X-Files--"Dreamland II"

X-Philes to whom it may apply should still be at the ready to torch me in effigy. While I do find “Dreamland II” more amusing than the first part, the story still does not rise to the top tier of The X-Filesquite as well as popularly assumed. I have two big issues I will talk about in a minute.

But first I will give “Dreamland II” props for correcting an issue I had with the first episode. If Morris Fletcher is such a womanizing cad, why did he pay no attention to Scully while he was inhabiting Mulder’s body? In “Dreamland II,” he changes all that. He is on her like white on rice. Again, his change in attitude towards her is all for the comedy, as she already suspects from the moment Mulder as Fletcher is arrested in Nevada they have switched bodies. But since Fletcher’s clumsy attempts to seduce her are amusing, I will not pick too many nits over it.

Which leads to the first problem I had--the plot was so flimsy, it was nothing more than an excuse to set up some I Love Lucy level screw ball comedy. The catalyst for the story was the general at Area 51 suspected they were flying UFO technology and lured mulder there hoping he would know if it was true. He crashed the experimental plane so he could show Mulder the flight data recorder. It takes about two minutes to explain all that and 86 for hilarity to ensue.

I am going to be fair here. I thought a lot of the mistaken identity bits and frustration Scully and Fletcher’s wife are facing with their new ’partners’ were hilarious. Michael McKean is a master at selling smart alec one liners. I particularly enjoyed how he convinced his wife he was in Mulder’s body by reminding her she got mad at him at their wedding reception because he told her he could not see the cake for her fat butt. It was such an out of the blue joke delivered so matter of fact, and it happily convinced his wife who he really was. Ah, romance. So I cannot knock the comedy. Much of it was gold. The problem is that is all it was--a sitcom scenario.

Or more precisely, a sitcom scenario with a reset button ending, which is my second problem. I get what the writers were doing. There were a couple sly Star Trek references towards the end which were a wink to the “reset button” endings that plagued the modern series, particularly Star Trek: Voyager. Oftentimes, it felt like trek had backed itself into a corner, so a deus ex machina is the only way to fix things. That is what happens here. All the damage done by the warp tear just begins reversing. Eventually, everyone goes back to the time they first encountered each other on the highway outside Area 51 with no memories of the last few days. All is back to normal.

But not quite. For the sake of laughs, Scully still has a two fused pennies and Fletcher’s redecorating job on Mulder’s apartment is still there. There is no way to reconcile the changes, however. Why do those changes still exist, but others--Scully disciplinary suspension, Kersh’s irritation at their insubordination, Fletcher’s affair with Kersh’s secretary--all go down the rabbit hole? Just to be cute at the expense of logic, I suppose.

I sound harsh here, but you should not get the impression I dislike ’Dreamland II.” I appreciate it for what it is--a frivolous comedy set to break the tension of darker episodes to come. I am not certain I can even complain about it not fitting the general motif of the series. I liked early episodes because there was a frequent theme of placing the agents in the middle of a famous horror movie scenario. Well, why not place them in a screwball comedy scenario every now and then, too? It is not the best fit, but it is not a complete waste of time, either.

A big saving grace is the moment just before Scully realizes the whole process is reversing. She and Mulder as Fletcher are standing alone in the desert with the realization there is no way to switch bodies back. Mulder and Fletcher are going to be forced to live each other’s lives permanently. There is a palpable air of sadness the team is being split up, which is a stark contrast to the irritation Scully expressed in the previous about spending her life chasing aliens with him. I think the emotions there were supposed to compel you to dismiss the without explanation reversal of everything because you were supposed to want it all to return to normal. In that sense, I suppose it works.

Final verdict--call it good, but not great. If I were in the mood to watch some of the funnier episodes, it would be a while before I got to this one. I am inclined to think Fletcher’s subsequent appearances are moe humorous. Nevertheless, it is worth watching, if for no other reason than the cast appears to be having a ball with it.

Rating: *** (out of 5)