Alone: Off the Top of My Head (SPOILERS) (May 6, 2001) Caution: spoiler for next week's ep (based on the trailer) is in the "Etc." section. ALONE (8ABX19): In a nutshell: Doggett and Agent Leyla Harrison (a fantastic tribute, IMO) chase after a reptile man. Mulder and Scully come to the rescue. Not an outstanding ep, but certainly one of the best of a lackluster season. What I liked: - Agent Leyla Harrison. Was she adorable, or what? What a great tribute to fanfic writer Leyla Harrison. 1013, if you're reading, and if there must be a Season 9: dump Agent Reyes and bring back Agent Harrison. She's a *much* more interesting character. (My only quibble: Harrison looks too much like Marita Covarrubias.) - Scully emptying out her desk: she took her flashlight! She found the coin from Dreamland! She had Queequeg's dog tag! And the keychain! But I found Scully's speech to Doggett amusing -- gee, and Mulder had told her that he thought it was just a cool keychain. - I was happy to hear Doggett say, more or less for the record, that Kersh is no friend of TXF. - "I'm so excited to be a part of this -- aren't you?" Yay, Agent Harrison! Sure, she was being naive, but that's OK with me -- as long as she learns, and she did. Have I mentioned that I want to see this character again? - I also like that Agent Harrison was bucking the trend and wearing a light-colored trenchcoat -- symbolic of her innocence? - More continuity -- the book "The Sixth Extinction." - Mulder telling Stites that his name was Alvin Kersh. How much do I love this man? - Sunflower seeds! Woo hoo! - Doggett to Mulder and Scully at the hospital: "Is this it?" LOL! Well, she's been pregnant for a good 12 months now; no wonder he was asking that question. - OK, it was completely out of character -- it seemed more like DD and GA talking to each other than Mulder and Scully, or something more suited to a "lite" ep -- but the M/S bantering in Harrison's hospital room was hysterical. Further proof that both DD and GA can do humor as well as drama. :) - Overall, lots of nice tie-ins to previous eps -- maybe this ep should have been named "Continuity" instead of "Alone." What I didn't like: - Scully endangering her unborn child to try to help find Doggett. Umm, Scully? *Doctor* Scully? There's a reason your obstetrician insisted that you take your maternity leave now. You know, I wouldn't have minded if it were clear that absolutely no one except for Scully could have done the pathology in this case. Yet we see her working with another woman who certainly appeared to be qualified. And obviously someone else besides Scully had figured out that reptile venom was involved, since Mulder knew before Scully told him. Gee, I thought only Mulder was important enough to Scully for her to take such a big health risk. Guess this is just one more reason for us to think that Doggett is special. Grr. Well, at least Mulder was calling her on it. - When Scully was talking to Mulder in that autopsy bay, why was she calling the case an X-File? So the body's eyes had reptile venom in them. Did anyone discuss what kind of reptiles might use this venom, or whether they are indigenous to Western New York State? Nope. Did anyone suggest that a person might, for some reason, have been trying to blind people using reptile venom? Nope. We skipped over all of that and went straight from SRE to XFE. Feh. What's got me puzzled: - So Arlen Sacks knew that the creature was going to return for him? The way his heartrate went up, he was definitely expecting something bad to happen. Why didn't he let his son know? And why didn't that heart monitor sound an alarm when Arlen's heartrate went through the roof? If seemed like it only sounded when he was disconnected. - And why did the creature just dump Arlen's body in the woods? Was it because the body was of no use once he died of heart failure? - How did Agent Harrison get assigned so quickly? From the way Scully was talking to Doggett, it seemed as though Scully's doctor had only just told her that day, or late on the day before, that she had to start her maternity leave. - How did Agent Harrison know the X-Files "inside and out" just from reading Mulder and Scully's expense reports? Or are copies of X-Files reports available to any agent who wants to read them, and Harrison was interested enough to go find them...? - How did Doggett manage to fall down that hole, hurting himself badly enough to get knocked out but apparently not injuring his feet, ankles, or legs? He didn't seem to have any trouble walking -- even after he fell the second time. - So how *did* Doggett's car get to West Seneca? Are we supposed to assume that Stites took it there? And if so, how the hell did he get back to his estate? When everyone was looking for Doggett and Harrison, didn't anyone ask Stites where he'd been around the time that the agents disappeared? - When the searchers were searching, why didn't they yell anything? Why didn't Doggett or Harrison yell for help when they knew there was a way outside? (Aside from the fact that if either of those had happened, it would have ruined the story. ) - Why did Doggett give Harrison his gun? Did she lose hers? I didn't hear anything mentioned about that. - Does Mulder know that Scully gave Doggett the Apollo keychain? If not, how did he know it was Doggett's? - How did everything in this story (except the last hospital scene) happen in a single day? When Mulder was talking to Stites, he said that the attacks on Arlen and Gary Sacks had happened the previous night. That's consistent with the first scene with Doggett and Harrison, where she says that the murder had happened the previous night. So... she and Doggett got to New York, sent the body to Washington, got dragged under the house, Stites moved Doggett's car and got back to his house again, Scully worked on the autopsy, Mulder went out to New York, found Doggett and Harrison, and the whole thing was wrapped up by that night? That seems awfully fast, doesn't it? - When Doggett and Harrison came to that wooden door, why didn't Doggett try shooting at the lock? With his poor vision, it was a long shot, but it was really the only chance they had at that point to get out. He obviously wasn't out of bullets, since he used the gun later to kill the creature. (How many bullets does one of those guns hold, anyway?!) - OK, I give up. Why did Mulder follow Stites downstairs? Wasn't he at all suspicious? And if he was, why did he let Stites *follow behind* him? That just made Mulder look foolish. - And why was the Stites/reptile creature only attacking humans? Etc.: - That was a *really* small box that Scully was using to put her belongings in. - I watched that hug between Scully and Doggett and thought, "Now *that's* a platonic hug." But Doggett didn't seem to return it, did he? Was it out of shock? He seemed totally lost with Scully gone. Man, is he attached to her, or what? - The scene at Scully's apartment was cute, even if there was more teasing about the child's gender, and implicitly, whether it's human. Enough, already! Oh, and I felt bad for DD having to do the Lamaze huffing and puffing. And I could have lived without Scully's concern for Agent Doggett. As Mulder pointed out, he's a big boy, and given the proven dangers that X-F agents face, surely Scully should have guessed that someone would be assigned to work with Doggett in her absence (temporary or not). It was obviously just a set-up to get *us* to be concerned about Doggett, and instead it just annoyed me. Yes, I know I'm being unrealistic again, but dammit, when Mulder and Scully are together I don't want them to be trying to convince me how much I should be thinking about the other characters! - I'm glad to know that the hospital that Harrison was staying in let her wear mascara, in spite of the injury to her eyes. - Overall, I was quite happy with this ep. The story was fairly well paced, had some scary, creepy elements to it (even though we've done the mad scientist thing before), Leyla Harrison was a wonderful addition (have I mentioned that I want to see this character again?), Doggett was nice enough to not chew her out for being so green, Mulder and Scully worked reasonably well together (albeit not enough), and, most important to me at this point, there was nothing so idiotic in the episode that I wanted to throw something at the TV. No, it wasn't perfect, but at this point I'll take "decent" if the alternative is, say, another "Roadrunners." - Next week's ep: Gee, you think we might actually find out in the two-part finale what the hell Scully is carrying and who's the father? Uh-huh. Me neither. I'm just wondering how pissed off I'll be at 10 p.m. on May 20. OTOH, Carter really thrilled me last year with "Requiem" -- could he possibly do it again? Please say "yes," Mr. Carter. Please don't disappoint me.