" . . .And all that history, much that fiction weaves."
-- Charles Lamb, "To the Editor of the Every-Day Book"
"It stinks!"
-- Jay Sherman, The Critic
And so it does. Watching "Travelers" a second and third time made it abundantly clear that what I was watching was more like a single episode from a horror anthology show (and a not very original one at that) than an episode of The X-Files. You could almost surmise that this episode was written to demonstrate to DD and GA that the show could survive without them. And so it could . . . for the approximately 10 episodes it would take for the FOX suits to cancel the series.
The truly sad part of this episode is that guest star Darren McGavin's enormous talent was wasted. He was reduced almost exclusively to providing the voice-overs for a flashback episode centered on a younger version of himself. As one of the 11 people who actually watched every episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker in first run, I can appreciate the presence that McGavin's voice-overs lend to a narrative. They were an integral part of that series, which provided Chris Carter with the inspiration for The X-Files. But McGavin's Carl Kolchak was also a man of action; and while some 25 years have passed since Kolchak last aired in prime time, to reproduce the voice-overs while taking away the man's animation borders on cruel and unusual punishment for those of us who admire McGavin's work. I could have been somewhat pacified if McGavin had actually played Carl Kolchak, now a retired reporter, telling a young(er) Mulder the story about the government conspiracy he uncovered in his first beat assignment for a DC newspaper. But that wouldn't have allowed writers John Shiban and Frank Spotnitz to have a secretary for the Bureau be the one who actually created the X-Files for lack of cabinet space under "U." Heaven forbid we'd get a flashback episode without something cutesy being written into the script.
Much will be made of the Fox Mulder character's incessant gesturing with his left hand to provide numerous camera shots of his wearing a wedding band. So, I guess Mulder was married back in the 1989-90 time frame. It's nice to find out this trivial piece of information as the end of the fifth season nears, isn't it? I guess the writers at 1013 were too busy with something called character development for the past five years to have mentioned this before now. I'm sure this development will play an integral part in the ultimate resolution of the movie. (For those of you who are ironically challenged, this is sarcasm.)
There is one piece of this episode where things actually seemed to tie in to events we've seen before. Maybe my memory's being more selective these days, but the disemboweled corpses which were the handiwork of Edward Skur and the beast within him sure looked a lot like the shriveled corpses in the boxcar in "Anasazi." Those corpses had smallpox vaccinations on what was left of their arms, and the smallpox vaccine was in widespread use back in 1952. Perhaps the writing staff is actually going to try to explain everything we've seen in the mytharc episodes since the beginning of the series. I believe this is called (dare I say it?) continuity.
There were some notable performances by the guest stars who had to carry the story on their untested shoulders. Fredric Lane did a nice turn as the young and naive Agent Arthur Dales. Lane produced several realistic reactions, the most notable being his look of bewilderment when he was being told the facts of life by Roy Cohn (David Moreland). Lane made the story work for me, to the extent that it did. As a forerunner of Mulder in searching through the X-Files, Lane's Arthur Dales depicted a man of integrity who had dared peek inside the X-Files and who paid the price for that curiosity.
David Moreland's characterization of the dark side of real-life persona Roy Cohn was equally as effective within the context of the story. The brooding, menacing countenance Moreland exhibited, coupled with his authoritative voice and commanding physical presence, made his portrayal of Cohn seem as though he were born to play this role. The matter-of-fact dialogue Moreland was given to emote served to enhance the characterization.
Director William A. Graham paced the episode about as well as he could, given the material with which he had to work. The story lent itself to a slow unfolding, and Graham did that and more. The episode dragged in too many parts, and the action sequences were sparse and relegated to the alien murder scenes. And Graham must take responsibility for the multiple flashes of the wedding ring, which were handled with all the subtlety of an air raid siren.
There were some nice visuals, including young Dales walking into a bar out of the pouring rain and actually being wet. (See "Schizogeny" for how not to film a scene like this.) The scene where Mulder leaves old Dale's apartment and walks through several rays of sunlight pouring through the window was stunning as well as metaphorical. Credit Director of Photography Joel Ransom for capturing these moments on film.
Lynne Willingham did another fine job in the editing room. The quick-shifting, over-the-shoulder scenes between Mulder and Dales as they talked outside Dales' apartment were deftly spliced together. The alien murder scenes were also nicely framed.
Mark Snow's musical score included some wonderfully subtle undertones. Some of the music, particularly in Cohn's office, had an undercurrent of menace combined with nationalistic jingoism, which is no small accomplishment. Other times, the score lent itself to doing what it does best: setting the mood for the action on screen. This was one of Snow's better efforts.
So, with all these plusses on the technical side, why I didn't care for this episode very much? Watching it the second time was a chore, and the third viewing almost made my eyes bleed. I certainly didn't care for the introduction of Mulder's wedding band, which smacks of plot device. I found the 1990 version of Fox Mulder to be annoying and much too concerned with his hair. Then again, considering Mulder's obsession with hair in "Detour" (which was written by Frank Spotnitz), perhaps this is a consistency point after all. I did like the period setting, all the fedoras and the attention to detail. There were no anachronisms that I was able to spot. But I didn't like the introduction of a heretofore unseen alien species at this stage of the mythology, especially since it had been around since the early 1950s.
Maybe I'm just too big a fan of Kolchak: The Night Stalker to be pacified by three minutes of on-screen time for Darren McGavin. Or maybe, just maybe, what this episode lacked most for me was star power. An episode without David and Gillian is just a little too much like a puff pastry: flaky on the outside and lacking substance on the inside.
My Score: 3 out of 10