AIR DATE  April 12, 1996
Written by  Darin Morgan
Directed by  Rob Bowman

	"Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" is a tale that as it is being
told continues to get more ridiculous and outrageous as it goes along.
Darin Morgan has once again did it with his latest episode and though not
as strong or funny as his earlier efforts it was still a solid episode. 
He will surely be missed from the X-Files.  Where this man gets his ideas
I can't imagine, but "Jose Chung's" was told in a way the X-Files has
never been done before through different version of what the truth was of
what happened to those two kids.  Scully says it right off at the
beginning of her interview with Jose Chung that he has come here for her
version of the truth and she isn't even sure what the truth is.  The truth
is how we decide to perceive it so it isn't surprising in "Jose Chung's"
as the story continues to be told it gets more elaborate and outrageous
from the kid who wanted to be abducted to whatever really happened to
Mulder and Scully in the hotel room. I'm sure if Mulder was telling the
story it would be completely different from Scully's version of events.

	This is one of those episodes where it is hard to really describe
what really happened so I think I will just go ahead and make my general
comments on the episode:

- The kid who wanted to be abducted because he was bored with his life and
the simple fact is he didn't want to get a job was a brilliantly funny
character.  His had to be the best retelling of the story because you know
with him he really is embellishing the importance of finding the "alien".
His description of Mulder and Scully as being a part of the Men in Black
gang was hilarious because it is easy to see how people who don't know
them can see them as a part of the conspiracy.  Describing Scully as a man
trying to pretend he was a woman and failing because the hair was too red
showed how warped this man's view of the real world has become.  It is
obvious that nothing beyond him finding this body happened so in order to
keep Jose Chung interested in his story he claims Scully threatened him,
Men in Black stole his autopsy tape, and Mulder slapped him around looking
for the tape.  Now there is a grain of truth in everything he said.  We
know Mulder and Scully most likely did go out to the scene where the dead
alien was found, but once they got there they ignored the kid in favor of
the alien body and the kid trying to pretend he was important makes it
seem like he was threatened with his life.  Men in Black most likely did
show up, but they probably didn't tear apart his VCR to get the tape or
rough him up like he said, and Mulder slapping him around, well, with
Mulder you never know sometimes.  Darin Morgan created a character we
could see ourselves in somewhat since we all have desires for something
special to happen in our lives and when something does happen what person
can't help, but try to embellish the tale a bit.

- Will the people at the X-Files ever let the FOX network live it down for
showing the alien autopsy three times?  It totally took me off guard when
they started showing the autopsy Scully did on the "alien" as a part of an
alien autopsy video along with eerie X-Fileish music over the soundtrack.
Having Scully saying how embarrassed she was by it was great because I'm
sure she hasn't heard the last of it from her colleagues and friends since
I'm sure some of them had to recognize her from the video.  Makes one
wonder what Mulder thought of the video.  Glad to see the Men in Black
didn't lose an opportunity to make some money off the video.  Oh yeah,
liked the subtitle of the video which was "Truth or Humbug". 

- Did anyone else think the third alien, Lord Kimba I think it called
itself, looked liked one of the chess pieces from "Star Wars"?  The piece
that picks up the other piece and kills it and Chewee gets all upset.
Also, it sounded like God from the movie "The Ten Commendments" when it
talked to Rocky. 

- Now Rocky there was another strange one who went on to make a profit
from whatever he truly experienced. We get someone who we can doubt the
most on his version of the truth because he could easily have been someone
who heard about what happened and decided to exploit it.  Jose Chung
seemed to have Rocky's number down right from the start when he says he
didn't know what was more disturbing Rocky's description of the sexual
acts of the reincarnated souls or the fact his little story was written in
screenplay format.  If the Men in Black truly did come and visit him and
didn't want him to show his little book called "The Truth About Aliens" 
then couldn't they have just taken his book away from him.  Here we get
again another variation of the truth by someone who is looking for more in
life than working for the electric company.  No doubt the reason he headed
out to California had more to do with trying to pitch his script than
being in any danger.

- Now we know what Alex Trebek does in his spare time, gee, I wonder what
Pat Sajak does in his spare time.  The whole concept of the Men in Black
was excellent in playing on the stereotype of the grand government
conspiracy.  They threaten Rocky about telling his version of the "truth",
they take the autopsy video tape from the kid to prevent the "truth" of
alien abductions from getting out and they do who the hell knows what with
Mulder and Scully in order to confuse them about what the "truth" was in
the kid's story.  Of course this all depends if all this really happened
in the first place since who the hell knows what was real in this story. 
The Air Force pilot had it right when he tells Mulder he wasn't sure what
was real anymore after what happened, and neither do we and I don't think
we should try so hard to figure out what truly happened in this episode
since that wasn't the point of the story.  I did like the reaction they
gave Rocky and the kid when they see Alex Trebek for the first time as
"Hey, it's Alex Trebek".

- I now know it is no longer just the Military Industrial Complex I have
to worry about, but the Military Industrial Entertainment Complex.  No
wonder Mulder came off as paranoid nutcase to Jose Chung since to Chung
this book was only a way to make money whereas to Mulder it is another
book in an attempt to discredit people such as him who believe there is a
larger conspiracy going on.

- Need I say more on the brilliance in having the police detective saying
bleep and blank everytime he supposedly used a swear word.  I have to
admit that was the funniest running joke throughout the whole episode
along with having almost everyone using the cliche "you're a dead man". It
made me think of those R rated movies where every other word is a swear
word and how when these R rated movies are shown on tv it can get
ridiculous how they try to blank out or change the swear words as if we
wouldn't notice.

- It worked having Chung do the voice over at the end of the episode
giving his opinion on whether anything happened at all, and his
distribution of the principles involved was first-rate.  It gave us
someone else's view of Scully and Mulder.

- I have one last thing to say and that is this episode makes up for the
last two new episodes.  The direction, acting, cinematography and writing
was back up to what we expect from the X-Files.  The first shot we saw in
which we think it is a spaceship and it ends up being one of those things
phone and utility workers use to look at their lines was a good way to
tell us not to believe everything we see or hear in this episode. 

	Okay, so what did we get out of "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'",
well, the truth might be out there, but which truth is kind of hard to
determine.  Darin Morgan has a way at looking at how the X-Files is
perceived and twist every X-Files convention around from the bright lights
and lost time to Mulder's obsession with believing even the most
outrageous claims.  I always like how Morgan gets at the nuttiness of
Mulder's character because there is something slightly crazy about him.
This episode deals with our perception of reality and what we believe to
be true not only in the X-Files universe, but our own since in the end we
chose to believe what is the truth.

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

4/14/96

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