John Doe: Off the Top of My Head (SPOILERS)
(January 13, 2002)

Caution: spoiler for next week's ep (based on the trailer) is in
the "Etc." section.

JOHN DOE (9ABX07):

In a nutshell:  Doggett's in Mexico with amnesia.  As near as I
can tell, the point of this ep was to make us experience
Doggett's pain about his son's death.  It was manipulative in
that respect, but this ep could have been much worse. 
Ultra-Scully-lite.


What I liked:
-  Nice camera opening with the camera turning around Doggett's
head.
-  Doggett in the Mexican jail to Domingo re: putting his one
sneaker back on: "Yeah, well, maybe I like to hop."  OK, I'll
give him that one.  I could "hear" that from Doggett, and not
just as a Mulder line.
-  Nice lighting on Doggett's face at the end of that first
scene in jail.
-  I thought RP did a nice job with Doggett's anguish over
realizing his son was dead.  It reminded me of the excellent
work that I thought he did in his brief role on "The Sopranos." 
(Yes, I liked his performance, in spite of not liking what it
was he was performing. *g*)
-  Another nice shot towards the end: Skinner's reflection in
the glass as he approached the bus with Doggett and Reyes
inside.


What I didn't like:
-  Doggett has a tattoo?  Since when?  Haven't we seen that arm
uncovered before?  Helloooooo plot device!  Wanna bet we never
see that tattoo again? *g*
-  Doggett, Doggett, Doggett.  Why did you stick around?  What
can these guys do for you?  You know they're not nice guys.  Are
you really so worried about whether you're in trouble in the
U.S. that you're willing to stick around in Mexico and live a
life skirting the law and not knowing who you are?  And why did
you believe that Henry Bruck guy was you?  Even with amnesia,
don't you have enough sense to not trust a guy who's running an
illegal racket?  Sorry, 1013, I just couldn't suspend my
disbelief long enough to buy that.
-  What was with the cujo eyes thing?  Was that really
necessary?  I think we could have figured out that Mr. Cujo was
something weird by the way he held Domingo's head and made him
bleed at the same places as Doggett and that dead guy.  (Of
course, we'll never hear about Mr. Cujo again.  God forbid
anyone investigates how he was able to do what he did.)
-  Aww, poor Doggett didn't remember his son is dead.  I could
be wrong, but I think that having us experience Doggett's pain
over the loss of his son was the point of this ep. 
Unfortunately, I just felt manipulated.  There could have been
something much more interesting done with the concept of a guy
who could read/erase peoples' memories.


What's got me puzzled:
-  What's with Doggett's shaving job in the teaser?  The stubble
was growing like he had already started to grow a goatee.  (I
noticed this at the very end of the scene, when he told the cop
that he didn't know his name.)
-  Speaking of shaving... on Day Eight, when Doggett was still
in jail and presumably was not given a razor every day to shave
*g* -- why was his stubble the same as it was on Day Two? *g* 
(OK, I'm not *really* puzzled about that one.  I just thought it
was funny.)
-  How does Doggett not know his name, but he knows he's
American?
-  Why is Doggett listening to/believing the thief, a guy who's
so stoned that his eyes are bloodshot like nothing I've ever
seen before? *g*
-  Reyes was born and raised in Mexico?  Um, OK.  She sure
doesn't talk like it.
-  Why was Doggett investigating a missing persons case in the
first case?
-  On what evidence was Reyes accusing Mr. Pillar of the
Community that he was dealing in drugs and arranged for Doggett
and that other guy to disappear?
-  Jeez -- how did that guy get his crushed foot out from under
the car?  Never mind, I don't want to know. *g*
-  Why was Monica asking about the marks on that dead guy's
head?  If she was born and raised in Mexico, surely she knows
about "bad" police -- so why get into it?  For all she knows,
the cop was in on it.  (And who was that dead guy -- the other
missing American, Hollis Rice?)
-  How did Monica know about the garage that Doggett was hiding
in?  I think I missed something there.  And where did all those
Mexican cops come from at just that moment?  Did Mr. Cujo send
them when he learned that Domingo had spilled his guts to
Doggett?
-  And how the hell did Skinner find them?
-  Where's Scully?  Did she go back to DC to be with William,
who, after all, is now a target of the Mytharc Bad Guys?  (Of
course, that begs the question of why she went to Texas in the
first place... it's not like she did anything except tell Monica
that Skinner was on his way to Mexico.)
-  So how did Doggett get his memory back?  Just the shock of
remembering his son's death brought everything else crashing
back?  Well, that was convenient. :-PPP
-  Why was Scully in this ep, aside from fulfilling the
requirement that she be in every ep this season?


Etc.:
-  That thief from the teaser wasn't too smart -- he didn't go
very far before he stopped to check out the sneaker he'd stolen.
*g*
-  OK, I'll admit that Luke Doggett is cute. :)
-  And we now know that Mrs. Doggett is/was blonde.  Interesting
trivia, but I still don't really care about Doggett's past.
-  Oh, look!  Doggett has his own personal CSM! *g*
-  It's official (as if it wasn't already): Kersh is a jerk. 
Fine, I understand that he didn't want an international
incident, but did he think the whole thing with Doggett was just
gonna go away nice and easy by having the Mexican police deal
with it?  Obviously something was very, very wrong!
-  Hey Monica?  When someone's shooting at you, and you're
standing behind a thin wooden wall -- you might want to squat
down.  That wall's not gonna provide much cover!
-  ::shrug::  I'm pretty ambivalent about this ep.  There was
some good lighting and acting, but the "feel sorry for Doggett"
theme left me cold.  Still, it could have been much worse.
-  Next week's ep: people skinned alive?  I hope that one gets a
viewer advisory.  (Hell, the teaser should have had a viewer
advisory!)


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