Shapes

The agents set off to an American Indian reservation to investigate the murder who an Indian man who may have been mistaken for the legendary creature Manitou.A man who can shapeshift into a beast.The man who shot the creature claims to have been acting for his own safety and is adamant he didn't shoot a man.In this episode I can sense a mild form of racism between the dead man's family and the shooter and his son.I would describe this episode as pretty average.It dosen't excite in great amounts but a cool visual image is created when the man morphs into the manitou.Still a watchable episode for any hardcore x-filer.And the general dialogue between all the characters involved is decent.

This continues the mini-horror film format of Ice, Ghost in the Machine and the subsequent Darkness Falls, a werewolf tale with some feuding about land borders between Montana ranchers and Indians of the nearby reservation. We have lazy, stiff acting and plot, 'mystical' Indians, and a trite twist and conclusion, unusually bad even by X-File standards.

A redeeming value is the sort of Twin Peaks vibe going on, as the pair of detectives investigate sinister happenings in a tightly-knit community harboring secrets. And right there is all the difference. Whereas in Twin Peaks there is a marvelous subversion of tropes, a delightful earnestness undercut by the irony of familiarity, Scooby Do plunged into dark sexual jazz, here we have no irony, no real danger and just a po-faced acceptance of genre.

This is one of those episodes that has a historically bad reputation and, while it has its flaws, it's a pretty good episode all told.

The plot moves along at a good pace and it has a nice and tangible atmosphere.

As indicated, there are some flaws in the plot which I won't detail because I would prefer to avoid spoilers, but there are instances where evidence simply isn't looked into in any great detail, and that's frustrating. I'm referring to evidence that could be obtained with plaster casts, photographs, impressions and the like.

I also felt like the episode could have been longer, the ending seemed far too abrupt.

All that aside, I enjoyed it.

Werewolves are admittedly not my favorite classic horror monsters, although there have definitely been some great portrayals in movies and TV (I think it's great when there's a fun spin put on it, like in "Dark Shadows", and even the more traditional "The Wolf Man" and "An American Werewolf in London" are terrific films). The problem is that they are SO overused that just about anything involving them, unless written especially well, is going to be so-so, and probably worse than that.

"Shapes" is definitely NOT especially well-written. There's a couple of good lines here and there, and some interesting background on the X-Files and their origin, and it's always nice to see Michael Horse from "Twin Peaks" make an appearance, and it's a nicely-shot David Nutter-directed episode so it never feels as taxing or boring as things like "Space" or "Teso dos Bichos", but it really isn't particularly good.

"Shapes" may put A spin on the traditional werewolf tale, by adding Native American folklore to the mix, but it's not an INTERESTING spin, which is what is needed to make a werewolf tale worthwhile. It's a generally poorly-written episode with some horribly cheesy moments, but not nearly as intolerable as the very worst episodes of the show are.

4/10

I'm not usually a lover of werewolf stories, they have been literally done to death over the years, but I am always intrigued by Native American culture, throw in Mulder and Scully, and you have a decent episode.

I like the way it plays out, I liked the way it unfolds, I also appreciated the twist that follows, you expect events to happen in a particular way, they don't.

Nicely acted, I enjoyed the guest cast here.

I've read several of the reviews, I don't get why some had such a downer on it.

Next up, Darkness Falls!

Good, 7/10.