The X-Files 2x16: Colony
Sep. 5th, 2018 06:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urth posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tori_reviewsThe X-Files 2x16: Colony
So for reasons that defy explanation, this was the last episode I watched on my attempt at a rewatch a couple years ago. Why I would stop in the middle of a two-parter I never could explain except that I had run out of interest apparently. And while I don’t think it makes any sense, a little of the reason might be that this episode is not that good on its own, whether the story as a whole works I can’t say until next time. But this episode is very slow, and puts emphasis in weird places of the story.
Logically, in story, it makes sense that the return of Samantha isn’t the focus of the story. Her return is a reaction to the rest of the plot, so the rest of the plot needs focus to justify the...whoever is behind her return taking this step. And yet, we are not given any real hook-in to make us invested in her apparent return. We don’t know the Mulder parents, we aren’t given much chance to get to know them or Samantha, which puts the weight of this plot on Mulder and DD just isn’t carrying it. I’m actually not going to go so far as to say he does a bad job here, but he is way underselling what should be this huge moment for the character and for the show. There is a legitimate choice to play Mulder as unsure and distrustful and reserved, but if there was ever a moment that ‘I want to believe’ should be the dominant characterization, it’s here. Even if he’s well aware it could be a trap or a setup or a full-on lie, he would be desperate to believe, and I don’t get that vibe.
I question if Bill Mulder knows this isn’t Samantha. If he does, then damn, calling Ma Mulder and our Mulder in is kind of cruel. If he doesn’t, then doesn’t he have a few other calls he might want to make before calling the family home? It’s weird, because introducing him while smoking a cigarette seems to deliberately be linking him with Cancerman (if it was going to be a few seasons before we got the reveal that Bill was part of the conspiracy I might say it just seemed like setup in hindsight, but seeing as I know the connection will be made by the end of the season, this sure looks like foreshadowing) but this episode also doesn’t seem to have fully thought that through. Some of his actions don’t make much sense in the full context, and some things make a lot more sense with context; for example him keeping his distance from Samantha here makes quite a bit of sense if you consider his role in her being abducted in the first place. (Though, I suppose this episode is working hard to establish Bill as a distant father, so it could make sense in that context apart from the larger view.)
Not having Scully be part of the Samantha question (I’m not even sure she’s aware of that issue by the end of the episode, I’m not sure Mulder included that in their near endless rounds of phone tag, which is fair as it’s not really voicemail intel) further keeps us at a distance from the impact it should have. If Scully was there she would have raised a lot of issues that the Mulder family doesn’t seem inclined to express; and I don’t just mean asking the questions (she might well not push on that any more than they do considering her own experiences), I mean pointing out that if true this is a gods-damned miracle; and Mulder would have someone to actually talk to about what he’s feeling rather than us having to guess at DD’s acting choices which tell us very little. Maybe all this gets better handled in the next episode, as we’re flying bind (in this case) I can’t say right now.
I’m not sure why this episode starts with the flash-forward. I guess maybe telling us that something actiony will happen next time since this episode doesn’t have much if any, but it doesn’t even do a very good job at that; it doesn’t bring us back to that later in the episode, and doesn’t even connect what’s happening to Mulder then with the toxic blood when we’re given that setup. And this episode has plenty of questions that would actually work to bring people back for part 2.
The main case is interesting, but the Samantha stuff is obviously where the heart should be (whether or not it succeeds). Following up on a lot of the Purity Control elements from the s1 finale and expanding the mytharc with a few new elements is stuff I appreciate (my relationship with the mytharc remains a topic I plan to focus a discussion on at some point). But that’s a matter of ‘interest,’ and I think by now (including in what I’ve focused this review on) we’re well established that what really gets me going is the heart and the characters. And this has a plot that should be all about heart and character, but it comes to the party late and doesn’t fully dive into those elements. And we’re actually far enough into the show at this point that I’m less willing to give it points for trying; especially when they do big arc stuff so rarely, when they do they should hit it out of the park.
I’m not super convinced I said that very well...oh well, one last time I can hope I said things better a couple years ago.
Is that continuity?
They actually don’t draw a lot of attention to the elements that are callbacks to Erlenmeyer, which I can’t make up my mind if that’s was the best way to handle it or not, a solid maybe.
Are we saying it’s aliens?
Samantha is taunting Mulder and the audience with whether she’s talking about alien aliens or foreign aliens. But considering one faction can shapeshift and both have toxic blood they seem pretty alien.
Scully’s convenient miss of the week
There’s a couple of them in the chase scene, she’s off calling an ambulance when the one guy gets up from falling out a window, then she’s behind the bounty hunter (probably fortunately) when he punctures their quarry. Also, all the phone tag probably counts.
Break-ins
It’s not so much a break in at the end, Scully is being stalked and let the bounty hunter in while he’s disguised as Mulder.
The gang that’s here
The Alien Bounty Hunter arrives; also the Mulder family (including generally accepted Samantha), also Skinner (who seems a bit regressed in character since we last saw him).
People allowed to call Mulder Fox
His mom, dad, and apparent sister; which is all fair but it means we spend a lot of time hearing him called Fox this time and it’s kind of weird.
Who’s driving?
I only noticed Scully driving, though I think Mulder might have been when they went over to the last doctor’s place.
Who’s your daddy?
I will never believe that it was always planned to have Cancerman be Mulder’s father, the smoking parallel was almost certainly supposed to foreshadow Bill’s involvement in the conspiracy instead of anything else; but still, if I’m willing to pretend it was planned, it could be seen as foreshadowing for both.
Can DD act?
He’s not bad, as noted above, but he’s not good either. This episode had a high bar needed to carry his plot, and he isn’t that good. He’s good enough that in less demanding episodes he does fine, but adequate isn’t enough here. Though I stand by saying that giving him Scully to bounce off of instead of her answering machine would have made the hurdles easier to clear, especially with GA’s assistance.
Does GA deserve an Emmy?
I don’t know about an Emmy, but her cartoonishly huge eyes in the final few shots probably deserve some kind of recognition.
Wow that’s uncomfortable in hindsight
While it’s not Samantha here, elements of the story she tells do register as used in Closure (just that the family she came back to was the Spenders). And even though I have been watching pieces of later episodes while I’ve been catching up on these early ones, I don’t see myself touching Closure until I have to. There may be worse episodes in the series, but nothing stands out in my memory as such a betrayal as Closure; that episode hurt me 18 years ago and I have never forgiven it nor rewatched it.
So, my thoughts were pretty different last time...I think, the writing seems pretty bad on this one, but I’ll include it anyway, as next time we won’t have one to include.
2x16: Colony (2016 thoughts)
(Previous status: I’m sure I have seen it before but I don’t remember much of it besides it being a two-parter and that it was important in the Samantha mystery)
Unfortunately I’ve taken a bit of a break in watching these, a bit over three weeks actually, so my relationship with the show isn’t what it was before I kept putting it off. Part of the problem was I knew this was an important one and two episodes worth so I didn’t want to just kind of squeeze it in one evening especially fearing having to take a break in the middle (we’ll see), but ended up losing all momentum and ongoing immersion in the show by doing it this way. Actually these probably weren’t aired in consecutive weeks at the time as TXF did like it’s cliffhangers over any length of hiatus so I probably would have done better to start and sort of simulate that.
As for an episode, I liked it. It’s a bit of a slow build, but it works for it and there’s quite a bit of character and plot building going on. Although the levels of phone tag required to have things play out exactly as they did was comical. I suppose it was all building to the final scene but even for the 90s a lot of the choices for how calls were made didn’t seem make sense.
Most of my critique of the story will wait until both parts are told, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do the usual checks. I think Scully’s a pretty interesting place at this point. She seems to have taken the ‘Trust no one’ thing much more seriously than Mulder, understandable since she actually heard Deep Throat say it. She also does clearly know ‘Things are going on,’ she just isn’t as quick to assume those Things aren’t terrestrial in origin.
For the record, I couldn’t remember anything about Agent Imposter so I couldn’t remember if he was an imposter or the real deal that would end up dead somewhere in this story (and that’s as a viewer knowing the shapeshifting abilities that the characters definitely didn’t at that point. I found him fishy at first the way he made contact with Mulder, but his story seemed...plausible in so far as it was what he was being fed about why the Gregors were important but wasn’t a fantastic enough truth for TXF. But by the time Mulder and Scully got to arguing about it, Mulder seemed naïve in how trusting he was and kind of a dick to Scully being still less paranoid than Mulder would usually be.
Which brings me to sort of a weird Mulder check; where I’m currently supposing that DD’s limited acting chops may have given the scenes with the Mulder family as interesting vibe that might not have been there in a more layered take. This is a card that could only be played this specific way once, and logically doesn’t even entirely fit here but is the way it comes across; simply trusting it to be true. Her story logically makes little to no sense, it should all be questioned extensively, treated with caution and suspicion; but he doesn’t seem to question it at all, swept up in the moment (convenient that Scully wasn’t part of it, to point out to him that she definitely wants it to be true for him and his family, but there needs to be some checking done). Now that could have been done with a nuanced portrayal of things too but it definitely works as is.
On the subject of Samantha, I don’t know exactly how hard to be on them for not being suspicious. I excuse it in character because these people want it to be true so badly and Mulder hasn’t quite realized yet that ‘Trust no one’ extends into his own family, so while maybe he should realize how Samantha’s story doesn’t really work because the situation is that suspicious, some part of him does think that his family is still a safe spot in that. But more to the point, as already established in this episode, I’m a pretty trusting person (I can handle ‘trust but verify’ but just suspecting everyone isn’t my style). I also can’t remember what I thought when I saw this episode for the first time to even start to judge if it’s the fact that I know approximately where this is going, if I’m just older and more familiar with television in general, or understanding this show specifically, or if she really is that obviously leading Mulder on.
For now, more in part two.
(or not it turned out)
So for reasons that defy explanation, this was the last episode I watched on my attempt at a rewatch a couple years ago. Why I would stop in the middle of a two-parter I never could explain except that I had run out of interest apparently. And while I don’t think it makes any sense, a little of the reason might be that this episode is not that good on its own, whether the story as a whole works I can’t say until next time. But this episode is very slow, and puts emphasis in weird places of the story.
Logically, in story, it makes sense that the return of Samantha isn’t the focus of the story. Her return is a reaction to the rest of the plot, so the rest of the plot needs focus to justify the...whoever is behind her return taking this step. And yet, we are not given any real hook-in to make us invested in her apparent return. We don’t know the Mulder parents, we aren’t given much chance to get to know them or Samantha, which puts the weight of this plot on Mulder and DD just isn’t carrying it. I’m actually not going to go so far as to say he does a bad job here, but he is way underselling what should be this huge moment for the character and for the show. There is a legitimate choice to play Mulder as unsure and distrustful and reserved, but if there was ever a moment that ‘I want to believe’ should be the dominant characterization, it’s here. Even if he’s well aware it could be a trap or a setup or a full-on lie, he would be desperate to believe, and I don’t get that vibe.
I question if Bill Mulder knows this isn’t Samantha. If he does, then damn, calling Ma Mulder and our Mulder in is kind of cruel. If he doesn’t, then doesn’t he have a few other calls he might want to make before calling the family home? It’s weird, because introducing him while smoking a cigarette seems to deliberately be linking him with Cancerman (if it was going to be a few seasons before we got the reveal that Bill was part of the conspiracy I might say it just seemed like setup in hindsight, but seeing as I know the connection will be made by the end of the season, this sure looks like foreshadowing) but this episode also doesn’t seem to have fully thought that through. Some of his actions don’t make much sense in the full context, and some things make a lot more sense with context; for example him keeping his distance from Samantha here makes quite a bit of sense if you consider his role in her being abducted in the first place. (Though, I suppose this episode is working hard to establish Bill as a distant father, so it could make sense in that context apart from the larger view.)
Not having Scully be part of the Samantha question (I’m not even sure she’s aware of that issue by the end of the episode, I’m not sure Mulder included that in their near endless rounds of phone tag, which is fair as it’s not really voicemail intel) further keeps us at a distance from the impact it should have. If Scully was there she would have raised a lot of issues that the Mulder family doesn’t seem inclined to express; and I don’t just mean asking the questions (she might well not push on that any more than they do considering her own experiences), I mean pointing out that if true this is a gods-damned miracle; and Mulder would have someone to actually talk to about what he’s feeling rather than us having to guess at DD’s acting choices which tell us very little. Maybe all this gets better handled in the next episode, as we’re flying bind (in this case) I can’t say right now.
I’m not sure why this episode starts with the flash-forward. I guess maybe telling us that something actiony will happen next time since this episode doesn’t have much if any, but it doesn’t even do a very good job at that; it doesn’t bring us back to that later in the episode, and doesn’t even connect what’s happening to Mulder then with the toxic blood when we’re given that setup. And this episode has plenty of questions that would actually work to bring people back for part 2.
The main case is interesting, but the Samantha stuff is obviously where the heart should be (whether or not it succeeds). Following up on a lot of the Purity Control elements from the s1 finale and expanding the mytharc with a few new elements is stuff I appreciate (my relationship with the mytharc remains a topic I plan to focus a discussion on at some point). But that’s a matter of ‘interest,’ and I think by now (including in what I’ve focused this review on) we’re well established that what really gets me going is the heart and the characters. And this has a plot that should be all about heart and character, but it comes to the party late and doesn’t fully dive into those elements. And we’re actually far enough into the show at this point that I’m less willing to give it points for trying; especially when they do big arc stuff so rarely, when they do they should hit it out of the park.
I’m not super convinced I said that very well...oh well, one last time I can hope I said things better a couple years ago.
Is that continuity?
They actually don’t draw a lot of attention to the elements that are callbacks to Erlenmeyer, which I can’t make up my mind if that’s was the best way to handle it or not, a solid maybe.
Are we saying it’s aliens?
Samantha is taunting Mulder and the audience with whether she’s talking about alien aliens or foreign aliens. But considering one faction can shapeshift and both have toxic blood they seem pretty alien.
Scully’s convenient miss of the week
There’s a couple of them in the chase scene, she’s off calling an ambulance when the one guy gets up from falling out a window, then she’s behind the bounty hunter (probably fortunately) when he punctures their quarry. Also, all the phone tag probably counts.
Break-ins
It’s not so much a break in at the end, Scully is being stalked and let the bounty hunter in while he’s disguised as Mulder.
The gang that’s here
The Alien Bounty Hunter arrives; also the Mulder family (including generally accepted Samantha), also Skinner (who seems a bit regressed in character since we last saw him).
People allowed to call Mulder Fox
His mom, dad, and apparent sister; which is all fair but it means we spend a lot of time hearing him called Fox this time and it’s kind of weird.
Who’s driving?
I only noticed Scully driving, though I think Mulder might have been when they went over to the last doctor’s place.
Who’s your daddy?
I will never believe that it was always planned to have Cancerman be Mulder’s father, the smoking parallel was almost certainly supposed to foreshadow Bill’s involvement in the conspiracy instead of anything else; but still, if I’m willing to pretend it was planned, it could be seen as foreshadowing for both.
Can DD act?
He’s not bad, as noted above, but he’s not good either. This episode had a high bar needed to carry his plot, and he isn’t that good. He’s good enough that in less demanding episodes he does fine, but adequate isn’t enough here. Though I stand by saying that giving him Scully to bounce off of instead of her answering machine would have made the hurdles easier to clear, especially with GA’s assistance.
Does GA deserve an Emmy?
I don’t know about an Emmy, but her cartoonishly huge eyes in the final few shots probably deserve some kind of recognition.
Wow that’s uncomfortable in hindsight
While it’s not Samantha here, elements of the story she tells do register as used in Closure (just that the family she came back to was the Spenders). And even though I have been watching pieces of later episodes while I’ve been catching up on these early ones, I don’t see myself touching Closure until I have to. There may be worse episodes in the series, but nothing stands out in my memory as such a betrayal as Closure; that episode hurt me 18 years ago and I have never forgiven it nor rewatched it.
So, my thoughts were pretty different last time...I think, the writing seems pretty bad on this one, but I’ll include it anyway, as next time we won’t have one to include.
2x16: Colony (2016 thoughts)
(Previous status: I’m sure I have seen it before but I don’t remember much of it besides it being a two-parter and that it was important in the Samantha mystery)
Unfortunately I’ve taken a bit of a break in watching these, a bit over three weeks actually, so my relationship with the show isn’t what it was before I kept putting it off. Part of the problem was I knew this was an important one and two episodes worth so I didn’t want to just kind of squeeze it in one evening especially fearing having to take a break in the middle (we’ll see), but ended up losing all momentum and ongoing immersion in the show by doing it this way. Actually these probably weren’t aired in consecutive weeks at the time as TXF did like it’s cliffhangers over any length of hiatus so I probably would have done better to start and sort of simulate that.
As for an episode, I liked it. It’s a bit of a slow build, but it works for it and there’s quite a bit of character and plot building going on. Although the levels of phone tag required to have things play out exactly as they did was comical. I suppose it was all building to the final scene but even for the 90s a lot of the choices for how calls were made didn’t seem make sense.
Most of my critique of the story will wait until both parts are told, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do the usual checks. I think Scully’s a pretty interesting place at this point. She seems to have taken the ‘Trust no one’ thing much more seriously than Mulder, understandable since she actually heard Deep Throat say it. She also does clearly know ‘Things are going on,’ she just isn’t as quick to assume those Things aren’t terrestrial in origin.
For the record, I couldn’t remember anything about Agent Imposter so I couldn’t remember if he was an imposter or the real deal that would end up dead somewhere in this story (and that’s as a viewer knowing the shapeshifting abilities that the characters definitely didn’t at that point. I found him fishy at first the way he made contact with Mulder, but his story seemed...plausible in so far as it was what he was being fed about why the Gregors were important but wasn’t a fantastic enough truth for TXF. But by the time Mulder and Scully got to arguing about it, Mulder seemed naïve in how trusting he was and kind of a dick to Scully being still less paranoid than Mulder would usually be.
Which brings me to sort of a weird Mulder check; where I’m currently supposing that DD’s limited acting chops may have given the scenes with the Mulder family as interesting vibe that might not have been there in a more layered take. This is a card that could only be played this specific way once, and logically doesn’t even entirely fit here but is the way it comes across; simply trusting it to be true. Her story logically makes little to no sense, it should all be questioned extensively, treated with caution and suspicion; but he doesn’t seem to question it at all, swept up in the moment (convenient that Scully wasn’t part of it, to point out to him that she definitely wants it to be true for him and his family, but there needs to be some checking done). Now that could have been done with a nuanced portrayal of things too but it definitely works as is.
On the subject of Samantha, I don’t know exactly how hard to be on them for not being suspicious. I excuse it in character because these people want it to be true so badly and Mulder hasn’t quite realized yet that ‘Trust no one’ extends into his own family, so while maybe he should realize how Samantha’s story doesn’t really work because the situation is that suspicious, some part of him does think that his family is still a safe spot in that. But more to the point, as already established in this episode, I’m a pretty trusting person (I can handle ‘trust but verify’ but just suspecting everyone isn’t my style). I also can’t remember what I thought when I saw this episode for the first time to even start to judge if it’s the fact that I know approximately where this is going, if I’m just older and more familiar with television in general, or understanding this show specifically, or if she really is that obviously leading Mulder on.
For now, more in part two.
(or not it turned out)
