AIR DATE: February
18, 2001
Written by Chris
Carter and Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Kim
Manners
You know when a show has been on too long when you are able to figure out every plot point even before it happens. Scully’s doctor is involved in the alien baby killing conspiracy. I’m shocked!!! Duffy Haskell who goes to Scully and Doggett about his wife is in with the conspirators. I’m shocked!!! The baby born in the opening teaser is an alien baby. I’m shocked!!! The military medical facility Scully and Mrs. Hendershot go to is part of the conspiracy. I’m shocked!!! At Zeus Genetics we see the same doctor we saw in the opening teaser where he took out an alien looking baby from Haskell’s wife. I’m shocked!!! "Per Manum" symbolizes the problem with any show that has been on too long and doesn’t change so it becomes stale and predictable. X-Files has become predictable in its inability to tell a cohesive storyline. The writers and producers are so busy trying to think up the latest twist they forget what they were trying to say in the first place. What were they trying to tell us here? Scully’s baby might not be normal or Mulder’s, that she can’t trust anyone except Skinner and Doggett and there is some kind of conspiracy behind her baby. Boring. We’ve seen this done a thousands times before on the show. Can’t these guys come up with something new in a story except changing Scully from being a strong willed woman who didn’t take any guff from anyone to a babbling pregnant woman whose hormones seem to be controlling her. Where, oh, where is the Scully from the first 3 seasons? I sure do miss her.
Once again the so-called plot takes down the episode in the usual way of not making any sense as to why people are doing things. Such as why did the doctors feel the need to let loose Mrs. Hendershot when they had her already. Was this so she would go to Scully (how did she know about Scully and where she lived) so Scully would go to that Military hospital? Why would they have to do that since Scully’s doctor is working with them and since Scully seemed to trust him quite a bit so he most likely could have got her to do anything under the guise of protecting her baby. Was Duffy Haskell’s visit to Scully and Doggett just to get her to go to Zeus Genetics so she would see Mrs. Hendershot and all those babies though Scully should have been wondering why that doctor didn’t seem to care that she was in a room with all these dead alien looking babies. Basically was there a point to all of this because I sure didn’t see one other than to jerk us around some more with a little Scully and Mulder past interaction. Gee, I guess they did discuss some stuff and it sure would have been nice to have seen some of it at the time it happened on the show instead of being used as a filler. Now we are to believe that Mulder is Scully’s baby’s father, but as we know that might not be the case so why even bother making us think that since we know we can’t trust the producers of this show to be straight with us on anything. When you can’t trust the people behind a show it hurts the credibility of anything one tries to pass off as being true especially when you really need that trust.
Now a few useless comments on "Per Manum":
It is amazing how good Scully still looks after being pregnant for… how long has she been pregnant? Does it really matter since the writers on the show don’t know how to deal with a logical timeline? I know lesser shows know how to do it, but that would be too hard for the X-Files writers since it would mean a little extra effort on their part.
Those aliens are like gods. They can give you cancer, take it away, make you barren and make you pregnant. Why they are doing all this isn’t as important as the fact they are an omnipotent power who can do whatever they want to do.
If my memory serves me Mulder had those frozen Scully embryos in his pocket for a long time and I’m sure this happened in that episode I want to forget, "Emily", so it means he had to transport them from California to Maryland without Scully finding out. Well, why am I surprised he was able to do that since he and Scully could travel across country in an hour on the X-Files express.
Great security at Zeus Genetics where they let anyone come in. Unless they wanted Scully to wander around to see Mrs. Hendershot and those babies though as I brought up earlier what was the point.
I’m not surprised Doggett was pissed at Skinner and Scully for getting him up in the middle of the night to meet them at a diner just to tell him Scully was going on a leave of absence without telling him why. If you don’t trust him why do that in the first place. It could have easily been left to Skinner telling Doggett the next morning. Was it so Doggett will see Mrs. Hendershot in Scully’s car and see them drive off? Are we really to believe Skinner wouldn’t know who was in the car with Scully? Somehow I don’t think he would let Scully go off with a stranger even if he did know where she was going. Little things like that just get me going.
I wish it had been explained to us why Scully felt she could trust the personnel at that Army Medical facility. Of all the places I would least trust a military hospital would be one, but yet we see Scully happily go into it. Not only that but she leaves Mrs. Hendershot alone. Somehow Scully didn’t seem in much danger as Mrs. Hendershot so she should have kept an eye on her. What Scully had done could have waited. I just don’t think it made sense to leave Mrs. Hendershot alone.
I’ve never had an ultrasound done on me, but somehow I think it would be hard to fake doing it with a pre-recorded tape since the doctor would have to reenact all the same moves to match the tape. But I guess Scully was too distracted with the baby looking normal to notice anything.
Funniest line in "Per Manum": Scully saying to Doggett she was afraid if the F.B.I. found out she was pregnant they would take her off the X-Files and she wouldn’t be able to search for Mulder. Why is it funny? She hasn’t been looking for him the past 10 episodes. If she had, this comment would make sense, but since we have seen no evidence of this search it makes her comment sound ludicrous.
Needless to write I’m sure it isn’t too surprising to people to find out I didn’t like this episode. I guess I’m getting predictable too, but when one hates a storyline (Scully’s pregnancy, lack of acknowledgment of Mulder ever existing on the show) it isn’t too surprising that the person would hate an episode that would deal with these issues (actually they only dealt with Scully’s pregnancy, Mulder was an afterthought).
Claudia
E-Mail: Claudia.Cauchon@unh.edu
02/20/01
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