AIR DATE:  May 4, 1997
Written by John Shiban
Directed by Jim Charleston

	Sometime during the opening segment of "Elegy" I had a feeling
this was not going to be a very good X-Files episode then I remembered
everyone's favorite writer, John Shiban, was due to write one more
X-Files, and I had a bad feeling this was it.  Sometime during the first
15 minutes of the episode I realized Scully was going to be attacked by
the serial killer, and I wasn't wrong on any of these things.  The one
thought that is coming across my mind right now is did I become prejudiced
against this episode the second I realized it was a John Shiban script.
Would I have reacted differently if it had been a Vince Gilligan or a
Chris Carter script because it had all the elements of one of their
scripts.  We had the Scully angst scenes with the psychiatrist and the
X-File of ghostly appearances of dead people to people who are dying.  It
would be hard for Shiban to top the awfulness of the Killer Pussy Cats
episode or "El Mundo Gira", and "Elegy" is an episode that I felt could
have been so much more, but Shiban couldn't quite figure out where to go
with the idea of Scully facing her feelings about death and how her
relationship with Mulder has been affected by it. 

	The scene with the psychiatrist seemed to be replaying some of the
issues that were covered in "Irresistible" where Scully talked about her
feelings towards Mulder and how she felt he looked upon her.  She didn't
want Mulder to think she was weak and with this illness it is hard for her
to not think Mulder would think this way.  She is having a hard enough
time dealing with it and though she sees Mulder as a source strength she
knows how Mulder would take the news of her sighting.  This sighting had
more to do than her not being able to believe what she saw in the
restroom.  It had just as much to do with her own thoughts of her
mortality and Mulder's reaction to it. Imagine how much more her fear was
touched upon by Mulder's belief these ghostly figures only come to people
who are dying.  Even though "Elegy" had all these issues for Scully to
deal with there was something about this whole setup that didn't seem
true.  I can't help thinking how much more Carter would have gotten out of
the psychiatrist office visit if he had written it.  There just didn't
seem to be any new ground broken in "Elegy". 

	Now some miscellaneous musings on "Elegy":

- Sometimes I don't know about myself when I can remember the most trivial
thing from a bad movie sequel I saw as a kid, but when the bowling alley
owner, Angie Pintero, was walking down towards lane 6 I kept thinking to
myself watch out the Blob is going to pop out of those things. One of the
only things I remember from the sequel to The Blob. Well, I do remember it
eating the little kitten too. 

- I was a little bit confuse as to why Pintero would see a pool of blood,
but the words "She is Me" wasn't spelled out until Mulder spilled coke on
the spot it was supposed to have been on.  Everyone else seemed to see the
words written in blood.  I guess it just made for a great shot.  I'm still
trying to figure out why "She is Me" was written at all.  Was it a homage
to "Red Museum" where the victims had either "She is One" or "He is One"?
It just didn't make sense why this would be the message considering that
it ended up being the murderer unless it was being directed to the person
receiving it, but this thinking doesn't work with Pintero since he was a
man.  Oh well, I guess it was one of those X-Files that will never make
sense.

- Boy, tough bowling alley they make Scully and Mulder put on bowling
shoes.  I half expected Pintero to start yelling at Mulder to put his
bowling shoes on when he ran down the bowling lane after Harold.

- This is the second time this season we get to see what a good athlete
Duchovny is when we see him bowl a strike.  This isn't too hard to do when
you are bowling ten pins, now if it had been candlepin or more appropriate
for the Maryland area duckpin bowling then it would have been a little bit
more impressive.  Oh yeah, I wonder how many times it took to get the
shot.

- Detective Hudak should head down to Baltimore and take some lessons from
Detective Pembleton on how to question a suspect.  It is any wonder he
ever made it to the rank of Detective with his deft handling of Harold.

- Shouldn't a band-aid have been put on Scully after blood was taken out
of her.  I could be wrong and she didn't need one since it wasn't a lot of
blood.  The only time blood has been taken out of me is during blood
drives and for something that was done for Scullly maybe the band-aid
isn't necessary.  Oh well, it would have been interesting to see blood
suddenly coming out of her arm. 

- Will we get the great CPR debate with "Elegy" as we did with "Oubliette"
when all the police officers gave up doing CPR on Pintero within seconds
of his heart attack?

- Good old Mulder comes right down to business with Scully when he goes to
her apartment at who knows what hour before he realizes why Scully wasn't
around in the first place and asks her how she was doing.  Hmm, maybe
there was a reason why she was reluctant to tell him about her sighting. 
I have to admit it did remind me of this past week's Babylon 5 episode
where Sheridan wakes up Ivanova and he goes straight to business without
even noticing she is in her nightgown. 

- I have to admit the last name of Innes for the nurse kept making me
think of Neil Innes one of the people behind the Bonzo Dog Band and the
Rutles which in turn made me think of Monty Python Flying Circus since
some of them worked on the Rutles and on Monty Python the men always
dressed up like women.  I kinda kept expecting it to reveal Nurse Innes
was a man by the end of the episode.  At least it would have made the
episode a little bit more exciting.

- Having the murderer be Nurse Innes was the weakest part of the episode
because it seemed to come out of the blue.  Actually, it is Shiban's own
fault since we know it had to be someone and we were only introduced to a
few characters during the episode.  There was the head hospital guy,
Harold, Chuck and Nurse Innes.  We were led to believe via Mulder (since
he's never wrong) that it couldn't have been Harold, and the head hospital
guy and Chuck never gave any indication it could be them so we are left
with Nurse Innes who was a little bit abrupt with the patients, but we
were never given enough reasons for her to commit the murders.  Why was
she taking the drugs and was she only taking Harold's drugs?  How long was
she a nurse there and did she have problems earlier?  The last 15 minutes
where this was revealed seemed a bit rushed like Shiban realized he had to
produce someone as the murderer and decided it might as well be Nurse
Innes. 

- Where did Harold get those pictures?  These were professional pictures
so it isn't like he took them without the women knowing about it.  Was it
the victims who liked Harold so they gave them to him?  Did Nurse Innes
see them and decide to kill them because Harold liked them?  So many
questions and so few answers.

- You would think Scully would know by now about going into bathrooms to
confront someone.  I guess her illness is affecting her thinking though it
didn't affect her shooting abilities.

- Did anyone else find it hard to believe Mulder was about ready to pick
up the knife without first putting on gloves?  Guess he got distracted by
the fact Scully was attacked.

- I'm starting to like how they are using Scully's nose bleeds as a plot
convenience.  Why else have her go to the restroom other than to clean
herself up.  It isn't like people use them for any other reasons. 

- Anyone else find the TV Guide ads for the X-Files funny?  I think it is
really funny how FOX is doing ID4 design idea by having the ads go XF3 for
the number of episodes left to air this season.  Somehow I don't think I
would have missed anything if I missed "Elegy". 

	"Elegy" was a decent episode considering who wrote it though I get
the feeling it could have been so much better.  It seems the point of the
episode was to have Scully confront her feelings towards her illness and
Mulder.  We've already had some of this in "Irresistible", and we know how
both of them are the best example of people who are in denial about their
feelings towards things.  This whole episode seemed to be a mishmash of
other episodes from "Roland" to "Excelsis Del" to "Irresistible".  At
least Shiban has improved from previous episodes which as I stated earlier
wouldn't be too hard to do.  "Elegy" like "Zero Sum" the week earlier is
being used as a built up to the season finale, and right now even though
"Elegy" wasn't a great episode it sure is looking as if it is going to be
a good season finale. 

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

5/6/97

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