stem cell research, and a cadre of outlaw (Russian...) scientists playing Frankenstein. Is it ridiculous? Well...is a man who turns into a giant green superhero when he's angry also ridiculous? Is a man with a leather fetish wearing a black bat suit ridiculous? You may find the specifics of this X-File on the verge of ludicrous (one critic compared it to They Saved Hitler's Brain), but again, the tradition of taking hoary "monster"/horror chestnuts and granting them new (intelligent...) life is a long-standing facet of Chris Carter's creation. The franchise has been around for fifteen years now; so you likely have already decided whether or not this kind of thing works for you.

There's another aspect of I Want to Believe that works surprisingly well. It too has been ridiculed by reviewers. It's a brief comment said - oddly enough - by Father Joe. He urges Scully not to "give up" at a critical point, yet - as he himself readily admits - he has no reason to have said it to her. "Don't give up" may seem like an easy platitude (gee, like "with great power comes great responsibility?"), but it is actually kind of touching here; a short-hand for much good material. Especially when played between Mulder and Scully. In Duchovny and Anderson's deft hands, "don't give up" is one lover's comment to another in the face of hardship, past hurts and regret. Scully can't give up on the boy whom she is treating now because of the little boy (William) she once gave up on. And balanced against the Mulder/Scully relationship is a man (Callum Keith Rennie) -- a villain -- who steadfastly refuses to "give up" on the life of his lover...and goes to extreme (and really, really radical...) means to see that his lover survives. One plot is played against the other, and I found the balance elegant and touching, not cheesy.

Another theme here is the "burying" or cleansing of the past. The criminals responsible for Bannon's abduction attempt to bury the past (and their crimes) in the ice. Mulder hopes to cleanse his past too (if he just saves this one woman, he will have made up for failing his sister all those years ago). Scully, by saving her patient believes she can be cleansed of her guilt over William. But along comes Father Joe - a man with a past anyone would want to hide - who instead focuses on digging up the past (digging in the ice, in the snow, literally). Things keep coming to the surface. Things that must be dealt with.

The violent scenes in this film are tense, and make surprisingly strong use of a snowplow as a weapon. The bleak locale and the hidden secrets there keeps you alert, looking for clues amidst the ubiquitous falling snow. The location reflects the dark heart of the characters, and the final moment (post-credits) is a splendid (if brief...) catharsis; a release from the blinding white snow of Somerset, WV. More emotionally touching than exciting; more moody and lugubrious than spectacular, more contemplative than action-packed, more dark and foreboding than shocking, this is an uneasy, unsettling X-Files movie in which the truth isn't "out there" but rather "in here" - in us. In the endless mysteries of the human heart and human behavior.

Cult TV Flashback # 7: The X-Files: "Home"

From 1993 to 2001 - on Fox TV, of all places - The X-Files produced some of the best genre programming in two decades. Chris Carter's landmark series (a child, perhaps, of Kolchak: The Night Stalker [1974]) featured two F.B.I. agents - Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigating unusual criminal cases involving the paranormal; so-called "X" files. The series ran for nine spectacular years, and drew the raves of critics everywhere for its sharp-as-a-razor presentation of material that could have been classified as "hokey" or "marginal."

"The direction is atmospheric, the scripts are tight, the dialogue is crisp, the tone uneasy and grim...How can anyone not love this show?" asked Omni columnist David Bischoff (December 1994, pages 43-50). Matt Roush, the TV Guide critic at the time, agreed: "Many weeks...The X-Files is as good as any movie, satirizing the characters' obsessions while still delivering shudders." "What's erotic about the show," suggested reviewer James Wolcott in The New Leader ("X Factor,'" April 18, 1994, pages 98-100), "is its slow progression from reverie to revelation, stopping just short of rapture. It wants to swoon, but swooning would mean shutting its eyes, and there's so much to see..."

All these critics are right on the money, and The X-Files, I believe, is right up there with the best genre programming in TV's long history: Star Trek (1966-1969), The Prisoner (1969), The Twilight Zone (1959-64) and my own personal - and highly controversial - favorites, Space: 1999 (1975-1977), Chris Carter's Millennium (1996-1998), Sapphire & Steel (1979-81), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2002).

I could pick any number of X-Files episodes to feature in this flashback edition (most of 'em from the show's exemplary first six seasons...). There's the brilliant and highly literary "Milagro," which gazes deep into the heart of agent Dana Scully. There's the Roshomon-like fifth season entry, "Bad Blood," which shows us (quite comically...) how Scully and Mulder see themselves, and each other. There's "The Host," the story of a flukeman living in the New Jersey sewers(!), "War of the Coprophages" - about extra-terrestrial cockroaches, "Unruhe," a serial-killer piece done extraordinarywell, and on-and on. For years, this show never produced a stinker.

But the best - and most disgusting - episode, has to be the one that was banned from network television after its initial airing on October 11, 1996. The episode I write of is the second of the program's best year, the fourth season. It is called "Home," and was written by Glen Morgan and James Wong, and directed by Kim Manners. For those who don't recall the episode, it concerns a a small Pennsylvania town, "Home." There, a family of deformed brothers (with their crippled, limbless mother...) - The Peacocks - dwell in an isolated farmhouse, minding their own business. But when a dead fetus is found near the imposing, dilipadated house, Sheriff Andy Taylor (Tucker Smallwood) calls in Mulder and Scully to investigate. What the F.B.I. agents discover inside the Peacock home s a rotten, stinking farm filled with sharp-edged, home-made booby traps, and four monsters who barely qualify as "human." The wrecked Peacock home - filthy in the extreme - is reminiscent of the Leatherface estate in Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and the savage family dynamic presented in the early Wes Craven chiller, The Hills Have Eyes (1977). The savage cinema returns!

I have never seen anything like "Home" on TV. It features: a bloody murder with a baseball bat, scenes of the brothers Peacock chewing their mother's food for her (though, thankfully, her impregnation occurs off-screen...) and the corpse of a deformed infant, who was buried alive. The show is cutthroat, terrrifying, and a sense of danger goes waaaay beyond the "safety" and decorum we expect (or used to expect...) from our boob tube programming.

But the show is artistic and worthwhile for other reasons. The horror creds are unimpeachable, but the hour is truly memorable for the way in which it sets up the locale of the town and its unspoken "rules." The Peacocks mind their own business - and so do the police - and each faction is left alone. However, the death of the infant and the subsequent arrival of the F.B.I throws these long-standing "rules" out of synch, and the Peacocks engage the police with brutal, animal ferocity. In the 1990s, this kind of encounter reflected the Zeitgeist - call it Waco or Ruby Ridge - but the idea of people dwelling out in the wilderness, waiting for a spark to go off and begin killing, was certainly one ripped from the headlines.

The episode also takes great pains to develop the dramatis personae. Scully is deeply affected by the discovery of the dead baby, and wonders "what a mother must go through," dealing with a deformed child. Later in the episode, the Peacock Mommy makes it explicit: telling Scully how "proud" she is of her boys. In Mulder's case, we not only get a great reminiscence from him about pick-up baseball games in his youth (a terrific, heartfelt moment...), but his sudden realization that Scully could be..well...maternal. "I've never thought of you as a mother before," he says at one point; and clearly, he likes the notion. (Later in the series, Mulder and Scully do have a baby together).

The X-Files almost always features some kind of satirical edge, and indeed, "Home" includes this element. Sheriff "Andy Taylor" should ring a bell. That's the name of Andy Griffith's character on The Andy Griffith Show. It could be a cheap joke to name the sheriff of a town after this character, but much of the episode actually concerns the manner in which modern America is changing, how the Mayberrys of our nation are no longer places, perhaps, where you can leave the door unlocked and still remain safe. It is a chilling premise, and the use of the name "Andy Taylor" explicitly alludes to a gentler time in America, and certainly in American TV.

So as August becomes September, as hot summer turns autumnal, let's remember the scariest, most dynamic, and pulse-pounding X-Files episode produced in nine years. "Home" is where the heart of this great show resides. To this day, it still chills, and raises questions about the small towns where we live. From a terrifying teaser, which commences with the unholy birth, to the final moment, wherein two Peacocks escape the house of horrors and drive away to the tune of "Wonderful," "Home" fits in beautifully with a recurring X-Files obsession: terror underneath the surface of so-called "normal" America. Other episodes (including the exemplary "Our Town" and "Die Hand der Verletz") also tread through this queasy territory, but "Home" surpasses the already high gross-out factor in the series, and is an episode that anyone who has seen, never forgets. As I wrote in my 2001 book, Terror Television, "Home" represents "terror TV at an apex of both style and substance."