HOLLYWOOD A.D.

AIR DATE: April 30, 2000
Written by David Duchovny
Directed by David Duchovny

        "Hollywood A.D." is the second X-Files episode this season I wanted to watch twice (the other being "X-Cops"). This made me wonder why so many episodes this season have either been mediocre or downright bad. Once again it gets down to bad writing doing in the X-Files this season from the lame resolution of Samantha’s disappearance to gosh there were so many unmemorable episodes this season I can’t even remember what half of them were about. "Hollywood A.D." only shows how good writing can make one enjoy an episode and how Duchovny still, after all these years of playing Mulder, can write an episode where Mulder is still Mulder throughout it along with Scully. This felt like the real Scully and Mulder we watch the show for which is always nice to see since sometimes the writers forget who they are or don’t even have them in an episode.

        What was Duchovny trying to say in "Hollywood A.D." that hasn’t been said before when Hollywood’s makes fun of itself. It’s superficial, they live in their own world, ordinary people will let themselves be sucked into Hollywood’s lifestyle and Hollywood doesn’t really care about the true facts of a story. No matter, because whenever an old story is told well then this doesn’t matter and there was a decent X-Files in all of this though it was dropped somewhat in the end. Come on, who really believes Mulder would have stopped investigating the case completely, but that wasn’t the point of the episode. The point of the episode was to have some fun with Scully and Mulder by having someone from Hollywood interpret their work and get it totally wrong. Mulder did hit upon something in that this movie will make it harder for anyone to take him or Scully seriously meaning Hollywood has done more damage to their reputation than the Consortium ever did. Of course, now no one can take the Consortium seriously. Hmm, I wonder what they thought of the movie. It should come as no surprise to Scully and Mulder that Hollywood didn’t get the facts right because they never let the facts get in the way of telling a story. They call it artistic license though people who saw the movie "Hurricane" question that type of assertion, but if a movie like "Hurricane" was made 50 years after the fact instead of 10 no one would have cared if they changed a few things just like no one really cared that Tim Robbins changes when that painter did the mural in "The Cradle that Rocks" because most of the people who were around then are dead and most other people don’t remember.

        Now some miscellaneous comments on "Hollywood A.D.":

-  Duchovny got it right, only in Hollywood would they have movie bad guy, Cigarette Smoking Pontiff, dress in his fancy outfit and it still looked good with no wrinkles or dirt on it and his ability to keep his hat on.

-  Another only in Hollywood would we hear movie Mulder say he’d rather serve in Heaven than rule in Hell. Somehow in real life people never come up with a good line like that. Oh yeah, I liked the Zombies who were ready to dump Cigarette Smoking Pontiff just so they could live and party.

-  Also, couldn’t help thinking if the movie Mulder hadn’t jumped movie Scully they wouldn’t have ended up in the coffin, but this is another Hollywood moment. It was only done to get them in this position so they would kiss. Good to know the writer of the movie knew enough about Mulder and Scully to know they would be carrying flashlights no matter what so they could take out flashlights in the coffin.

-  Did anyone else think it was Skinner who put in the mind of the writer that there was something between him and Scully?

-  I did like how they found Micah Hoffman’s body by his ringing cell phone after we see the Hollywood Producer, Mulder and Cardinal O’Fallen pull out their cell phones. If that was me I would have answered it just to see who was on the other end.

-  The Hollywood Producer is a man after my own heart when he asked Scully and Mulder if they were breaking the law by entering Hoffman’s apartment without a warrant and going back into the Church’s crypts without permission. This has always been one of my favorite complaints. Scully and Mulder are lucky most of the people they are going after end up dead or insane otherwise they would have been sued for wrongful entering and trespassing.

-  Good CGI or whatever they used to show the bones moving on their own. I have to admit it took a second viewing to figure out they got the bowl with Jesus’ words of resurrection from the dancing skeletons.

-  Loved Scully’s Sister Spooky stories. It helped explained why my mother didn’t send me or my siblings to Catholic School. One of my favorite lines was Mulder saying to Scully, "Who says you can’t get good science in a Catholic school?" in response to Sister Spooky’s stories.

-  Second favorite line was the Hollywood Producer to Scully and Mulder when he says to Mulder that he’s crazy for believing and to Scully that she’s crazy not to believe in Mulder. Kind of sums it up.

-  What I would like to know is how big a role is Skinner’s part in the movie if Richard Gere is playing him? Too bad they couldn’t have had Richard Gere to do a cameo.

-  I wonder if Scully even told Mulder about the body rising from the dead and talking to her or that she saw Hoffman’s face briefly in the face of Christ. Somehow I doubt it.

-  Mulder is right when he tells Skinner there is still a crime with a dead body, forgeries and pipe bomb explosion. Though it is obvious from the second viewing that Skinner gave them the 4 weeks off as punishment so they would go out to Hollywood and help his producer friend.

-  How can Scully think it is sad that Mulder has watched "Plan 9 from Outer Space" 42 times? I know kids who can watch the same video over and over without getting bored. Heck, I know there are some albums I’ve listened to more than that over the years. Why is it we have this ability to listen or watch somethings over and over and never get tried of them?

-  Doesn’t Tea Leoni know that Scully just knows when she has to wear high heels and when she doesn’t so that she can run. We get a classic X-Files moment when we see in the background as Mulder and Shandling are talking about which side Mulder puts his clothes on Scully is showing Leoni how she is able to run in high heels then Leoni talking on her cell phone while Scully is running up and down. Somehow I don’t think that was Gillian Anderson doing the running.

-  When the Zombie complained about it being real turkey and not tofurkey I couldn’t help thinking about that classic Thanksgiving Day episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" when Raymond’s wife and mother decide to make a tofurkey instead of a real turkey.

-  The writer sure was able to crank out a script and have it cast within a short period of time since it only seemed like days between the time he left them and invited them to Hollywood. Shouldn’t there have been at least 5 other people who tried their hand on the script.

-  Good to see they continue the gag from the Larry Sanders show of the Duchovny and Shandling attraction to each other.

-  Another thing I didn’t pick up until I watched the episode in Closed Captions was movie Scully saying "Bees" just before she and movie Mulder kiss in reference to the bad idea of having a bee sting Scully as they are about to kiss in the real X-Files movie.

-  I would have liked to know how this movie tested and what changes were done before it was released.

-  Duchovny did try to wrap up the whole Micah Hoffman and Cardinal O"Fallon plotline, but he left so much open such as the bowl, the dead body they found and how it appeared to raise from the dead.

        "Hollywood A.D." is a light episode, but not really a light episode because it touched upon how Hollywood sees things and totally messes up the facts to suit their own needs. Also, how even Scully and Mulder can get shallow in the Hollywood glitter. Guess everyone needs a break from trying to expose a worldwide conspiracy of an alien takeover.

Claudia

E-Mail: Claudia.Cauchon@unh.edu

05/02/00

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