ROADRUNNER

AIR DATE: November 26, 2000
Written by Vince Gilligan
Directed by Rod Hardy

        An old Road Runner & Wily E. Coyote cartoon was more original than "Roadrunner". How boring was this episode? I flicked during the middle of it and started watching Dubya’s speech (alright I’ll admit it, I was flicking to "Titanic" because I knew where this new episode of X-Files was going). This time around we get Scully ditching Doggett just like Mulder has always done to her and having Doggett come to her rescue as Scully has done with Mulder in the past. X-Files has taken familiar themes and made them their own and the one that comes to mind is "Ice". "Ice" took the theme from the movie "The Thing" of an unknown person being taken over by a parasite and made the episode a test of Scully and Mulder’s trust for one another. "Roadrunner" was your typical parasite gets into body and takes it over with a bunch of humans helping it out either because they have little parasite buddies in them or they believe it is some kind of higher being. I couldn’t quite tell which this cult was, but if it was the latter once again the X-Files people treat people with religious beliefs as a bunch of murderous weirdoes. Another uninspiring X-Files episode. It is like Wily E. Coyote when he starts to run and we see his legs move in circles as he tries to built up speed and he isn’t moving at all. This is what "Roadrunner" has shown us X-Files has become as it is running in place trying to pick up speed to go somewhere new and not moving at all.

        Now a few useless comments on "Roadrunner":

• Once the annoying Hank Gulatarski got into that bus the old AC/DC song "Highway to Hell" came to my mind. When the cult started attacking Gulatarski with stones I couldn’t help thinking sometimes your wishes do come true. Why did I not care if Gulatarski lived or not? Because he was such a jerk. For some reason he thinks the bus should stop for him though he is in the middle of nowhere and they have no idea who he is. He gets on the bus and begins acting like a jerk. For someone who was in the middle of nowhere he had to be one of the most ungrateful people to get a ride from someone. How or why he is out there is the big question. What, did he hike out there and decide this was where he was going to hitch a ride?

• Why was there a phone in the middle of nowhere? I had a hell of time finding a pay phone in a local city (I never did find one) and he finds one in the middle of the desert. Please have someone from that local phone company come out and asked Verizon to add a few more phones in my neighboring city.

• I hope I got this right: Scully went to the crime scene without the Sheriff as a guide and found that substance so she calls Doggett from the same pay phone as Gulatarski. Would Scully really go out to the crime scene by herself without the Sheriff as a guide to the crime scene. But if Scully hadn’t done this then she never would have been stuck at the Cult compound and there wouldn’t be any "Scully in danger" story.

• We see psychic Scully in full force in this episode when the bus goes by her and she decides she should follow this bus over all those other cars that travel on this road. I guess a bus in just suspicious.

• I’m surprised Scully didn’t try to walk the 18 miles to the state road since she had no problem walking in the desert in "Without". Once again she barely breaks a sweat.

• I couldn’t help thinking if that was Mulder staying the night he would have checked out what those people outside walking to the barn were doing but instead she stays in bed with her gun in her hand.

• When Scully tells them she is a doctor I couldn’t help yelling at the screen. Yes, you are a doctor of Dead People. She hasn’t done real medicine in years. No wonder Gulatarski died, she didn’t know what she was doing.

• Scully needs to have a remedial class on not giving out your handgun to anyone even if they think the person is in danger. The second that happened I knew Gulatarski had to be in with the Cult.

• I see this time Scully remembers her flashlight.

• Funniest comment was Scully yelling at the Cult that she is pregnant as if that would get them to stop. Once again we fall into the problem of Scully’s pregnancy and having the viewers wondering why a pregnant Scully keeps putting herself into these dangerous situations. One thing is clear, the writers act as if it is no big deal for Scully to be running around pregnant. I can’t help thinking differently.

• One good thing was Doggett basically telling Scully after she apologized for ditching him that she screwed up by not having him around and to not to do it again. Now if only Mulder learned that as fast .

        I wish I could say this episode furthered the character development of the Scully and Doggett partnership. I wish I could, but I can’t because there was no character development and it was just a retread story.

Claudia

E-Mail: Claudia.Cauchon@unh.edu

11/27/00

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