Teso Dos Bichos. That's Spanish for "Less Than Mediocre."
Well, okay, I made that up. But after viewing this episode twice, that's about the best I can say about it.
This episode deals with a curse that plagues anyone who disturbs the sacred burial grounds of a female shaman, called an Amaru. According to Northern Exposure, a shaman is a healer. Thus, it would appear that the Secona Indians had their own version of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, called Dr. Amaru, Medicine Woman. ;-) However, in this instance, it did not make for a great X-Files episode. Writer John Shiban and Director Kim Manners have combined to give us the worst X-Files episode since "Ghost" in Season One. What this story lacked in imagination it more than made up for with tedium and cliché.
The central plot involves a curse that comes with disturbing the remains of an Amaru discovered in the Ecuadoran Highlands in the opening sequence. The liaison between the Seconas and the head of the archaeological expedition is Dr. Alonzo Bilac, played by Vic Trevino. Bilac ends up siding with the Seconas in their desire to leave the remains of the Amaru where they are. The head of the expedition, Dr. Roosevelt, with classic Western arrogance, tries to convince Bilac that "they're not disturbing the Amaru's remains, they're rescuing them."
Dit-dit-dit dit-dit! Telegram for the viewer! Dr. Roosevelt's going to die a horrible death!
As Bilac sits around the campfire drinking Yaje (it's pronounced "Yah-hay," but I'm not sure of the spelling), he enters a hallucinatory state where he gets green "kaleidoscope vision," which turns out to be the vision of the vengeful Amaru spirit which appears as a jaguar. Dr. Roosevelt then meets his gory end, and we fade to the opening credits.
The story (and my interest) went downhill from here. Mulder and Scully come to investigate two similar murders at the Boston Museum of Natural History, where the remains of the Amaru have been taken. It is there that Dr. Lewton, Dr. Roosevelt's partner, makes his arrogant Westerner speech, telling Ph.D. candidate Mona Wustner, how they, as archeologists, have a "responsibility to history and posterity" to preserve the Amaru. Telegram for the viewer! Another cardboard character is about to get killed!
When Dr. Lewton goes to his car, in as heavy-handed attempt at irony as I've ever seen, the car turns out to be a... (you guessed it) Jaguar. Nudge, nudge. Get it? A Jaguar.
The investigation by M & S, if it can be called that, is superficial at best. In their first encounter with Bilac, they meet a man who is dazed, stunned, stoned and barely conscious. Yet our agents don't press him for more information. I was half expecting Bilac to break into his Jack Nicholson impression and scream, "You want the TRUTH? You can't HANDLE the truth."
Trevino as Bilac alternately runs the full gamut of emotions from scared to fearing to frightened to terrorized. :-) His presumed paramour, Mona Wustner, as portrayed by Janne Mortil, is, unfortunately, Mr. Trevino's equal in displaying these interchangeable emotions.
Even Duchovny and Anderson confirm that rarely, if ever, can a good or even great actor rise above poor material. When the only recognizable tribute in the episode is to Dr. Seuss (the cat ate the rat, the dog at the cat...), then you know the writer was stretching. Another sure sign that an episode is trying to substitute sound bytes for substance is when you hear a throw-away line like "Go with it, Scully" not once, but twice. Unfortunately these actors had so little to work with, that "going with it" was about all they could do. This was another Scully-in-Charge episode, but Gillian Anderson's considerable talents were wasted on a boring script which had little or no (pardon the expression) bite. Mulder was reduced to video window dressing, offering his willingness to believe in the curse, act the gentleman and not much else. The demands made upon these actors could have been fulfilled by stunt doubles.
I am still amazed at how people can walk into a house, call out someone's name and still not reach for a light switch. Scully did it at Bilac's house at the same time Mulder was rushing to the Museum to find Mona. She obviously wasn't trying to sneak up on Bilac. So why not TURN ON THE LIGHTS? There were scenes in the museum where you actually see a light on overhead, in the middle of the room. Yet, the room is barely lit, and the corners are dark. Then, as if that weren't bad enough, we are to believe that two FBI agents come upon their prime suspect at the scene of two previous murders, he's covered with blood and he tells them that Mona is dead. Do they handcuff him and take him into custody? No, they leave him where they found him, with a policeman standing guard outside the room. Puh-leeze!
The real payoff was the revelation that all the mutilations had been committed by cats. Not by a savage jungle jaguar, or a mountain lion, but by plain, old, ordinary felinus domesticus, house cats. Or perhaps they were alley cats. Or sewer cats. Even if they were feral cats, this premise was so over-the-top, so implausible, that I had to laugh. That was it? Cats who could remove a human intestine and leave it on a branch, yet not tear it to shreds, so that Scully could ID the victim based on what he ate for lunch? Cats who could drag bodies into the sewer and pile them up neatly without anyone seeing them? Cats? CATS?
There wasn't much to like about this episode. Even coming on the heels of a repeat of one the best of this season's episodes, "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," this episode falls flat in nearly every area. The lighting was used to try to compensate for a weak story to the point of excess, as in the alternating "bathe our stars in that soft, blue light" and "show them through kaleidoscope green" when they enter the sewers. Mark Snow's music was so heavy that I noticed it the first time I watched the episode. I maintain that the best musical score is one that blends in with the action on screen, not overpowers it. It was overpowering in "Teso Dos Bichos" to the point of annoyance.
The supporting characters were flat and one-dimensional, and played that way. The script had so many flaws that there isn't enough room for me to list the minor ones. This episode was dreadful from start to finish.
My Score: 1.0 out of 10