4-D: Off the Top of My Head (SPOILERS) (December 9, 2001) Caution: spoiler for next week's ep (based on the trailer) is in the "Etc." section. 4-D (9ABX05): In a nutshell: Interesting exploration of alternate universes, albeit marred by serious lapses in logic, especially the final 2 minutes. Still, the best non-Mulder ep since "Redrum." Scully- lite, but where she's used she's used well. What I liked: - Good suspense and emotions throughout. It's no secret that I've been extremely disappointed in the show's writing since the beginning of S8, so I was really pleased by the pacing and acting in this ep. It's definitely a step in the right direction, in spite of the complaints I have about the logic of the alternate universe theory. - Kudos to the actor who played Lukesh. He was one hell of a psycho, and I mean that in the best possible way. :) - Holy continuity, Batman! I was fully prepared to sneer about Scully forgetting/otherwise not mentioning that she had seen her father in "Beyond the Sea" after he had died. But I'll be damned -- she told Monica! Yup, that made me happy. :) What I didn't like: - Note to 1013: would you *please* make a decision about who is sweet on whom in the XF universe and stick with it, for heaven's sake? Last week Doggett seemed to have it bad for Scully. This week he and Reyes have a thing goin' on. Doggett's little smirk when he brought Reyes her "housewarming gift" was not friendly-partnerly to my eyes. And I nearly gagged when Monica wiped the corner of his mouth. And then later when Monica caressed Doggett's cheek in the hospital... it just didn't work for me at all. ::sigh:: - You know, as much as I liked the concept of the parallel universe, that was just TOO huge a leap for Monica to have made at that point. And since when does she believe in that sort of stuff, anyway? That's theoretical science stuff... I thought she was into feelings and intuition and auras and ritualistic killings. Besides... - I thought there were some serious problems with the parallel universe theory as it was used in this story. How did Lukesh make the "doors" appear whenever he wanted? Just because he was angry and ready to kill? Well then, how did he make the "door" appear so he could get "back" to this universe *after* he killed? And if the universes are parallel, does that mean if you're dead in one universe you must be dead in the other universe, too? But then how can Monica be dead in one universe and alive in the other? And what was the "other" Lukesh up to? Where did he go when Lukesh went to the other universe to kill people? And when "other" Doggett accidentally followed Lukesh into "this" universe, how did Lukesh then get behind him so quickly, if at that point they were both in the same universe? (As I understand it, Lukesh's ability to escape was because he moved into the other universe.) Did Lukesh run back to the "other" universe and back again to this one quickly, and that's how he got behind Doggett? But in any case, if "other" Doggett was the one who got shot in "this" universe, where did those squad cars come from (the ones that Doggett looked at quickly, at which point Lukesh got behind him)? In "this" universe, the squad cars would not have shown up until after Doggett was shot, because the search for Lukesh was happening in the "other" universe! Ooooh, my head hurts... - ... but it doesn't hurt enough to stop me from bringing up one last thing... what made "other" Doggett think that if Monica pulled the plug, the "original" Doggett would reappear back in this universe? He already knew that Monica was dead in the other universe but alive in this one; how would he know that if he died things would sort themselves out? Besides, he didn't seem to buy any of it anyway... it certainly seemed to me as though he was only using that story to get Monica to pull the plug (i.e., he didn't want to live if he were paralyzed), in which case he was asking her to murder him... in which case she would go to jail! Did this make sense to anybody? If so, please enlighten me. What's got me puzzled: - In the teaser, why was it (sort of) important for Lukesh to open his mailbox? To prove what apartment he lived in? Surely they already knew that. And why did Monica follow Lukesh alone? Once she pulled her gun, her cover was blown, so if the idea at that point was to grab Lukesh, why didn't the other agents back her up? Especially since they were suspicious when he *didn't* open his mailbox? - I was very confused about Follmer's place in this story. Early on, when he was pissed that Skinner hadn't told him about the bullet, I would have *sworn* that he was involved, trying to set up Reyes -- it seemed to me that he knew in advance that the bullet had been fired from Reyes' gun. But then later he seemed to really be on her side, interrogating Lukesh. What gives? - At the beginning of Act II, Reyes hypothesizes that Doggett might have been investigating Lukesh. Since he's her partner, wouldn't she know what cases he had been working on? And if he got called into something at the last second on her day off (I can believe that he might not have been able to reach her while she was moving), wouldn't somebody else at the Bureau have had to know where he was? Isn't there protocol for that kind of thing? I mean, I know Mulder was notorious for taking off without telling anyone, but I thought that was just him. - How do you do "?" in Morse code? - When Reyes and Follmer were alone with Doggett, and he "typed" that Lukesh had killed Reyes, did they bring Skinner and Scully into the room? - And when Doggett claimed that Lukesh had shot him, why wasn't Lukesh's apartment searched? I know that the ballistics had shown that the bullet was from Reyes' gun, but since her gun was shown to have not been fired wouldn't they have wanted to search the guy's apartment for a weapon? - Er, how did Lukesh think it was going to help for him to kill his mother? Obviously the FBI was going to figure out pretty quickly that he was the one who killed her. And if he was going to "escape" to the alternate universe so he wouldn't be caught/prosecuted for killing her, then couldn't he have just escaped anyway and let her stay alive in this universe? I mean, I know he was a psycho so I can't expect him to have behaved rationally, but that just didn't make sense at all. Nor did it make sense for him to try to kill Monica. If he wanted the person(s) who "made" him kill his mother, wouldn't he have gone after Skinner and Follmer, who had wanted to question her? I'm so confused... - So the FBI planted a bunch of cameras in Reyes's apartment. So how did Lukesh get in without being seen? Surely they wouldn't have planted the cameras, then taken a lunch break without anybody re-checking the apartment. Did Lukesh slip in through the alternate universe door or something because he somehow knew the cameras were planted? And if so, how did he know where in the apartment he could hide without being seen by the cameras? - Why, at the end, does Monica remember what happened? I guess it makes sense that Doggett doesn't know what's going on because he was off... er, *somewhere*... but time moved backwards! And yet Monica knows it went backwards! Will Scully or Skinner or Follmer remember that something weird happened? (My guess: hell no!) Etc.: - After Monica got the call about Doggett being shot, I wrote in my notes "I can't help thinking this would be better with M&S." - Lukesh was (literally) sleeping with his mom? Ick. - Next week's ep: Flies attacking people? Squished skulls? Looks like this could be another ep with a viewer advisory.