AIR DATE:  May 3, 1998
Written by John Shiban
Directed by Rob Bowman

	Well, gosh darn it, John Shiban can write a decent script when he
puts his mind to it.  This doesn't mean "The Pine Bluff Variant" didn't
have its typical Shiban script problems, but it looks like he is learning
from his past mistakes.  We didn't have the quick convenient conclusion of
who the murderer is, nobody spoke a foreign language and there were no
killer pussy cats.  What we did get in "The Pine Bluff Variant" was a
solid fast paced episode where Mulder risked his life for a government he
doesn't completely trust which proved by the end of the episode why he
shouldn't trust the government.  As Mulder says when he first meets August
Bremer, "I have my beliefs", meaning even though he knows the government
does underhanded things to its people he still believes in the government
when it acts the way it is supposed to.  If we can forget some of the
wacky far out stuff Mulder has done over the years this shows Mulder has
more character and intrigue than any of the conspiracy people.  Of course,
once again Mulder finds out certain factions in the government are
conspiring against its people by testing out this biological agent on the
general public.

	The episode makes one wonder how long Mulder and Scully can still
work for a government who always wins against them.  You see the big
surprise "The Pine Bluff Variant" would have been if Scully, Mulder and
Skinner had actually exposed the government's illegal biological
experiments on its people since it has never happened in the past five
seasons of the show and it sure would have been nice to have it happen.
This little escapade didn't even have to expose the overall conspiracy
because this could just have been a little blip.  I have said it before
and I'm saying it now, it is about time Scully and Mulder win one.  I
guess we have to wait for the movie for that to finally happen (it
better). 

	"The Pine Bluff Variant" came as a pleasant surprise after a few
lackluster episodes and particularly since it came from the pen of John
Shiban.  Even though Scully and Mulder didn't once again work as a real
team in this episode it wasn't as annoying as it was in "Mind's Eye" where
it was obvious that Scully was being written out of the episode so that
Anderson had time to do re-shoots for the movie. 

	Now some misc. comments or typical Shiban script problems:

- Why did Mulder go up to the car Haley was escaping in while later on we
see him and Mulder exchange something in the woods on the surveilance tape
then walk away from each other?  One could say he was giving him his car
keys, but that would expose him and since Scully saw the car Haley escaped
in she would certainly recognize it as being Mulder's car.  It would
explain how the car was in such a prime parking spot in D.C. if the
government had provided the car.  Also, why didn't Scully run back to the
van and give a discription of the car and where it was heading instead of
standing around looking dumbfounded by Mulder's actions. 

- It didn't take long to figure out the government was involved since the
actor, Sam Anderson, who played U.S. Attorney Leamus always plays a
weasal. 

- Mulder should have known Jacob Haley wasn't quite the competent
terrorist he appeared to be since he was played by Daniel Von Bargen who
is currently playing George Costanza's dimwitted boss on "Seinfeld".  Hmm,
maybe we should start calling Mulder "Coco".  Yeah, somehow that seems
appropiate since Mulder is just as crazy as George.  Coco. Coco. Coco. 

- Now here is a typical Shiban problem.  No, it is a show problem.  Why
the heck (or hell as Scully likes to say) would the people in the
government think it would be a good way to test the biological agent in a
movie theater?  It is quite obvious it works so they can't be testing it
for that.  Was it to see how it could be spread?  Well, just spray a few
dollar bills in a town and see how it spreads since it would be a more
effective way to see how fast the thing can spread.  It was never fully
explained how August Bremer was able to kill all those people since the
ticket stub wasn't it, and they give the impression that Scully figures
out it was the money.  Now this is a good idea, but a bad one for the
whole movie house killing since the money would have been touched by the
time Scully thought of it allowing someone else to be exposed to it. 
Let's not even get into if it was the money how the projectionist got
infected and how some people might pay for the movie with the correct
amount. There is no way Bremer could sneak up on the movie patrons since
we saw earlier that it kills within minutes so after he got the first
person it would have alerted everyone else.  Heck, most of the people
should have died even before they got to their seats because it worked so
fast.  This was really the only bad part of the whole episode as none of
it made sense in the big picture because the chemical agent only acted
certain ways as the plot needed so sometimes it was fast other times it
took longer. 

- Oh yeah, I got a big kick every time Scully or Skinner mentioned how
those kids in the movie theater weren't affected and they couldn't figure
it out. Gee, guys maybe if you asked them how they got into the movie
theater you might have figured out they didn't pay to get in since you
knew it wasn't an airborne chemical weapon.  This only made them look
inept and not very good investigators.  Detective Pembleton and Baylis
from "Homicide" would have figured that out within minutes. 

- Bremer must have thought he would get more people in the movie theater
if he took down the "Die Hard" poster and replaced it with a "Titanic"
poster since the "Die Hard" poster disappeared and was replaced by the
"Titanic" poster from the time Bremer enter the movie theater to when
those two teenage boys were looking across the street at the movie
theater.  I guess we now know what movie the Dunbar was really showing. 

- Scully saying "Not even close" to the motel clerk question if Scully was
Mulder's wife was right on the money on how she felt about the whole
situation.  Nothing makes Scully madder than when Mulder appears to be
keeping something back especially when it looks like he is working with
terrorists. 

- You would think Scully would have been a little bit suspicious when she
was driven off the road by a car that was coming from the direction the
terrorists were heading with Mulder.  The only way they could do that
would be if they knew where Mulder was being taken hence they knew where
the hideout was and they should have been watching the place. 

- Both Scully and Mulder get in some great lines.  For Scully it was when
the Men in Black were taking her to Skinner and Leamus and she asks them
who they are and when they don't answer she says, "Obviously not the
Office of Information".  Mulder when he has the hood on and asks if "this
is the Pepsi challenge".  Boy, haven't heard that one for a while.  Hmm,
maybe Shiban gets TV Land where they show old commercials. 

- I thought having on Mulder's window the remains of the letter X was a
good little idea though somehow I don't remember seeing his window looking
like that in previous episodes.  Also, it was nice to see his fish are
still alive and well and that he cares about them. 

- Shiban should get an award for having where the terrorist first heard
Mulder's anti-government rant from his I suddenly don't believe speech in
"Patient X".  It was a good idea to have them hear it from this conference
and have them put out feelers on Mulder.  Somehow I got a feeling it was
Haley's idea to approach Mulder.  Bremer and his government cohorts
decided to use it to their avantage which I think was to discredit Haley
who was a threat to Bremer's leadership.  This is why the U.S. Attorney
had handy all the information Mulder asked for which should have put a red
flag on him.  At least Skinner started to get suspicious of Leamus after
this happened.

- Lucky for Bremer Scully decided to confront Mulder in his apartment, the
most listened to place.  I am glad people who want to listen in have
gotten away from using big satelite disks in "The Erlenmeyer Flask" and
now use fancy surveilance equipment.

- I found it interesting even when Mulder travels to Delaware he rents a
car since the car he was driving had a Delaware licence plate.  

-  Isn't that one of the stupidest places to put an alarm bell for a bank?
Well, this is what happens when you take the lowest bid.

	"The Pine Bluff Variant" was the first decent episode in a long
time.  The acting was especially good by Duchovny chiefly the look of
utter relief on his face after he realizes he isn't going to be killed by
Bremer.  He was quite good in the torture scene giving Mulder the right
balance of keeping his cool and showing his anger at having to go through
this treatment.  Anderson wasn't too bad herself when it came to
confronting Mulder about his actions (note how they had Mulder not look at
Scully as she is questioning him about letting Haley go as a way to show
how he is ashamed to keep Scully out of the loop), and in comforting
Mulder when she sees him with a broken pinky.  The episode didn't break
any new ground since it comes as no surprise that the government was
somehow involved, but it was good overall in its execution and acting. 


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

5/4/98

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