08x06 "Redrum"
Atropos
I like this one pretty well as a story in general; Doggett and Scully were pretty much incidental to the whole thing. (The only reason they’re there at all is because the main character knew Doggett already.) Scully had only a handful of lines, one of them the fortune-cookie-like “Maybe you already have the answer within you.” (Doggett, for his part, mostly just yells and blusters.)
However, I have trouble with time travel (and similar themes), so I kind of struggled with the structure--if he was figuring it out as he went backwards, why didn’t everyone else remember him saying odd things but start putting them together as the days went on?
I wonder vaguely if this is meant to be a parable for gun violence--he knows there’s going to be an attack, and that it was done with a kitchen knife, yet to try to prevent the attack he gets out… the kitchen knife, thus making it more accessible to the killer in the first place.
We see Doggett’s place for the first time, and learn that he has a bike.
Overall, not a bad episode, but pretty tangential to the series.
Nasubionna
It took me a second to recognize the actor playing the prisoner in the very first scene, but I'm pretty sure he's the scientist from "Terminator". Guess his specialty as an actor is being shot and weird time-travelly stuff.
Nice product placement for Omega watches…. but so far I am intrigued that we may have a man who can control time for this episode?? I wonder if this is going to turn out like that older episode "Monday". I have to say, yet again, revisiting this 15 years later, I am less upset about no Mulder. I guess because I know what goes down so I can just enjoy weird creepy x-filey stories and enjoy the mysteries, since I don't know WTF is going on in any of these. But on the other hand, it bothers me that they are not mentioning Mulder and his disappearance AT ALL anymore. That didnt take long. I mean, I don't want Scully to just be weeping and moaning and pining away all the time, but it still feels like, "WELP, we looked for him for a little bit, showed him getting tortured on a space ship, our duty is done, BACK TO THE CRYPTIDS AND GHOSTS. Mulder? Who is Mulder?" Only the father of your stupid baby.
Geeze, Doggett pointlessly yells at suspects as much as Mulder, apparently.
When the suspect says, "I don't understand ANY of this", I was like, "You and me both, dude."
Good ol' Danny Trejo, I think it's a rule that he has to appear in every prison scene ever filmed. OK, earlier when they kept showing the spider web, I thought they were being heavy-handed with the symbolism of "the web of time" or some crap like that, but then figured they were just using it to show the reverse passing of time (when he destroyed it and then it was back again the next day)… but then they showed the spider web tattoo on Danny Trejo's arm like it was significant, so who the hell knows.
I am liking how Scully is treating the suspect though… very compassionate, since she's been through some crazy-ass shit herself, and has had some very interesting spiritual experiences (I'm particularly thinking of "All Things"), but not as totally unequivocally accepting of his insistence that time is moving backwards for him, and trying to convince the world to listen to the suspect, as Mulder would be. I so far like the way they're moving Scully into Mulder's typical role of the believer, but in a more restrained, Scully-esque way.
Wait… now he knows that Danny Trejo is the murderer? I missed how he decided that… but I kind of like Danny calling out Martin for sketchy prosecution practices and wrongfully putting his brother away. I was getting a bad feeling that he's going to kill his wife thinking it's the murderer…. but I'm glad they just faked us out on that one. However, I am irritated that Danny Trejo still got shot to death when he didn't kill Martin or his wife, that is some bullshit. But I am glad Martin went to prison for suppressing evidence.
Ahhh, a good ol' Chris Carter long-winded philosophical speech, except this time delivered by someone other than Mulder (or less often, Scully).
Interesting concept in a lot of ways, but the execution felt kind of slow and boring and just kind of dragged out to me. I don't know if this is just a consequence of the genre (I remember "Monday" having some of the same problems), or just not a great script/direction… but I could take or leave this one.
This entry was originally posted at http://spinner-atropos.dreamwidth.org/216352.html. You may comment at either location.