AIR DATE:  December 6, 1998
Written by Vince Gilligan, John Shiban and Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Michael Watkins

	Oh well, at least they admit to pushing the rewind botton at the
end of "Dreamland II" instead of just ignoring what happened in "Dreamland
I & II" in future episodes.  Of course, it brings up the issue of what was
the point of this episode if nothing was changed since everything was
switched back to the beginning of the episode.  If people thought we
wasted our time watching "Triangle" since it was all in Mulder's
imagination then the two-parter "Dreamland" episodes should have made them
even happier.  I mentioned last week how "Dreamland I" would have been
better as a one-parter and part two proved me out because it too was slow
moving, but part two was way better than the first part.  "Dreamland I" 
seemed to be one long set up for the final scene with Mulder screaming at
Scully that Fletcher wasn't him.  Eliminate half the scenes with Mulder
and Fletcher's wife, some of the Fletcher and Scully and throw out the
comedy thereby cutting it down to one episode and then this could have
been a very tense dramatic episode about one's identity on how we look at
ourselves and how others look at us. I said most of this in my review of
"Dreamland I" so "Dreamland II" didn't really change my mind.  Two part
episodes shouldn't be wasted on an episode that is trying too hard for
laughs and squander our time on an episode that means nothing in the end. 

	I'm not even going to bother trying to figure out why if they all
went back in time at the end of the episode (if that is what was supposed
to have happened) that Scully would still have the penny/dime in her desk
and Mulder's apartment would have been left as Fletcher left it, but Kersh
was somehow affected by the time warp.  The only purpose of leaving
Mulder's apartment as Fletcher left it was to get a laugh in the last
scene with Mulder looking at his door number to see if he is in the right
apartment.  Gosh darn it, wasn't that just funny.  By pushing the rewind
button it deludes any emotional impact they were trying for especially in
the big Scully and Mulder moment when Scully tells Mulder there isn't any
way they can switch them back and she has lost her job.  I have to admit
the first time I watched the episode I was thinking "I can't wait to see
how they manage to get Scully's job back once Mulder and Fletcher switch
back."  I could see them trying to explain to Kersh what happened.  Now
that would have been funny.  Instead it was totally meaningless since none
of it happened and we know how much Scully and Mulder mean to each other
so it wasn't showing us anything new and we knew that somehow Mulder was
going to get his body back so Scully telling him he is going to be stuck
in Morris Fletcher's body didn't have the impact they were trying for. The
second time I watched that scene there was nothing to it because of how
the episode ended.  I'm surprised they didn't have Mulder kiss Scully just
to mess with us instead of him handing Scully a handfull of sunflower
seeds.

	Now some positive and negative comments on "Dreamland II":

- The opening of this episode was great because it showed someone else
looking at Mulder's life and deciding it was time Mulder should move on
with his life and get over his sister's disappearance.  Now if they only
went further with this notion it could have made for a good dramatic
episode in having Mulder step into someone else's shoes to see what a
normal family life is and for him to see how other's perceived him. 

- Nice move on making a young Mulder a Star Trek geek (it is something
we've secretly suspected about him) by having us see him in a Spock outfit
playing with his sister and having him say at the end of the episode that
it was probably someone who watches too much Star Trek that called him to
Area 51.

- One of the pluses in this episode was having Fletcher tone down his
sexist jerk routine which is how he should have been acting in the first
part.  Maybe he was sensing from Scully that she was doubting he was
Mulder and decided to stop acting so much like himself.  I especially
liked how he turned off his computer monitor when Scully came back into
the office so she wouldn't see him playing computer golf. 

- The actress who played the old Indian woman was excellent as the Air
Force pilot trapped in her body.  This was funny because you could see
this is how the arrogant pilot would see his situation. 

- If Scully was only suspended for two weeks without pay why was she
taking stuff out of her desk and putting it into a box.  Unless I missed
something because it didn't sound like she was being fired until later on
in the episode after Kersh found she was back in Nevada with the flight
data recorder. 

- My favorite part of the episode was the sexy looking photo of Mulder in
his own X-Files folder.

- You'd think since Fletcher had been living in Mulder's body for a few
days he would have already checked out Mulder's apartment layout.  Where
did he have his fling with Kersh's secretary?  Must have been Mulder's
trusted old couch.  If he had checked out the apartment beforehand then we
wouldn't have had that gag of Fletcher opening Mulder's bedroom door and
finding it filled with files and then later on having Scully saying she
didn't know Mulder had a bedroom.  Oh yeah, I want to hire Fletcher to
come over and clean my house since it took him no time to clean Mulder's
apartment. 

- Even when Scully goes over to Mulder's house for dinner she dresses in
her business outfit.  Better to hide one's gun and handcuffs. 

- Only on tv do we get one of those consequences of Scully asking Fletcher
who he thought Mulder's source was then having Mulder's source call him. 
Let's not forget everyone ending up at the same bar in Nevada. 

- I still like the fact the Lone Gunmen still have tons of locks on their
door and it was fun having Fletcher messing with the Lone Gunmen about
their stories.

- One of the more interesting things they did in this episode was having
the General admit to Mulder he really doesn't know the big picture about
U.F.O.'s and aliens that all they do is fly the airplanes and he wanted
Mulder to tell him what the story was. 

- It is too bad they couldn't haven't gotten the drugees from "War of the
Coprophages" and "Quagmire" instead of those 3 they did get even if it was
a neat effect of the man and woman stuck to each other. 

- So does the lizard still have his head stuck in the rock and if it is
still stuck are there a whole bunch of people at Area 51 wondering where
it came from? 

- At least Fletcher was better able to think up things to convince his
wife, Joanne, that he is who he says he is than Mulder was at convincing
Scully. 

- I'm glad they didn't have the body switching thing as a big scam pulled
off by Fletcher because it would have been unbelievable.  It was
unbelievable that Fletcher wouldn't have some reaction when they had
switched bodies instead of that blank look McKean gave.

- My Scully and Mulder working together in an episode watch was not
fulfilled in "Dreamland II" because they didn't work together in the
classic sense of the X-Files and that scene where they do their big
goodbye didn't cut it for me. 

	The "Dreamland" twosome could have been something that went deeper
into the makeup of Scully and Mulder instead of two hours of going for
laughs and in the end having the episode meaning absolutely nothing.  I'm
starting to think the X-Files people have fallen themselves into a hole by
taking the X-Files away from Scully and Mulder and giving them a hardass
boss.  It is the same thing we are seeing on "Frasier" this season where
they had Frasier lose his job and his brother becoming poor, and the
writers are not able to make it funny because by doing so the show has
lost its core. I put it under the heading it seemed liked a good idea at
the time, but the execution of the good idea has been less than great.  By
separating Scully and Mulder from the X-Files the writers have taken away
from them any reason why they would investigate together any strange case
so they are desperate to think of any way to have an X-Files type event
happen on an episode so we have Mulder out in the Bermuda Triangle and
doing a body switching thing.  I'm waiting for the evil twin or lookalike
episode, the amnesia episode and the parallel universe episode.  It is not
that the "Dreamland" episodes were bad or the idea of switching bodies was
bad, it was the execution of the episode that was bad from the writers
going for laughs when they shouldn't have been and dragging it out to a
two-parter instead of editing it down to a decent one-parter. 

Claudia
E-Mail:  Claudia.Cauchon@unh.edu

12/7/98

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