X-Files--"The Sixth Extinction"

“The Sixth Extinction“ marks the beginning of the seventh season. This is the final season in which it is just Mulder and Scully investigating the paranormal. There is a palpable sense the show is sputtering to and end even though it will earn and additional two seasons. At the time, however, it was generally assumed seven was going to be it. There is a lot of phoning it in going on. A few old stories are wrapped up from the darker days of the show, but there is by and large a lighter, often slapstick tone to the episodes. There are some high points, but they are few and far between.

The big indication things were falling apart behind the scenes was a l$25 million lawsuit filed by Duchovny over the summer hiatus between the sixth and seventh seasons. Duchovny claimed he had been cheated out of profit sharing for the series--the show had earned FOX $1.4 billion by that point in first run, syndication, merchandizing, and movie gross--by selling rights to subsidiary companies at a cheaper price. His complaint further alleged show runner Chris Carter had conspired with FOX in exchange for a guaranteed pilot to series pick up. (Said pilot turned out to be the flop Harsh Realm, so that was a bad deal for carter and FOX.) Suing the powers that be does not exactly create a healthy, happy work environment.

In Duchovny;s defense, Carter also filed a lawsuit against FOX seven years later for breach of contract. His suit made similar claims to Duchovny’s. FOX has a history of being sued over alleged profit-sharing shenanigans, including Alan Alda suing over MASH profits. So while I do think Duchovny is a bit of a jackass, he may have had a point here. But I digress. I miss legal ranglings.

A significant point of note is several episode were written by series stars David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and William B. Davis. All but davis directed their episode, too. Like with Duchovny‘s “The Unnatural”, the episodes fit awkwardly into the theme of the series, but are generally entertaining. We will get to each one eventually, but as a concept, they feel like wish fullfiliment to keep the stars on the reservation while filling out a 22 episode order.

To everyone’s surprise, the series was renewed twice over, with a limited role for Duchovny. But we will get to that towards the end of the month. For now…

“The Sixth Extinction” refers to the concept there have been five mass extinctions of species in the history of Earth. The sixth refers to man destroying himself through war, disease, pollution, fatty foods, repeated reruns of Jersey Shore--whatever you think is most likely to be the twilight of the human race. The concept is hinted at as Scully remains in West Africa to translate the markings on the spacecraft. They turn out to be a combination of human gene sequence and doomsday passages from the world’s religious and pagan texts. For goos measure, Scully experiences a plague of locusts and the local water turning to blood to show the apocalyptic religious texts hold more meaning.

Meanwhile, Skinner is attempting to help Mulder communicate as he sleeps further into madness. He recruits Michael Kritsgau, the Department of Defense employee who blew the whistle on the (highly implausible) government creation of the UFO myth to distract Americans from the Cold War, to use a CIA drugging methos to slow down Mulder’s increasingly kinetic brain activity. It works long enough to demonstrate mulder’s newfound psychic abilities. The two are discovered and banned from seeing him again. Fowley visit’s the comatose agent to hint she has plans for him .

The whole sequence with mulder feels added in for the purpose of splitting up scully’s story at dramatic points, but for little other reason. Not that her story is all that compelling, either. She does not translate enough of the writings to be useful before Dr. Barnes, apparently guided there by Alex Krycek, shows up to hold her prisoner for a while. She escapes to head back to the united States where she hangs all her hopes on Mulder recovering enough to guide her with his now enhanced mental abilities.

Scully’s story is narrated by her in either a journal entry or letter to Mulder in which she describes how desperate she is to cure him. Would he please hold on for her? The narration is full of all sorts of lovey dovey overtones which do not generate then emotional impact it was obviously intended to do. She ends by begging him to hold on while standing by his hospital bed. Strangely, the episode does not end on that high emotional point, but on Barnes being murdered back in West Africa. Why/ From a dramtic standpoint, we care about Mulder and Scully. Having a to be continued after Scully begs him not to die makes far more sense than ending on the death of an incidental character, particularly when we have not been let in on why we should care. This is the guy who was holding scully prisoner for two acts, after all. He is the bad guy. We want to see him get his. Why is his death so foreboding we need to back back next week for the explanation?

Why come back next week indeed? “The Sixth Extinction” is a slow paced embrace of pantheistic doomsday junk interrupted vy a drugged out mulder doing card tricks. To prove his psychic abilities have not made him a total loon. I cannot say it helps much, but one wonders if his constantly being strepped to a hospital bed appearing on the verge of drooling all over himself was not a jab at the lawsuit I mentioned above. I almost felt sorry for the undignified way he was presented. Almost. Even for the middle of a three part story, this episode was terribly anemic.

The saving grace? Look at the photo above. A sweat drenched scully in a white tank top menacingly brandishing a machete? That is pretty much the bulk of the episode. One cannot complain much about that. Maybe Carter put her like that on purpose because he knew how weak the rest of the syory arc was. It only grants the episode one additional star to raise “The Sixth Extinction” above clunker.

Rating: ** (out of 5)