I have made the observation in the past the first part of a two part story is almost always lacking something because it is mostly build up to a big pay off in the second part. Hence, it is difficult to judge a first part fairly. I was quite harsh on “Within” regardless, but after having watched the superior second part, I feel the story should have been a two hour premiere event. Pairing them up double length still would not have made it a classic, but things would have run far more smoothly.
The episode begins where we left off--a literal cliffhanger. Doggett has Mulder backed to the edge of a cliff with Gibson Praise. Mulder lets the boy go as Doggett requests, but then dives off the cliff to avoid capture. This sequence is the only part of the episode which is laughably dumb. Where is mulder going with the boy? There is nowhere to run from the top of the cliff. He is not going to throw Praise off the cliff to kill him because he is actually the alien bounty Hunter in disguise. The aliens want Praise alive for experimentation. The Alien Bounty hunter is tough, but has been injured in far less serious circumstances than an eighty foot fall from a cliff. Why did he think jumping was a good idea, particularly when he makes short work of other FBI agents throughout the episode? Just attack Doggett, dude? Another problem: Gibson gets away to hide out in the desert, somehow escaping a small army of FBI agents in the process. Um, how exactly can a twelve year old boy give the FBI the slip in the middle of the desert?
I think the big reason I would like for the opening episodes to be one movie is because there would have been less of a need to contrive a cliffhanger like thisd one to bring viewers back next week. The resolution is too illogical to believe. The powers that be should have come up with something far better. Fortunately, the resolution of the cliffhanger is the only bad aspect of the episode.
Doggett and his task force are baffled to discover Faux Mulder missing from his Wile E. Coyote plunge. Scully immediately suspects it was the Alien Bounty Hunter, not Mulder. It is about time she does so, too. She has seen the alien Bounty Hunter shape shift repeatedly since the second season without ever acknowledging that is not a natural thing to be doing. Doggett does not buy it. He is more inclined to think Mulder survived the fall. He has seen stranger things as an NYPD detective.
His task force heads out to search the boarding school praise has been living in to see if he is hiding there. Scully notices a girl sneaking off into the desert and follows her right to a secret hideaway for praise. He is hiding out there with a fractured leg. So not only did the kid elude the FBI task force, he did it with a broken leg. Doggett is on top his game, no?
Doggett has to come around at least somewhat to Scully’s way of thinking as the Alien Bounty Hunter assumes the identity of other people, including Scully at one point, to search for praise and smack a few agents around for good measure.
Scully and Skinner decide to rescue Praise on their own without Doggett’s knowledge since they cannot trust that any person is not the Alien Bounty Hunter. While they were gone, Praise hears Mulder screaming in pain from the space ship which is parked in the nearby desert, but invisible. Scully and Skinner eventually catch up to him. Scully feels the connection to Mulder, too, --shipper alert!--and stays behind as Skinner takes Gibson to the hospital. She never runs into the ship, but does get distracted when Doggett finds her. They mutually draw the conclusion the alien bounty hunter will head for the hospital to find praise.
Things are a bit odd here. Skinner has time to get Praise settled into a hospital room, so how long was scully wandering through the desert Doggett found her/ what prompted the Alien bounty hunter to go to the hospital? Scully speculates one of Doggett’s men is the Alien Bounty Hunter, but none of them knew what skinner was up to. You have to fill in the blanks that skinner informed the task force of praise’s whereabouts, and somehow the Alien Bounty hunter learned from that. I guess. I do not know. We are supposed to be distracted by Mulder’s only line in two episodes--shouting Scully’s name from inside the ship--to care about such minor issues.
There is a big confrontation at the hospital in which Scully has to kill the alien bounty hunter by shooting him in the neck. For some reason, his acid blood does not have the usual eye burning effect on her or Praise. But no matter. Mean she realizes killing him means no more connection to finding Mulder, she breaks down in hysterical tears. Doggett comforts her. I do not think enough of an emotional connection is established to convince fans, but I am going to be generous and call it a touching moment.
Doing so helps me swallow the concept the shadowy powers that be have placed Doggett on this task force because they know he would have to write up aliens and bounty hunters with green, scidic blood, and prodigy in his report. Doing so would curtail his career. Why would anyone want to cut off Doggett’s career advancement? Part of the mystery, folks. But they finally do their worst to him--he ends the episode assigned to the X-Files.
Yeah, that thing about the X-File budget being cut into non-existence? That is so last season. We are back in business now.
In spite of the snark, I think “Without” is an entertaining episode. It is the action that makes it interesting. We do not often get to see a lot of gun play along with the intrigue on this series. It has flaws, no doubt. Aside from the cliffhanger resolution and gibson’s broken leg which only sort of causes him any problem, Scully becomes a true believer in aliens way too fast. While it is true she is going to play Mulder’s True believer shtick to Doggett’s Skeptic, there is such a thing as too much, too soon. But it has got to happen sometime, and I suppose hitting the ground running is the way episodic television has to do things. I cannot consider any of these points a huge detriment., particularly with the final scene of a defeated Mulder surrounded by Alien Bounty Hunters is the last image we will have of him in our minds for a dozen episodes.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
I have made the observation in the past the first part of a two part story is almost always lacking something because it is mostly build up to a big pay off in the second part. Hence, it is difficult to judge a first part fairly. I was quite harsh on “Within” regardless, but after having watched the superior second part, I feel the story should have been a two hour premiere event. Pairing them up double length still would not have made it a classic, but things would have run far more smoothly.
