Via Negativa: Off the Top of My Head (SPOILERS)

In a nutshell:  Interesting premise for a MOTW, but lacking in
execution (no pun intended) and with a flat ending. 
Scully-lite.


What I liked:
-  Doggett covered for Scully!  Twice!
-  And so did Skinner!  Woo hoo!  (Although he, presumably, was
not in the dark as Doggett was.)
-  Oh, good, the old style of doing timestamps is back! :)
-  The LGM talking to each other, particularly the reference to
Altamonte  Oh, I love those guys!  And they used slides! 
Another woo hoo!  (But see further comments under "What I didn't
like.")
-  The hall-lengthening effect in the last act was really cool.
:)  Kudos to the special effects folks for that one. :)


What I didn't like:
-  The implication that Scully lost the baby.  Come on, 1013, at
best that's soap-opera-y, and at worst... hell, I'm not even
sure how to describe it at its worst.  Somebody else help me out
here?
-  Skinner said "We've seen this before," and proceeded to
rattle off a couple mass suicides -- but conveniently neglected
to mention that one that he was directly involved in, in "The
Field Where I Died."
-  Tipet in his floating Lotus position, and the look of that
3rd eye -- I thought those were just plain silly.
-  The LGM were *way* too nice to Doggett, I thought -- isn't
*anybody* going to be suspicious of the guy?
-  First time we've seen the LGM and Skinner since the premiere,
and *no* mention of the search for Mulder.  Am I supposed to be
happy that the name "Mulder" was simply mentioned in this ep?


What's got me puzzled:
-  How did Doggett made the leap about Andre not wanting to go
to sleep?  Surely that's not the usual reason people take
amphetamines.
-  Why did Andre have the "ax through the skull" treatment even
though he'd imagined that he'd been killed by rats?
-  Since Doggett went through all the X-Files, why didn't he
notice the similarities between this case and either "Sleepless"
or "The Walk"?
-  How did the LGM get into the basement office?  I'd hope that
the security in the Hoover Building is better than that. <g>
-  I'm still confused about exactly why Tipet was killing
people.  Did the evil in him take over?  And why did he go after
Doggett but not Skinner?  Could he only go after one person at a
time?  And why was Doggett still in the "control" of the dream
at the end even though Tipet was already dead?  Why did Doggett
have the earlier "vision" of holding Scully's dismembered head?
-  Why did Scully go to Doggett's house and just walk in?  If
she wanted to tell him that Tipet was dead, why didn't she just
call?  For that matter, why wasn't it Skinner giving Doggett the
update?  And when did Scully get released from the hospital? 
Didn't Doggett just see her lying in her hospital bed the night
before?  Plotwise, was there any reason to have Scully be the
one to wake up Doggett?  Was it so Scully would be the one to
save Doggett's ass?  But since she didn't *know* she saved him
(in fact, she denied it, didn't she?), I don't think that
counts. <g> 


Etc.:
-  Did the actor who played Steadman (the agent from the teaser
who had the condo in Pittsburgh) remind anyone else of Donnie
Pfaster?  I thought there were similarities in the face and
voice.
-  When Skinner pitched his theory in the meeting in Kersh's
office, I really missed Mulder.  He would have set forth his
ideas with a passion that Skinner just didn't have.
-  So Langly's first name is officially Richard!  I know that in
a past script his name was supposed to be Ringo, but that's
actually perfectly reasonable/consistent -- Ringo Starr's real
first name is Richard.  I got a kick out of that. :)
-  Was anyone else amused by Doggett's comment about "the
damnedest thing I ever saw"?  Wow, Agent Doggett, even better
than ABH-as-Scully ripping a guy's throat out?  Better than a
man-bat?  A Jesus slug?  A friend who knows that his wife is
going to be murdered before it happens?  My, how far he's come!
<g>
-  I thought RP put in a very good overall performance in this
ep -- much better than what I've seen in the first four MOTW's,
IMO, or maybe it's just that TPTB gave him more of a range to
work with -- but there were points when he was supposed to be
the most scared that I thought he was overacting (e.g., the
hands-over-mouth in horror shot), and it threw me out of the
moment.
-  Overall, I thought there was a great premise here, but
without a clearer understanding of *why* the events were
happening it just didn't work for me.  And the ending just
felt... *there*.  So, Doggett was saved by being woken up?  OK,
and now what?  Since he had the third eye in the dream, and the
dream was going on after Tipet was dead, does that mean he'll
still have these dreams?  Is he potentially now evil himself? 
Will Doggett learn anything from this experience (or for that
matter, did we)?  I'm afraid he won't, but I hope 1013 proves me
wrong.