AIR DATE:  April 19, 1998
Written by Tim Minear
Directed by Kim Manners

	It seems to me that X-Files is starting to get closer to the old
Bonanza formula where each episode will focus on one character while the
others are only in the episode a little bit for support and advice.  Let's
also not forget the classic Bonanza formula of someone becoming close to
the main characters only to die in the end which has happened a few times
on X-Files.  Whenever I watched Bonanza within the first 15 minutes I
could figure out whether it was a Little Joe, Hoss or Ben Cartwright
episode.  I suppose this was to give the actors a break since back then
they filmed 29 episodes a season so it can be assumed they were giving
Gillian Anderson a break, but they are only filming 20 episodes this year
so it would be nice to have an episode where Scully and Mulder were
actually in the whole episode. Instead of having a Scully and Mulder
episode we get "Mind's Eye" which was essentially a Mulder episode since
Scully was in the episode at best 10 minutes out of a 45 minute episode,
and she was basically there for wallpaper since there wasn't the usual
rapport between them.  Mulder might as well have left her in D.C. since
her role could have been filled by any other character in the episode.

	Since this was a Mulder episode what exactly were they trying to
get at in the episode because I couldn't see why Mulder seemed to connect
with Marty Glenn like he did.  Did he connect with her because she had a
hard life and wouldn't take help from anyone?  Or was it he could see
behind the angry young woman routine of a woman who was putting up a
facade because that was how he was in his youth?  Of course, we have never
seen him or even had him referred to as an angry young man in the past so
it is hard to believe in the latter.  Now if you compared "Mind's Eye" to
the 3rd season episode "Oubliette" one can see where "Mind's Eye" went
wrong.  In "Oubliette" we could understand why Mulder connected with Lucy
Householder because of his own past history of his sister and seeing in
Householder his own sister if she ever came back.  Also, we had Scully in
the episode to be there for Mulder because she understood what was going
on with him.  These things were not present in "Mind's Eye" and it created
a huge deficit in it so that we really didn't care what happened to Marty
Glenn.  Plus, it didn't help that within the first 15 minutes we could
figure out the episode was going to do the old cliche of the killer,
Gotts, being Marty Glenn's father and murderer of her mother.  "Oubliette" 
didn't do this, who would have predicted Lucy Householder would die at the
end of that episode.  I will give the episode some credit because I
thought for sure Detective Pennock was going to get killed by the end of
the episode.

	Now some miscellaneous comments on "Mind's Eye":

- Marty Glenn truly did live in a run down apartment building as could be
seen by the hallway rug in her apartment complex.  Yuck, who picked those
patterns? 

- We should have known something was wrong in Marty Glenn's life since she
didn't smoke the preferred conspiracy brand of Morley's. 

- Is there a reason why the Wilmington police didn't turn on the lights to
the motel room and bathroom when they entered?  Wouldn't it have been
safer for the police to go into a well lit room.  But, it sure did look
cool them flashing their flashlights all over the room and to get the
shadow figure in the shower, didn't it?

- I especially liked in the episode how Detective Pennock dropped his
sixth sense theory the second Mulder and Scully go with him to Wilmington. 
Talk about a lame attempt to get Scully and Mulder to investigate a case.

- Was there any reason why Mulder didn't say to Detective Pennock and
Scully that he was going to give Glenn a polygraph test instead of saying
he was going to investigate something else while they go investigate the
crime scene.  What did he think, they wouldn't agree to it?  Another bad
attempt at suspense because by having him say that it made it seem like he
was going to do something nobody else would have thought of, instead we
see him just giving her a polygraph test.  Whoopee, nothing surprising or
inventive in him doing that. 

- I loved the go away look Scully gave Detective Pennock when her cellular
phone rang.

- Boy, it was really lucky for Detective Pennock that Scully checked out
the crime scene or else they never would have found the glove.  I guess
the Wilmington P.D. need to go over their searching a crime scene protocol
since they missed one of the most obvious places to look.  I kept waiting
for Detective Pennock to say to Scully, "What idiots we were for not
thinking of looking at the blade disposal area.  Why thank you Agent
Scully." 

- Didn't the jailbars in Marty Glenn's celllook like they were covered by
aluminum foil? 

- I guess prison doesn't reform some people since the first thing Gotts
does when he gets out is murder someone within 3 weeks.  What parole board
would let someone like Gotts out since it is so obvious he is still a
menace to society.  Maybe if it had been he had served his time instead of
being parole it would have worked, but Gotts was such an unredeeming
character it was hard to believe he would have been such a well behaved
convict that he could convince the parole board that it was safe to parole
him.

- I was glad to see Duchovny shaved for that day of shooting when they
filmed the scene with the DA.

- The DAs of Law and Order would have been able to find some excuse to
keep Marty Glenn in jail a little while longer.  The Wilmington DA
wouldn't last two weeks in New York.

- Did Scully really need to hand deliver the glove to the F.B.I. labs? 
Doesn't she trust the usual methods of shipping evidence to the F.B.I. 
labs?  Just as they used a lame excuse to get them to investigate the case
they used a lame excuse to get Scully out of the picture. 

- Isn't that the same alley they used in "Squeeze" where Gotts killed the
woman? 

- Was there a reason why Scully felt the need to call Mulder from the
hallway instead of her office?  I suppose they wanted to show
Action!Scully walking halls of the F.B.I. headquarters since walking =
action.  But then again we all know Scully doesn't have an office. 

- Gotts must be psychic too since he knew just where to stand to see
Detective Pennock transport Marty Glenn and to know that out of all the
suspects Detective Pennock could be transporting that day would be the one
who has been harassing him.

- I guess Mulder got one of his amazing hunches when he must have asked
the lab people to see if Gotts and Marty Glenn were related.  Someone had
to order them to check it out because I doubt that would be something they
would be looking for. 

- Next time Mulder when you visit someone in jail you should do it before
lights out.  But if he did we wouldn't have had that cool fade out shot at
the end of the episode.

- Was it me or did Gillian Anderson not look too well in this episode.  In
some of the scenes Scully looked as she did during her cancer period.

	"Mind's Eye" fell into the trap of being what I like to call an
observant episode where Scully and Mulder don't really do much in an
episode.  They weren't part of the action or have any real effect on the
case.  There was a weak attempt at having Mulder connect with Marty Glenn,
but it didn't work either through a lack of chemistry between Duchovny and
Lili Taylor who played Marty Glenn, or the failure of showing us any
reason why Mulder would relate to her in the first place.  I'm now waiting
for the Scully episode we must be getting in one of the upcoming episodes. 


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

P.S.  It is kind of funny while I watched the episode I enjoyed it, but as
I started writing this review I realize the episode had a lot of problems
that made it a real lackluster episode. 


4/20/98

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