I can say part two is an improvement over the ninth season premiere plot wise. But what that translate to is that it actually has a plot, however thin. What it boils down to is taking the original conspiracy and all the players involved and transferring them to new characters. About two-thirds of the way in, I started comparing the new mythology to scab replacements for striking workers. Not a promising attitude to have.
At least confusing bits glossed over from part one are clarified now. Lucy lawless is playing Shannon McMahon, a secret super soldier working for the Department of Justice. She is killing off three potential whistle blowers for the super soldier program. She found two of them, but does not know who the third is. She tricks Doggett into helping her find him. Why Doggett? Her rationale is not overtly stated, but it is clear she settled for him because Mulder is gone. Doggett, Reyes, and scully eventually discover what the whistleblowers were going to reveal--a ship upon which scientists are experimenting on human embryos. Scully wants to see if her name is listed among the research, but the bad guys have set the ship to self-destruct. The three escape during the longest 32 second countdown in television history.
Here is the deal with why I think the old shtick is being transferred to new characters. Though Doggett is the skeptic, he is playing the Mulder role here. He is uncovering the super soldier program, which is really the same as the old cloning plan as far as the story goes. McMahon is playing the Alien bounty Hunter role, right down to her knowing the only way to kill a super soldier is to decapitate him. That is the new needle to the back of the neck. She “kills” Knowles Rohner, who is the new Cigarette Smoking Man. It is revealed that kersh secretly guided Doggett towards the EPA official’s murder and is the one who advised mulder to flee. He is taking on a combined Deep Throat/Skinner role for Doggett. Folmer is the new Scott Blevins, although the similarities will be more obvious down the road. The only new bit is that Baby William has special powers. Whatever his powers are, they are not enough to make Gillian Anderson appear happy to still be on this show.
“Nothing Important Happened Today II” is dedicated to the memory of Chad Keller, a family friend of Chris and Dotti Carter who died in the September 11th terrorist attacks. The dedication is a reminder of the impact 9/11 had on The X-Files. Carter himself blamed its rapid decline in popularity on 9/11. While he was diplomatically covering for his writers’ less than stellar work, he had a point. There was both a surge of patriotism post-9/11 that made a show about government conspiracies passe. One also has to question why the FBI utilizes resources on the X-Files when there are terrorists to be hunted down. Those two point cannot be completely dismissed.
“Nothing Important Happened Today II’” is a typical mythology episode. Nothing new or exciting is introduced. In fact, I had a here we go again feeling throughout, except I do not think the journey will be as engrossing the second time around. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the episode. It is just so unoriginal. It may have been sever or eight years since we saw Mulder and scully make these same discoveries, but we have not forgotten it after all this time.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
I can say part two is an improvement over the ninth season premiere plot wise. But what that translate to is that it actually has a plot, however thin. What it boils down to is taking the original conspiracy and all the players involved and transferring them to new characters. About two-thirds of the way in, I started comparing the new mythology to scab replacements for striking workers. Not a promising attitude to have.
