ORISON

AIR DATE: January 9, 2000
Written by Chip Johannessen
Directed by Rob Bowman

            The first time I watched "Orison" I was annoyed that they had Scully kill someone in cold blood. The second time I was even more annoyed and upset at what they have done to Scully’s character and having Mulder covering up what Scully did. Is this supposed to be character growth? Well, it would be if they dealt with what Scully and Mulder did in "Orison" in future episodes, but we know it will never be brought up again or even having Scully agonize over what she did or have to deal with any consequence of her actions as Det. Mike Kellerman had to on "Homicide: Life on the Street" when he shot Luther Mahoney in cold blood and Det. Lewis and Stivers covered it up. On "Homicide" there were consequences to his action that affected everyone and haunted them all the following season. Luther Mahoney was a much worse person than Donnie Pfaster. What made the episode worse was that Call Girl was able to take down Pfaster and get the hell out of the building while Scully gets taken prisoner by Pfaster and when she had knocked Pfaster to the floor instead of getting the hell out of there or even subduing him even more as the trained F.B.I. agent she is she runs to the phone at the end of the hall. Where oh where has the Scully gone that I loved from the early seasons? The one who didn’t take any guff from people like Pfaster. I understand people on TV shows have to move on, but when they become shells of their former selves then it makes for unenjoyable TV.

            It most likely wouldn’t have been as bad if they didn’t fail once again to deal with Scully’s religion. We all remember the debacle that was "All Souls" and "Emily" where symbolism was running so rampant in the episode that you were choking on it. "Orison" was ruined by this kind of overbearing symbolism. Usually symbolism works best when it isn’t in your face as the "666" on Scully’s clock or showing Scully’s bible on the chest at the end of her bed. I kept expecting Sam Neill to show up in this episode to make sure we got the devil and God point of the episode. Also, if there is one thing I can remember from when "Irresistible" was first broadcast one of the things that lessened that episode’s impact was the scene of Scully in the closet and instead of seeing Pfaster she sees various evil people and the devil. The same thing happened in this episode when they had Pfaster turn into the devil in front of Rev. Orison. I guess they couldn’t figure out any other way to get Pfaster out of the situation so they had to make him the devil. Give me a break. Why can’t someone just be evil for evils sake because sometimes that is far creepier than allowing us to blame the devil or God for someone’s action. For some reason having the song "Don’t Look Any Further" didn’t bother me, most likely because it was an effective way to get a message to Scully. This episode could have been much more than it was and it has shown us two things 1) X-Files can’t deal with religious issues of faith in an interesting and compelling way and 2) they should stay away from sequels to decent episodes from now on because they can’t make the villians as interesting ("Kitsunegari" with "Tooms" being the exception).

        Now some miscellaneous comments on "Orison":

-  Rev. Orison would have to mass hypnotize to have the prisoners not get annoyed at his sermon and throwing water in their faces.

-  Boy, they sure have those prisoners start work early since it was 6:06am when Pfaster made his escape. Also, did Rev. Orison do a mass hypnotize throughout the whole prison so that Pfaster would be able to open the prison doors, etc..

-  I did like the faded writing on the wall that said "rust in the Lord" and not "Trust in the Lord".

-  The Illinois prison system needs to make prison clothes to not so easily blend in with the general public so that Pfaster can easy move around with no one wondering why someone in prison clothes is in their neighborhood.

-  The U.S. Marshalls are so good they know exactly what restaurant Pfaster is in. Well, I guess they had God or something guiding them.

-  Gee, the U.S. Marshals are on my tail so instead of escaping in the car Rev. Orison gave me I think I’ll hit him with it so I can attract attention to myself. Lucky for him the U.S. Marshalls never thought of leaving the restaurant to look around the area for him, otherwise he most likely would have been caught.

-  Favorite line in "Orison" was Rev. Orison telling Scully the signs are everywhere and I’m thinking "no kidding Orison."

-  Favorite scene was Scully and Mulder talking in the hospital hallway about religion and God’s will and Scully telling Mulder she is trying not to be offended by his comment of asking her if she has heard God talking to her. Now this is how it should have been throughout the whole episode.

-  I’m still trying to figure out how Pfaster can think how just ripping the top off his 1970 Green Impala is going to stop anyone from being suspicious since it isn’t exactly a car you see on the street anymore. Hmm, I wonder if it shimmies as my parents old 1973 Impala did when you hit 55mph.

-  Did Rev. Orison just get out of the gym that he would have his wallet and apartment key in a gym bag in the trunk of the car? Who would do that? Smells like plot convenience to me. Have to have a place for Pfaster to go so he can try to murder someone. Don’t even get me going on how Pfaster was able to find out where Scully lived or how he even got there before Scully did from Illinois. I guess the devil, or was it God, has his own private jet, car and address book for Pfaster.

-  I have to say Scully has one big apartment. Bigger than I remember from previous episodes. She must make real good money at the F.B.I. to live in such a place in the D.C. area. But this is T.V. and we know no one on T.V. lives in a real apartment.

-  Did we really need the U.S. Marshall calling Mulder about Pfaster getting upset that Call Girl wasn’t a real redhead?

-  Lucky for Pfaster Scully had a good supply of candles or did Pfaster stop on his way to Scully’s apartment.

-  I’m so glad in the end credits it said the song being used throughout the episode was done by John Hiatt because it was driving me nuts on who it was.

-  This has nothing to do with X-Files, but I have to mention this because I want to say something nice in this review. On this past week’s episode on "Now and Again" they had a cool special effect of someone literally being turned to dust and a strong case not to smoke. What made the episode even better was the fact this scene was in the opening teaser and brought up once in the middle of the episode and the same thing happened to someone else at the end of the episode. Good way to set up a future situation and we know these stories are not the main focus of the show which is mainly about the relationship between Dr. Theo Morris and Michael Wiseman and his family. Hmm, maybe I should have written about this episode.

           I guess I’m going to have to face it. Scully is now a capable of being a cold blooded killer and the X-Files cannot deal with religious issues in an effective non-annoying manner. I really wanted to like this episode and it wasn’t totally bad, it had its moments, especially the Scully and Mulder scenes and the scene where the prisoner supposedly cut off his fingers was pretty neat. But what they did to Scully’s character was once again a disappointment. They seem to have forgotten how to deal with Scully without making her a victim. Why can’t they write an X-Files episode where Scully isn’t the victim and isn’t shown as being weak or totally trashing her character. I want my old Scully back.

Claudia

E-Mail: Claudia.Cauchon@unh.edu

01/11/00

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