Season 9

I'm finally making my way through Season 9 for the first time in a while. Okay, I've only watched the first episode, but the mythology by Seasons 8-9 has become so convoluted that it's kind of difficult to watch sometimes, and I want to reflect on that a bit, and the ways that the show has changed in order to adapt to the changing times and it's own confusion about its thesis. One major issue has to do with the overwhelming amount of information-- or at least, an apparently overwhelming amount of information-- packed into a 44-minute television show. There is a lot going on in these later seasons, but it's never fully explained, and a lot of characters spend a lot of time running around and talking around major issues of alien invasion, the origins of Scully's baby, how the hell Krycek gets his information and what he really wants, etc., without ever clearly elucidating what is really going on. There is so much mythology built up by this point, much of it labyrinthine and contradictory, that one starts to suspect that at the heart of it all there may be nothing but smoke and mirrors. Or inevitable alien invasion and doom to the planet.

But, come on. This is The X-Files. What was I expecting?

There is a shift, though. Part of the difference between the obfuscation of the earlier seasons and the later ones has to do with a change in line-up. Through Seasons 8-9, the character of Doggett changes the dynamic of the show, especially as the characters who have been around from the beginning start to acknowledge the truth in the seemingly outlandish claims Mulder has been making all along. I think Doggett is a great character, and that Robert Patrick' energy and enthusiasm in the role are a boon to the show, but it is sometimes to the detriment of other characters. By this point in the series Scully and even Skinner start to believe in extraterrestrial phenomena. Especially with Mulder vanished, Scully feels the need to fill his shoes, a job she isn't really cut out to do. Not only that, she's pregnant and hormonal, and so the character of Scully suddenly inhabits this emotional, intuitive territory that viewers aren't used to seeing from the cool, level-headed scientist. She can't pull of indignation the way Mulder can, and it's kind of off-putting at times.

Despite the uncomfortable change to Scully's character, I still think many of the standalone episodes of Season 8 and even into Season 9 are excellent. The initial Scully-Doggett dynamic is compelling as they work to forge a partnership and learn to trust each other. The monsters are scary, and honestly, it works better in the first half of the season with Mulder gone than after he returns. The addition of Doggett to the team makes Mulder seem like a real asshole, though I should probably save that discussion for another time. Doggett, the straight-laced New York cop, puts Mulder's penchant for doing whatever he wants into perspective. When Mulder comes back from being abducted and dead, he hardly fits into the show anymore. It's kind of jarring, when you consider that Mulder's investigations into the paranormal once drove the entire narrative of the show. In Season 8, Mulder's absence drives Scully and Doggett to pursue cases, but when he returns, no one is sure what to do with him.

Whereas it was once a toss-up as to whether the X-Files was about government conspiracy, aliens, or the compulsions of the brilliant, unstable mind of Fox Mulder, in the later seasons, the truth of paranormal activity has to be taken for granted, even if we're not really sure what it is that we are expected to believe. Scully's in on it, Skinner's in on it, and even Doggett is forced to believe in things he might not believe in otherwise. Deputy Director Kirsch is the lone government baddie (who hasn't been turned into a super soldier or been replaced by an alien), and he seems to play by the book out of stubbornness more than anything else. Why does he have to be such a jerk? Because, at this point, someone has to be the naysayer.

Thus the introduction of the Super Soldier. Here we have some new aliens, some unstoppable ones, who take the place of abductees (or, it starts to seem, whomever they feel like replacing), and have skeletons made of metal, super strength, and can breathe underwater. The creepy shadows, the unseen aliens, and flashes of unreliable memory have been replaced with unstoppable super villains! With new characters, new menaces, and and even more unknowns than ever before, it's almost as if the X-Files has undergone an alien replacement of its own. On the outside, I'll buy that it's the same show, but I can't help but wonder if there is something fishy lurking below the surface.

Continuation of the Black Oil's Development

In Season 5, the Black Oil seems to act as a hybrid between the Black Oil of Season 3 and Season 4. In Patient X, Krycek infects a young boy with the Black Oil in order to prevent him from The boy's eyes, nose, and mouth become inflamed, similar to human responses to the green blood of the Alien Bounty Hunter and the alien-human hybrid clones. He does not initially seem infected, unlike season 4 portrayals in which the infected person merely becomes incapacitated. Here the oil body jumps to Marita Covarrubias. Covarrubias then becomes a test subject for the Syndicate, who are attempting to develop a vaccine against the black oil/alien virus. The virus will be used to infect mass populations through the use of bees and genetically modified corn grown for pollen. In the X-Files feature film, two new developments emerge: it becomes clear that the Black Oil had been present on the earth at the time of cavemen, and existed as the blood of an organism that also inhabited the planet at that time. It also becomes clear that the virus has mutated in the present time, causing a new organism to gestate in the host it inhabits, consuming the host and then birthing itself from the host's chest. These changes leave the black oil as an almost entirely different entity than it appears as in "Piper Maru." Over the course of two seasons, the Black Oil shifts significantly, using humans as transportation, then as sustenance, and finally as a means of creating a new being that entirely supplants the host.

Season 7 Irony and Requiem

While I have on occasion disparaged season 7 of The X-Files as one of its weaker seasons: the mythology essentially comes to a standstill, and David Duchovny seems less than enamored with remaining on the show. Moreover, the show gains a self-awareness of its own formula, and, with the imminent threat of colonization at bay and the Syndicate burned alive, the stakes are not as high, and Mulder's quest may at times even seem futile.

However, on closer inspection, the show still maintains 'signs & wonders' and 'chimera,' both episodes present near the beginning of the episode a clear 'villain'-- Enoch O'Connor, the pastor of the Signs and Wonders church and Jenny, the outcast in a Desperate Housewives-esque suburbia, whom the audience expects to be the perpetrator of the killings. However, in both cases, the perpetrator turns out to be the presumed 'good guy,' and Mulder figures this out not quite just in time: The 'good' pastor, Mackey, escapes so that he might wreak havoc on other congregations. The only reason Ellen stops her rampage of jealousy and doom is that she catches her reflection in the bathtub water (so it's a good thing that she was trying to drown Mulder), and, unlike a mirror, that reflection can't be broken. She is forced to acknowledge what she has become and stops trying to kill Mulder. Although Mulder makes both of these realizations, it is not in time to stop the 'bad guy,' and it is really only through coincidence that he himself is saved. in both cases the mistake and realization is distinctly on Mulder's shoulders.

These two episodes foreshadow "Requiem," the season 7 finale. People are being abducted: Mulder's, and the audience's, immediate thought is concern for Scully since she is a former abductee. however, this follows the irony of these other episodes, in that it is Mulder, not Scully who needs saving, and by the time Mulder realizes that he will be abducted it is too late to turn back. He seems to calmly accept this fate. Once again he understands the situation too late, but in this case he is not able to save himself, while in the other episodes circumstance allows his survival. This foreshadowing lends a sense of fatality to the episodes, highlighting the inevitability of Mulder's abduction as Mulder finally experiences that which he has sought for so long to validate.

Vortex of Deception

"The truth, the truth. There is no truth. These men, they make it up as they go along." -- Alex Krycek, "Tunguska"

In a particularly witty moment, the writers of The X-Files have the double-crossing rat bastard Krycek utter these words of truth. While Krycek refers to the shadow government Syndicate, who layer narrative upon narrative, coverup upon coverup, never revealing which lies are truths and which truths lies, he unknowingly speaks for the creators of the series. This self-referential comment shows the ways in which narrative control both within the show and within the context of the show's creation determines power structures in the show. What information is available to Mulder and Scully? What information is available to the viewer? Is this how viewers should think of the truth, as constantly shifting and elusive, or as a beacon constant, as Mulder seems to view it? Does the show ask that the viewer determine a truth or make sense of it, or can we trust our heroes to find those answers for us? Or do we disbelieve Krycek, because he is, in fact, a terrible human being?

The Development of the Black Oil Through Season 4

"Apocrypha" builds upon observations of the Black Oil made in Piper Maru: that an alien life form uses the oil as a medium to "body jump," as Mulder says, using humans as hosts. The oil, "50-weight deisel oil," has also been altered by radiation, raising the question of whether the oil is altered and then serves as a medium, or is altered due to the presence of the alien organism. The first appearance of "decontamination" of the Black Oil occurs in "Apocrypha," in which, the Black Oil being reuinited with its ship, leaves Krycek as he vomits it out every orifice in his face. "Apocrypha," interestingly, also corroborates the flahsback of "Piper Maru," albeit through a flashback within a flashback, whose current point of transmission is unclear. At this point, the flahsback becomes generally accessible, referenced twice in two different episodes. It is true that the title of the episode casts doubt on its validity; apocryphal texts are scriptures whose authenticity or relevance become ultimately unreliable.
The Black Oil, which had previously been limited to context within the last 50 years expands to a larger historical context in season 4. Samples from the rock in the mysterious diplomatic pouch indicate the the material arrived as a part of a 4 billion year old rock which crashed to earth as a part of a meteor in Tunguska, Russia in 1908. Mulder describes this as the greatest cosmic event in the history of civilization, and, in fact, the show's account corresponds with an actual unexplained event. However, the season 4 Black Oil is strikingly different from the Season 3 Black Oil, and questions could be raised at this point in the series as to whether they are actually the same material or organism. In "Tunguska" the Black Oil comes from core samples and the inside of an ancient rock, and assumes a worm-like shape, crawling in order to inhabit its host. Rather than control its host, as seen in Season 3, the wormy oil seems merely to incapacitate. When the geologist examining the rock becomes infected, despite wearing a level 4 HazMat suit, Scully can't at first tell if he's "dead or alive." The inside of his suit is covered with an oily film, and he appears to be in a coma. When Scully and Pendrell later examine the man, Scully finds a "black vermiform organism attached to the pineal gland."(The pineal gland, according to Wikipedia is an " endocrine gland in the vertebrate brain. It produces melatonin, a hormone that affects the modulation of wake/sleep patterns and photoperiodic (seasonal) functions.")It becomes clear in these episodes that the wormy oil is being used in a testing capacity by both Americans and Russians (on the elderly and convicts, respectively), though Vasily Peskov does a fair job at eliminating those responsible and victims of American testing. In the gulag in Tunguska, Mulder becomes part of the experiment as well. The tests are also linked to small pox vaccinations, as they are only performed on those who have been vaccinated and genetically tagged as a result.

Fallen Angel and Madness

The episode Fallen Angel introduced one of the most important re-occurring themes of the series: the parallel between Mulder's beliefs, and madmen. Mulder connects with Max, another fervent believer in UFOs. While Scully believes they are examining a situation where radiation is being emitted by nuclear weapons, Mulder (of course) believes that there is a UFO cover up at work.

What makes this episode interesting to me is that the situation is very clearly actually a UFO conspiracy. Rather than getting only the information that Mulder and Scully receive the viewer is also privy to information that shows that there is no nuclear warhead. The object in question is definitely a UFO. The interesting part comes in with the character Max.

Max is a sort of progenitor to the Lone Gunmen. He has a UFO chasing trailer which he lives in, and the long hair and glasses of a loner geek who doesn't get out much. At first, Max serve as a corroborator to Mulder. Considering that neither Mulder or Scully knows what exactly is going on, the addition of Max serves to rattle Scully (if even a little bit) about the possibility of a government cover up. Max and Mulder are basically on the same page. Max is even the head of a major UFO conspiracy tracking group. However, after a seizure it is revealed that Max suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and that he has been off his meds. Mulder's own theories about the case are now paralleled to those of a possibley crazy man. Yet, doubt is only exacerbated because it is not clear that Max is actually delusional.

The Black Oil and the Nature of Viruses

The black oil is representative of fears and anxieties of contamination and control. The construction of the oil seems to draw on pop mythologies surrounding virology. Viruses are intriguing as sources of anxiety in a modern mythology on many levels. Viruses are mysterious, they fall under the realm of scientific anomalies that scientists in secret labs study with bio-protective suits.

Viruses are an essential components of the X-Files mythology, and correspondingly modern mythologies.

Here is a part of a recent New York Times article which gives some background of viral physiology:

"The current outbreak shows how complex and mysterious the evolution of viruses is. That complexity and mystery are all the more remarkable because a virus is life reduced to its essentials. A human influenza virus, for example, is a protein shell measuring about five-millionths of an inch across, with 10 genes inside. (We have about 20,000.)

Some viruses use DNA, like we do, to encode their genes. Others, like the influenza virus, use single-strand RNA. But viruses all have one thing in common, said Roland Wolkowicz, a molecular virologist at San Diego State University: they all reproduce by disintegrating and then reforming.

A human flu virus, for example, latches onto a cell in the lining of the nose or throat. It manipulates a receptor on the cell so that the cell engulfs it, whereupon the virus’s genes are released from its protein shell. The host cell begins making genes and proteins that spontaneously assemble into new viruses. “No other entity out there is able to do that,” Dr. Wolkowicz said. “To me, this is what defines a virus.”

The sheer number of viruses on Earth is beyond our ability to imagine. “In a small drop of water there are a billion viruses,” Dr. Wolkowicz said. Virologists have estimated that there are a million trillion trillion viruses in the world’s oceans.

Viruses are also turning out to be astonishingly diverse. Shannon Williamson of the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Md., has been analyzing the genes of ocean viruses. A tank of 100 to 200 liters of sea water may hold 100,000 genetically distinct viruses. “We’re just scratching the surface of virus diversity,” Dr. Williamson said. “I think we’re going to be continually surprised.”

Viruses are diverse because they can mutate very fast and can mix genes. They sometimes pick up genes from their hosts, and they can swap genes with other viruses. Some viruses, including flu viruses, carry out a kind of mixing known as reassortment. If two different flu viruses infect the same cell, the new copies of their genes get jumbled up as new viruses are assembled.

Viruses were probably infecting the earliest primordial microbes. “I believe viruses have been around forever,” Dr. Wolkowicz said. "