AIR DATE:  Febuary 16, 1997
Written by Howard Gordon
Directed by Kim Manners

	"Kaddish" was one of those fun loving episodes where Scully and
Mulder run around a lot and nothing much happens.  This week's episode
seemed to fall victim to the same thing "El Mundo Gira" did in that all
the action happened around them and was a bit preachy with nothing much
really happening in this episode except a lot of people die.  It is a good
thing they didn't show this episode right after "El Mundo Gira" since they
are so similar in tone and feeling.  I guess sometimes FOX does know what
it's doing. 

	It appears the episode wanted to be so much more, especially with
Mulder who was in the backround throughout most of the episode as if the
case was bothering him in some way.  It was Scully who wanted to
investigate it and when they were interviewing the father and daughter
Mulder doesn't say much and keeps his head down, and he kept appearing to
be wishing he was anywhere else but doing this case.  If the episode had
gone in this direction of making it a Mulder episode like "Revelations"
was a Scully episode, then it could have been so much more interesting
since we've only had hints as to what his religion is and how he feels
about it.  In "Conduit" the episode ended with Mulder in a church and I
can't quite remember what religious figure we saw at Bill Mulder's
funeral, but what if Mrs. Mulder was Jewish and Mulder never quite
accepted it or something.  Anyway it just appeared as if they were heading
somewhere with Mulder in this episode and they either didn't know where to
go with it or they decided to back off the religious aspect for Mulder. 
They have had no problem exploring Scully's religious belief so maybe they
should explore some of Mulder's religious beliefs. 

	There really isn't much to say about "Kaddish" since nothing much
happens in it so I'll just go to my miscellaneous musings:

- Lucky for Ariel Luria that it was raining the night she went to make her
dead husband into a murderous mudboy, making it was easy for her to build
him.  Gee, I hate to think how long and hard it would have been if she had
to bring a few jugs of bottled water.  Didn't it look like she forgot to
make a left arm in one of the shots?  Now that would have been funny for
us to see a one armed mudboy running around New York City.  I could see
the local news broadcast of people having sightings of him.  Where was the
media in all of this?  You would figure with this being a hate crime the
New York media (hell, even the national media) would be all over it, but
they were nowhere to be seen.  It is amazing how Scully and Mulder can
work all these cases without getting media attention.  Look how much
attention Prince, the death row dog, got here in New Hampshire and beyond.

- One thing I like about tv other than the ability of tv characters being
able to find parking spaces, is how bright it can be at night time so that
we the audience can see what is going on during a scene.  But I did have a
hard time believing Scully and Mulder would be able to see so clearly in
Issac Luria's grave without a flashlight.  Sure there were cop cars all
over the place with lights flashing, but not one single light was pointed
into the grave.  It is times like these I have to go to myself, "It's only
a tv show.  It's only a tv show.  These type of things always happen in
them so get over it." 

- I don't normally comment on Mark Snow's music because it usually works
so well it doesn't deserve a weekly comment.  Unfortunately, I couldn't
help but notice it throughout the whole episode.  I can barely think of a
scene where I wasn't hearing it, which made it a distraction.

- The preachy stuff in the episode about words and the ability to use them
to get people to kill others was a bit overdone from the Xerox guy saying
to one of the teen killers that his writings weren't meant to be taken to
kill Jews to the Jewish guy in the archives going "The power of the letter
to not just create, but to kill".  Okay, I think I got it now, spreading
hatred is wrong and what one writes can be taken in wrong ways.  Why is it
everytime X-Files gets preachy it always annoys me?  Maybe it is because
they don't do it too well since I don't expect X-Files to do these type of
episodes.  I expect it from "ER" or "Law and Order" but in X-Files I
expect to be more subtle about it.  This week's Simpson episode is a fine
example of how you can get a point across and not be preachy about it by
dealing with people's reaction to a gay person and the stereotypes we
believe makes a man.
	
- Ahh, Mulder and his gun had a good time this week.  He didn't just get
beat up once when he took his gun out, but twice.  Yahoo, I don't know why
I like it when Mulder gets beat up maybe, I just like seeing Duchovny flat
on his back.

- I'm glad Mulder didn't know what was going on from the start in the
episode, instead he had to go t o the the guy in the archives to get the
complete answers.  For once Mulder doesn't know it all. 

- Why I hate Channel 25 in Boston:  During the Simpsons they decided to
run a news crawl about a winter storm warning for the Cape then put on an
annoying map on the bottom right corner.  I'm thinking they wouldn't do it
during the X-Files, but sure enough with 15 minutes left to go they do the
same thing.  Yup, right across their faces ruining the rest of the
episode.  This goes right up with them delaying the X-Files for an hour
after the Super Bowl and preempting "F. Emasculata" by a day to show a
Celtic's playoff game.  I hate to break the news to the Big Brains at
Channel 25, but I don't think a New England snow storm warrants a news
crawl across the screen during the show.  You see me and for most the
watchers living in New England snow storms are a part of life.  It wasn't
like it was a hurricane or even a snow storm that was going to be like the
Blizzard of '78.  Oh yeah, I just want it to be known I will never ever
watch Channel 25 news or FOX news in general.  Sorry about the rant
against Channel 25, but I really do hate this station so much I want to
start lobbying my cable outfit to pick up the local FOX station out of
Portland, ME.

	"Kaddish" was another one of those episodes that was kind of
boring because nothing happens in it.  At least it wasn't as bad as "El
Mundo Gira" and "Teliko" though once again it feels like it should have
been a much better episode.  As I wrote earlier it appears as if this
episode wanted to explore Mulder's religious beliefs i.e. make him Jewish,
but either they chickened out or they didn't know how to approach it so
they decided to drop it, and instead we get a few uneasy looks from Mulder
during the episode.  Oh well, at least beginning with next week's episode
they will be back to showing the episodes in the correct order. 


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

2/17/97

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