X-Files--"Kill Switch"

“Kill Switch” is the other special episode written by a famous author. This time around, it is William Gibson, one of the pioneers of the science fiction subgenre cyberpunk. The episode combines all three of Gibson’s favorite topics to write about: artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and robotics. You may consider this blasphemy, but Gibson did a much better job with the script than did Stephen Kind with his. Gibson was well known to be an enthusiastic X-Phile. His fondness and familiarity for the characters shows, if for no other reason than Chris carter did not rewrite the script to make it more X-File-ish. Which begs the question from yesterday’s episode--why did king want to write for The X-Files when his episode turned out to not be The X-Files? A mystery for the ages.

The biggest point to note about “Kill Switch”--and I credit the point to the script having been written by a technological visionary--is how well it has aged. The episide is thirteen years old , yet its presentation of the internet and virtual reality does not feel dated. Granted, there is Hollywood embellishment to make the story more exciting, but it does not feel like a game of Pong is attempting to take over the world, if you catch my drift.

I do feel some nostalgia pangs after watching. The internet was the egalitarian wild frontier back in 1998. Geeks controlled the place. Now it is just as commercial as network television and your grandmother has a face book page where she shares biscuit recipes with her Sunday school friends. Thinks to amoral anarchists like Julian Assange, the fun of the internet’s freedom is now temepered with more ethical questions than ever. Oh, for the days of WBS chat and geocities pages about Star Trek. Happier, and more innocent geek times.

Mulder and Scully run into a dangerous artificial intelligence for the first time since the personal favorite “Ghost in the Machine” from the first season when they investigate the death of an internet founder, Donald Gelman, who was caught in the crossfire of an arranged encounter between rival drug lords and US marshals. Mulder takes the guy’s lapyop with a disk that appears on the surface to be “Twilight Time” by the Platters to the Lone Gunmen. They cannot break the code, but upon Scully’s suggestion, they check the deceased’s e-mail account and find a message to in Visigoth with the number to a storage locker.

Upon arriving at the storage facility, the agents find Visigoth is a young woman surrounded by advanced computer equipment who resists arrest. Her arrest sequence is further proof gibson has a handler on the main characters. Namely, the runnin g joke that scully is far tougher than mulder. She has already been one step ahead with the suggestion of checking the e-mail account, but now Mulder is taken out with Invisigoth’s taser while scully takes two hits and still has the wherewithal to pull her gun. Tough gaL. a virtual reality version of herself with display expert martial arts technique. The real Scully will also later pull her gun again to shoot out a loud terpasser alarm Mulder resigns himself to find a way around. If you needed further evidence why I am team Scully, there it is.

We get down to the main plot at this point. Gelman, Invisigoth, and her boyfriend succeeded in developing an artificial intelligence which got away from them and onto the internet where it is evolving. Gelman was attempting to upload a virus to kill the AI when it arranged for the battle between drug dealers and US marshals out of what Invisigoth says is its sick sense of humor. The AI takes over a military weapons system in space and destroys the storage facility, but not before our heroes get out safely. The race is on to find the AI’s safe house in order to destroy it.

Mulder goes off on his own to find it, leaving scully to guard Invisigoth. A bit too convenient a ploy device, but there you go. He discovers the safe house is an abandoned mobile home in which an advanced virtual reality system has been built. Mulder is captured and held inside the virtual reality. It simulates a hospital in which mulder is attended to by nurses who are clearly adult film stars from Mulder’s favorite hobby. (One of the nurses is played by Kate Luyben, who is currently dating Nathan Fillion. Small world, Browncoats.) The nurses quickly turn on him by threatening to amputate his limbs one by one if he does not reveal the location of the virus. He discovers this is not reality when he is ‘rescued” by Kung Fu Scully who demands to know the location of the virus herself.

Do note the nurses where adult film stars created out of mulder’s mind in order to win him over. Kung Fu Scully was also created out of his mind, implying that is how he perceives her, albeit the AI’s warped interpretation of how he thinks of her. It is a nice touch when you look at it that way. Gibson has the more traditional view of Mulder admiring scully for her toughness, not longing for a romance. It is refreshing, considering we are already on our way to the inevitable love affair between the two.

The real scully and Invisigoth find mulder and her now deceased boyfriend hooked up to the virtual reality system and rescue him. Invisigoth reveals the plan between her and her boyfriend was to upload their consciousnesses into the program. She believes he has already done so, so she does it, too, sacrificing her physical form in the destruction of the safe house. It is strongly implied she was successful in transferring her essence into the AI. It still exists, evolving…

“Kill Switch” is a breath of fresh air. The subject matter deviates from the usual paranormal topics, but does so competently thanks to Gibson’s expertise. I have never gotten into cuberrpunk novels because I am not enough of a techno geek for the hardcore stuff. As far as science fiction fans go, I am one of the suspect humanities geeks who has to prove his stripes before being accepted into certain circles of fandom. Knowing HTML does not qualify one to be part of the cyberpunk crowd. Nevertheless, a milder, general television television version is right up my alley. Some stuff does feel a little off, such as why mulder would be interested in the seemingly accidental killing of an internet guru or why he would think there is an X-File waiting to be found on his computer, but those two issues are not a big hindrance to my enjoyment of the episode.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

For those of you still holding out hope Nathan Fillion is seriously considering reviving Firefly, this is Karen Luyben:I imagine Fillion is way too busy sleeping with her to worry with reviving a cancelled science fiction series. In a pitiable consolation effort, "Twilight Time" by the Platters: