Lazarus

It's a Gansa/Gordon script so you can expect the inevitable hokey, cheap storytelling and stilted dialogue (oh how much better Gordon ended up being without Gansa). Once you get past some hilariously bad dialogue this isn't a particularly awful episode, if still a bad one. It's got some tense scenes and some effective use of characters, particularly Scully. Once the dilemma is set up the episode gets more interesting, but that's not saying much. It turns into a standard thriller towards the end.

What made "The X-Files" great was how it regularly put a fun and different spin on things every time it slipped into more traditional and predictable territory. You would think that you knew what was happening then they'd put something in there that elevated the script above the standard. What I don't like about a lot of season one episodes is how that special spark is seriously lacking, and how many of them seem like subpar anthology show episodes or, worse, subpar police procedurals with a supernatural twist. "Lazarus" is just more mediocrity.

4/10

A great idea but let down by an incredibly poor delivery. There's not a cats chance in hell that the antagonist would know how to navigate an FBI office.

The Gordon and Gansa scripts of season one were admittedly not the finest moments of that particular year, and for every "Conduit" and "Fallen Angel" we were given a "Ghost in the Machine" and "Born Again." Episode fifteen, "Lazarus," falls somewhere in the middle of the pack, offering up a mildly interesting premise but failing to deliver the tension that made classic X-Files such delicious TV candy.

I think the concept of "body-switching," of transposing one consciousness independent of its physical body into another, is quite interesting. Even in more recent times, on shows such as Lost, the concept is used in various fashions. There have been enough reported cases of near-death and out-of-body experiences to give the phenomenon some sort of foothold in the backdrop of reality. It is certainly an idea that provides food for thought.

While "Lazarus" manages to execute this idea in a believable fashion, the pieces don't completely come together. The case revolves around Scully's ex-boyfriend Jack Willis. While it's nice to see the writers once again delving into Scully's pre X-Files life, our only glimpse of him is in the teaser, as he is shot during a bank robbery and subsequently "possessed" by the shooter, Dupre. Thus, we don't really have a baseline to compare his later actions. There are also quite a few gaps in logic, just in the hospital scenes alone. How anyone could not have noticed Dupre's body convulsing on the stretcher remains an X-File in itself, and it makes absolutely no sense that a physically and psychologically suffering Willis would have been allowed right back on the case.

Still, this episode earns points for Scully's scenes. Duped by Dupre/Willis during a chase of his girlfriend Lula, Scully is kidnapped (for the first of many times), yet never lets her situation get the best of her. There are some great Scully "backbone" moments here, including the final scene in which she attempts to resurrect memories in Willis's trapped conscience. It provides tension in an otherwise tension-lacking affair.

"Lazarus" earns points for a solid premise (that would later be revisited in a different manner in "Dreamland"), fine acting and for reminding us that Scully has a spine. If it were a more engaging, logically consistent episode, I would probably rank it higher. As is, I give it a 6 out of 10.

I struggled with this episode, it definitely has some nice ideas, but the execution of them just doesn't work somehow, and it's the first time this series I've been kind of bored.

I am fascinated by the idea of transference, it's a great concept, but here it was too heavy handed, they could have done it in a subtle, menacing way, and it just doesn't work.

The idea of the tattoo has been copied since, if anyone has watched Dr Who's spinoff Class, I'd argue they lifted ideas from here.

It's forgettable, 5/10.

Lazarus is a fine, body-switching episode. Although it's difficult to tell who got the better end of the deal. True, Jack Willis' body is still alive, but he has another man's soul in him. Warren Dupre has lost his body, but his soul is very much alive in another man's body. What a perfect disguise for a criminal, as an officer of the law! In Fire, two episodes before, Mulder had a past love interest show up. In Lazarus, it's Scully's turn, as Jack Willis is her former FBI academy instructor whom she dated. But the results are not similar, as Mulder shows no hints of jealousy at all. In Tempus Fugit, Scully comments that in the four years she's known Mulder he's never remembered her birthday. In Lazarus, Mulder gives Scully a birthday card signed by Willis two months early to test him. I wouldn't exactly call that never remembering. Another excellent guest performance given by Christopher Allport as Jack Willis. Plus, this episode has a nice little twist at the end that surprised me.