Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster
- Episode aired Feb 1, 2016
- TV-14
- 44m
Mulder questions his faith in the unexplained. He attempts to gather proof of the existence of the new creature he and Scully investigate before jumping to conclusions.Mulder questions his faith in the unexplained. He attempts to gather proof of the existence of the new creature he and Scully investigate before jumping to conclusions.Mulder questions his faith in the unexplained. He attempts to gather proof of the existence of the new creature he and Scully investigate before jumping to conclusions.
- Stoner #2
- (as Nicole Parker-Smith)
- Additional Voices
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Featured reviews
Now Darin's back and he's done another masterpiece. This is a perfect hour of television. New fans will likely laugh and recgonize how smart the script is, but only people who saw the original run, at least Morgan's episodes in third season, will recgonize the great references to some of the show finest moments - like Scully talking about Queequeg , the homage to Kim Manners, the X-Files ringbell and my favourite, Scully saying she is immortal, just like Clyde Bruckman said in maybe the finest episode of the series back in the third season.
The episode deals with existentialism in a brilliant manner. Mulder's midlife crisis is incredibly funny - he attempting to use new tecnhology is hilarious. The threatment to the transgender girl is certainly respectful and appropriate. The whole commentary about transformation and how awful a human being can be much more awful than a monster is pure genius.
It's a masterpiece of a script, written an outstanding writer who, back in the day, made 4 masterpieces, won an Emmy and disappeared completely from the spotlights.
It's funny, it's heartbreaking, it's smart and it will you touch you in a very emotional way.
It was so clever and surprisingly funny that I couldnt care less about my own bias towards it. They surely take risks with an episode like this (and previous lol-files episodes) but they hands-down nailed it.
I was on the middle-ground about this new season but the sheer intelligence portrayed in this artful execution of self-mockery is something i will probably never forget.
People laugh at Big Bang Theory and bash this for its lack of "true" X-files style? This episode was true comedy! Take your 3,000 gigabertz of pixelbits and get the **** outta here.
This is over the top, in some of the previous Darin Morgan episodes, maybe he held back. But here, he reaches for levels of insanity that he never attained previously, not even in previous X-Files and MillenniuM Eps. Mostly, he is parodying the absurdity of the times, where in these last few years we have seen an exponential increase of people actually believing things like 1) The Moon Landings were faked, 2) Lizard people have taken over the government, 3) Atlantis will rise from the Ocean and Lemuria will live again, and finally 4) The Earth is actually FLAT. Yes, there are people who believe this! Perhaps some of them rated this episode a 1-star. The sheer bulk of truly insane conspiracy theories that have been floating around on DiscloseTV makes even Mulder look sane. Maybe Darin spent a few days watching the latest Dren from there while writing this. It's possible. But just to be fair to the few valid videos that get uploaded to that station, however mostly it is just conspiracies now, less actual UFO stuff.
To enjoy this Episode is to laugh at what we have become, from Mulder's running Smartphone gags to the idea that Skully will go to town on a guy she's never met and have his baby. Of course, that was "Guy's" (Rhys Darby from Flight of the Concords) Skully-Fantasy, to make up for our own secret Skully fantasies. And Alex Daikun makes another X-Files appearance, his 3rd not including "I want to Believe" as the Squinty-Eyed manager.
The barrage of inanities erupting from Mulder leaves Skully no time to even respond, as he has all of her responses memorized now. So Mulder is really parodying his own character, much like Dave Duchovney did in the vastly underrated, mostly ignored but actually great film "Evolution" where he Moons the screen, and us, while saluting "Russell Woodman" (Ted Levine). David has a great Comedic sense, because of his ability to pull it off with a straight face.
Darin's episodes are so that you have to either love them a lot or scratch your head. But he creates beautiful... Well, they are Fairy Tales mostly, but he adds an almost Christmas quality to it, a very surreal tapestry and in the case of this episode it has threads that go back to earlier in the series. I feel it is his gift to us, and I accept it. But some people can't understand Darin's humor, ergo they hate it. Well, that's not my problem, it's theirs. They probably like Humor that is at the expense of someone else, where Darin has always been self-effacing in his Humor and even humble about it, never actually hurting anyone, while roasting and lambasting ideas like Scientology and other cults. There was a science fiction religion in El Cajon, California, which was based in a bookstore, "Aquarius Bookstore" on the corner of Main and Magnolia. It's long gone, but Darin parodies it in "Jose Chung's". He made fun of the concept but never the people who ran the store.
It is as if we are going to get "One of Each" of the different archetypes of X-Files "cases". so far, we've had the Mythos, the MOTW, and now the Comedy. Which is what makes X-Files so great, there is always something for everyone. And this episode did very well for going on during the Iowa Caucuses!
Easter Egg! Take note of Rys Darbie's suit and hat, then watch "The Nightstalker" with Darren McGavin!
So we get to see décolletage in a fantasy scene of Gillian Anderson getting down; and we see both stars' comic timing. Hey, their many other acting hires for the BBC or movies or Showtime give them a chance to stretch - there's no point in cutesy stuff like this as a lull or breather in the forward thrust of this series. If they were cranking out 40 or more yearly episodes like a '50s half-hour series I could understand placing a one-off time-killer on the schedule, but with 6 total episodes, seriously?
If fans were more critical they would file "Were-Monster" close to the jump-the-shark bin. It reminded me of that one-off "Lost" episode where two guest stars mixed up the regular cast with a new premise and were duly killed off (and literally buried) by the end of the hour. Perhaps binge watchers of the future will appreciate this respite from hard-hitting, tense action if they are sitting through dozens of hours of "X-Files" at a sitting, but tuning in I was only mildly amused by the easy targets for satire (most of which undermined Carter's premise for the series almost as an "I don't take this stuff seriously" reminder) and overall felt my time was wasted.
Did you know
- TriviaAccording to Gillian Anderson, her daughter Piper Anderson-Klotz drew the drawing of the horned monster that Mulder is showing everybody during the whole episode.
- GoofsIn the opening scene in his office, Mulder tosses a pencil that sticks in the "I Want to Believe" poster. At that point, a total of six pencils may be seen sticking out of the poster, including the one he just threw, which is directly below the flying saucer. When Mulder gets up to remove all the pencils a moment later, there are seven total pencils: one above the right side of the saucer where there was none to be seen before (although there were a bunch of holes at that spot in the poster in the earlier shot), and none directly below the saucer where we just saw him toss and stick one.
- Quotes
Fox Mulder: It shot blood at me. From its eye, Scully... I think. It was hard for me to see because I had blood in my eyes.
Dana Scully: I haven't done a blood analysis yet, but it's probably residue from the prior attack on this victim. And animals don't shoot blood out of their eyeballs.
Fox Mulder: Oh, no? Well, tell that to the horned lizard, which shoots blood out its eyeball, Scully, yes. It's a defense mechanism. Scientific fact!
Dana Scully: Mulder, the Internet is not good for you.
- ConnectionsFeatured in WatchMojo: Top 20 Best X-Files Episodes (2024)
- SoundtracksThe X-Files
(uncredited)
Written by Mark Snow
Performed by John Beal