"What is truth?" said jesting Pilate
Recent discussions in xfiles have brought me to the surprising revelation that a lot of fans think Jose Chung's "From Outer Space" is an overrated episode. Even those people who really like the episode see it primarily or exclusively as comedic, a self-parody skewering a show that had started to take itself too seriously. Even Autumn Tysko, whose reviews I usually love, doesn't seem to quite have clicked with the episode. Maybe it's my fondness for unreliable narrators, or for the mystically unknowable, but I take it more seriously than most viewers. Its wit and satire is a great part of its charm, to be sure, but what interests me about Jose Chung is the way that it questions the very premise of the show.
The truth is out there.
This is what we're told at the beginning of almost every episode, and for the most part we have no reason to question it. Mulder and Scully agree on very little, but the quest for the truth is a goal that they can both share. Although it may be difficult to attain, they don't seem to doubt that it is in theory achievable.
We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
You can argue that the show was in fact postmodern from the start. In season one it certainly aimed to stay on the fence with regard to supernatural vs. non-supernatural explanations. We have a lot of instances of proof being snatched away at the last minute, the idea that the shadowy men will never allow anything substantive to remain for Mulder and Scully to grasp hold of. Fundamentally, however, the early show accepts the idea that substantive proof does exist, even if it remains forever beyond the grasp of the people who care most about it.
"What is truth?" asked jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.
So why is Jose Chung the episode that ushers in the postmodern era of the X-Files? Because it introduces the idea that the truth is not merely hard to grasp, but essentially unknowable. It asks what is the nature of this truth that we're seeking. It asks whether we would even recognize the truth as the truth if we saw it. It asks whether maybe the truth isn't out there after all. An unsettling question, to be sure.
Furthermore, the episode is all about subjectivity and the unreliable narrator. As Sarah Stegall points out in her excellent review, almost everything in the episode--including the characterization of Mulder and Scully--is very slightly but intentionally off-kilter. "It works," she says, "because Darin Morgan, like a water strider, has developed a knack for skating across the outer skin of reality without quite breaking the surface tension."
For although we may not be alone in the universe, in our own separate ways on this planet, we are all... alone.
So what do we have if we don't have the truth? We have each other, at least. Or do we? The more thoughtful coda to the episode seems to me to be part and parcel of its major theme. It suggests that the search for extraterrestrial life is only a symptom of a wider search for meaning and a sense of connection in life. Those who search most fervently for extraterrestrials often do so because they feel like aliens in their own lives. In the end, though, Jose Chung is as pessimistic about the search for subjective human connection as it is about the search for objective external truth.
To my eyes, The X-Files is a very diverse show, holding within itself many different depictions and versions of reality. Whether or not you like Jose Chung depends on what aspects of the show resonate with you. It has neither a strong mytharc strand nor really much Mulder/Scully interaction, so I can see why many people don't respond to it. Still, it's a very powerful episode. Is it just a comedy, or even primarily a comedy? I think not.
The truth is out there.
This is what we're told at the beginning of almost every episode, and for the most part we have no reason to question it. Mulder and Scully agree on very little, but the quest for the truth is a goal that they can both share. Although it may be difficult to attain, they don't seem to doubt that it is in theory achievable.
We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
You can argue that the show was in fact postmodern from the start. In season one it certainly aimed to stay on the fence with regard to supernatural vs. non-supernatural explanations. We have a lot of instances of proof being snatched away at the last minute, the idea that the shadowy men will never allow anything substantive to remain for Mulder and Scully to grasp hold of. Fundamentally, however, the early show accepts the idea that substantive proof does exist, even if it remains forever beyond the grasp of the people who care most about it.
"What is truth?" asked jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.
So why is Jose Chung the episode that ushers in the postmodern era of the X-Files? Because it introduces the idea that the truth is not merely hard to grasp, but essentially unknowable. It asks what is the nature of this truth that we're seeking. It asks whether we would even recognize the truth as the truth if we saw it. It asks whether maybe the truth isn't out there after all. An unsettling question, to be sure.
Furthermore, the episode is all about subjectivity and the unreliable narrator. As Sarah Stegall points out in her excellent review, almost everything in the episode--including the characterization of Mulder and Scully--is very slightly but intentionally off-kilter. "It works," she says, "because Darin Morgan, like a water strider, has developed a knack for skating across the outer skin of reality without quite breaking the surface tension."
For although we may not be alone in the universe, in our own separate ways on this planet, we are all... alone.
So what do we have if we don't have the truth? We have each other, at least. Or do we? The more thoughtful coda to the episode seems to me to be part and parcel of its major theme. It suggests that the search for extraterrestrial life is only a symptom of a wider search for meaning and a sense of connection in life. Those who search most fervently for extraterrestrials often do so because they feel like aliens in their own lives. In the end, though, Jose Chung is as pessimistic about the search for subjective human connection as it is about the search for objective external truth.
To my eyes, The X-Files is a very diverse show, holding within itself many different depictions and versions of reality. Whether or not you like Jose Chung depends on what aspects of the show resonate with you. It has neither a strong mytharc strand nor really much Mulder/Scully interaction, so I can see why many people don't respond to it. Still, it's a very powerful episode. Is it just a comedy, or even primarily a comedy? I think not.