"Keep your friends close,
and your enemies closer."
-- Don Corlione, from "The Godfather"
I watched "Tunguska" in real time while I was back East last week, and set my VCR here in Colorado to tape it, so that I could re-watch it and then watch "Terma" as a sort of X-Files movie. Unfortunately, I set my VCR to tape "Tunguska" at its Eastern time zone airing, and ended up with a nice copy of last week's Poltergeist: The Legacy. :-( So, I'll have to try to remember all I can from "Tunguska" and combine that with what I was able to see twice on "Terma."
This two-part conspiracy arc comes from the pens of Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter, who gave us last year's superlative "Piper Maru/Apocrypha" arc. Once again, we are introduced to the cleverly-named Oiliens, last seen oozing from the eyes of Alex Krycek in an abandoned missile site in North Dakota. This arc prominently features the unctuous Krycek, and Nicholas Lea turned in a wonderful performance as the smug, smarmy, back-stabbing double agent.
Taken as a whole, this arc was satisfying in many respects. It gave us more insight into the nature of the conspiracy ("the Project") and utilized some of the more capable actors who have been overlooked and underworked too much this season. Mitch Pileggi showed some spunk and humanity as ADA Skinner, making sure that he had the opportunity to take out his long-seething frustrations over Krycek's escape. Pileggi was at his best during the Senate hearings, rolling his eyes every so subtly as Dana insisted on reading her prepared statement. His expression was that of the experienced mentor who could tell that his underling had made herself look foolish because she had insisted on telling it like it is, instead of maintaining a politically correct posture. Normally, Dana would be politically correct when dealing with politicians, but this time she spewed her contempt (and got a night in the federal penitentiary for her efforts). Immediately thereafter, when Scully tried to explain why she and Mulder are headed for Boca Raton, Pileggi cut her short, so that he had, uh, well, plausible deniability. Skinner was the master teacher in this arc. Let's hope that Scully learned her lessons well.
John Neville's Well Manicured Man revealed a vulnerability that had been previously hidden from us. He looked almost frail when CSM came to visit after the death of his physician/lover Dr. Charne-Sayre, exposing to CSM that even masters of conspiracies have physical needs. ;-) I genuinely felt as though WMM had suffered a personal loss, and his dismay was all the more real when he had to admit that he would require CSM's "talents" to exact revenge on his lover's killer. William B. Davis' Cigarette Smoking Man, fresh from his own "Musings," once again took on the persona of the hired gun, the man with all the contacts and all the answers, the man who was, if only temporarily, in charge of the situation. And it is CSM's role in things that fuels such interesting speculation about the conspiracy. Consider this:
Krycek, when originally introduced, was clearly a minion of CSM. In one of the better surprise twists of the entire series, Krycek turns out to be a Russian KGB agent. Now the question was, is Krycek still really working for CSM, or is he playing CSM for a fool? And if he's working for CSM, does that mean that CSM is involved in a power play with WMM for the head of "The Project?" Was CSM using Krycek to try to get the Russians' antidote for "black cancer?" Does WMM himself or someone he loves suffer from black cancer? And where do the smallpox vaccinations fit in? We keep coming back to smallpox, even though it seems obvious that the Oiliens and the Jeremiah Smith/Alien Bounty Hunter species are quite different and that Mr. X told Scully that the Smallpox Eradication Program was not significant. I can't bring myself to accept Mulder's assertion that the smallpox vaccines are some sort of cataloguing mechanism, especially in view of what happened when Scully ran the metallic object taken from Duane Barry over the supermarket scanner.
The point of this recap is that the T/T arc did what I feel these arcs are supposed to do: reveal some information about the nature of the conspiracy, but raise two questions for every answer provided. In this aspect, T/T succeeded nobly. Rob Bowman's direction was taut, Jim Gross's editing was excellent, and Jon Joffin's lighting, particularly that beautiful blue light when CSM met WMM at the horse farm, was superb. Appreciating Joffin's work is becoming a weekly expectation for me. Mark Snow's score, with the exception of the Indiana Jones-type theme when Mulder entered the Senate hearings, was impeccable.
Nicholas Lea's performance was his best ever on the show, right down to stirring his tea with his Dr. No prosthesis. Guest star Jan Rubes' portrayal of KGB hot man Vasilly Peskov was right on the money. Even in retirement, Peskov was a worthy antagonist.
The work of the principal actors, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, was complimentary, particularly in "Terma." The genuine affection that the two characters have for each other came flowing across the screen as naturally as two good friends saying hello. Ms. Anderson's eyes and face lit up like a beacon when Mulder walked into the Senate hearing, and the warmth of their public embrace took the chill out of a cold Colorado night. GA's look of terror when she saw the explosion and fire where she had left Mulder spoke volumes about both her relationship with Mulder and Ms. Anderson's considerable acting talents. Many times, it's not so much the actual delivering of lines as it is the emoting without speech that separates the wheat from the actorial chaff. In this arc, both stars displayed this ability admirably.
That's not to say that this arc, particularly "Terma," was not without some flaws. I had a hard time believing that Mulder could run so far, tackle and knock out Krycek, punch the camp commandant, jump out of the back of the truck, and jump into the front seat (what happened to the driver who had just backed the truck into place?) and take off without any of the brainless horsemen drawing a gun. I marveled at how easy it was for a KGB agent to get into a NASA facility unescorted and kill a man under biohazard quarantine, just as I wondered how it was so easy for him to get into the retirement community's medicine cabinet in Boca Raton. Fortunately, he was smart enough to bring just the right poison pills in just the right container so that he could make his substitution. ;-)
But these nit-picks aside, "Tunguska" is on a level with Piper Maru as the set-up episode for a two-part arc. Had I been able to see it again, I might have found more faults, but based on memory, I'd have to say it was just about as perfect an episode as the show has ever presented. The flaws in "Terma" I can overlook because of the wonderful performances, the payoff on the questions raised in "Tunguska," and the best twist-ending the series has yet to produce.
The only fair way I can see to appraise these episodes is as follows:
| "Tunguska" | - | 10 out of 10 |
| "Terma" | - | 9.6 out of 10 |
| The arc | - | 9.8 out of 10 |