AIR DATE: February
4, 2001
Written by Frank
Spotnitz
Directed by Kim
Manners
I rank making Mulder having a non-curable disease which we find out at the beginning of this season as the most boneheaded decision done on a tv show right up there with having Dr. Mark Greene on "ER" having an "inoperable" brain tumor. Okay, Scully being pregnant is the most bone headed idea on the show, but Mulder’s disease comes a close second. Let’s not even get into the fact that they already did this with Scully’s cancer arc a few seasons ago (showing the lack of originality on the X-Files nowadays). I was really hoping they would drop that whole plotline, but alas that wasn’t to be so we get an episode without any Scully and instead we get Doggett and Skinner running around after some Creature who can take on people’s diseases and cure them. Somewhere in all this we find out in flashbacks that Mulder went up there looking for the Creature for his own cure and somehow Scully signed off on a report saying Mulder was doing one thing while he was really up in Pennsylvania. Somehow I find it hard to believe Scully would sign off anything if she didn’t know the reason why. I would love to have seen the conversation between Scully and Mulder when he convinced her to sign off on the report. The other sad part about this episode is if this is how it is going to be like without either Scully or Mulder then we have a lot to worry about because there was nothing in this episode to make it memorable. For some reason they think we should be shocked that Mulder would go up there to save himself then change his mind when he sees the Creature is put in pain everytime he helps a diseased person. The only thing I was shocked at was how they keep trying to pass off these episodes as a Mulder episode. There are so many ways they could have dealt with Duchovny leaving the show where it wouldn’t seem as if something was missing the past 2 months with the lack of any mention of Mulder on the show.
The other fallacy of "The Gift" is having the Creature saving Doggett’s life. How can he so easily dismiss Scully now that he has had an X-Files experience? He was dead for at least an hour before the Creature saved his life. One of the things I would like to ask him is what was it like to be dead? Is there an afterlife? He was dead for quite a while so either he experienced something or he didn’t, but this is something too deep for the people behind the X-Files to deal with. I would like to see how this was written up in his report. Does he even tell Scully about his little trip up to Pennsylvania? I guess the whole point of this episode was to show us Doggett was able to get into Mulder’s head though you would think after months of not even bothering to look for Mulder one wonders why Doggett suddenly finds it necessary to rush up to Pennsylvania to investigate one of Mulder’s last cases. It just makes everything seem disjointed.
A few comments on "The Gift":
Before I realized the first scene with Mulder was a flashback I couldn’t help thinking: Mulder, Rogue Demon Hunter.
I still want to know who is paying Mulder’s rent on his apartment? Also, I’m sure Scully will be happy to find Doggett has ransacked Mulder’s apartment unless he took the time to put everything back. Once again we see the incompetence of the F.B.I. who didn’t find Mulder’s extra gun under the kitchen sink at the beginning of the season though why Mulder left it there and didn’t take it with him to where he disappeared is a mystery. Oh yeah, even Doggett thinks to feed Mulder’s fish. Thank goodness Mulder only had fish and not a dog or cat.
I hate to think how much that trash smelled underneath the kitchen sink since it has been months since it’s been emptied.
Did Skinner and Doggett really need to rush up to Pennsylvania so they get there in the middle of the night? Somehow what they were investigating could have waited until the next morning. Doggett sure was getting some speedy miles on his car. Just the typical X-Files express.
Why did the Sheriff even bother submitting a police report on the body of the Creature after it was found in the woods shortly after Mulder shot it. Considering the whole town was in it it seemed kind of foolish to file a police report on something they are trying to cover up.
Why is Skinner sometimes with Doggett then other times he is conveniently missing. Of course, it wouldn’t have been so easy for the Sheriff to shoot Doggett in the back thus killing him if Skinner was there to back him up. What is the point of having a major character supposedly being killed when we know that isn’t going to be the case in the long run. There is no suspense and it wasn’t too hard for anyone to figure out that the Creature was going to save Doggett. Why even bother doing it.
Lucky for Skinner and Doggett the Lone Gunmen knew right away what the Creature was and why the townspeople were protecting it.
I have to admit I try to avoid any advance publicity on episodes so they are as fresh as possible so it took me about 22 minutes into the show to figure out there would be no Scully in this episode. Boy, this episode could have used a little Scully. Such as why did she sign off on that report, I wanted that asked. If we are supposed to be getting to the truth then we sure are not going about it the right way. Maybe Scully would have been interested to know what Mulder was up to shortly before he disappeared. Oh well, instead of getting a nice compelling story about what Mulder was up to before he disappeared and the questions it would raise for Scully we get this lame story of Mulder going up to this small town in Pennsylvania looking for a way to save himself then killing his only chance for being cured because he saw how much pain it was in. Doggett suddenly takes an interest in this case in order for us to see Doggett is able to get into Mulder’s head because no one else would have been able to figure out why he went up there. Yeah, right.
Claudia
E-Mail: Claudia.Cauchon@unh.edu
02/10/01
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