AIR DATE:  November 10, 1996
Written by Valerie Mayhew & Vivian Mayhew
Directed by Kim Manners

	"Sanguinarium" is one of those classic X-Files episodes where
Scully and Mulder run around a lot and nothing much really happens in the
episode.  Yes, it is one of the dreaded observant episodes where it
doesn't matter whether Scully and Mulder are there or not, that they could
easily have been replaced by any other detective team.  Sometimes these
episodes work if there is a point to them, but the only point to
"Sanguinarium" was that the pursuit of beauty somehow brings out the evil
in people.  Unfortunately, I didn't find the concept too believable. 

	In a world where looking and being young is greatly desired by
everyone from hearing advertisers wanting to advertise on shows that cater
to young people (such as the X-Files) to people being judged by their
looks, "Sanguinarium" went overboard trying to drum into us the evils of
people trying to look younger.  We had the doctors who ran the hospital
unit who made big profits from doing this type of work on people to Dr. 
Franklyn having people killed in order to stay young.  The writers,
Valerie and Vivian Mayhew, tried to make it seem as if what the doctors
were doing was taking advantage of these patients, but as Dr.  Shannon
said they are just providing a service to these patients.  It is just hard
to condemn the doctors when no one is forcing these patients to have these
procedures done when it is society as a whole that is obsessed with
looking young.  For all we know the money the hospital makes off this unit
might help support other hospital care that loses money, such as patients
who can't afford the high cost of medical care.  When I was in my teens I
always said I would never dye my hair, that I would let nature take its
course with me.  Well, I've been going gray since my early '20's and now
in my early '30's people come up to me and make comments on my increasing
gray hairs.  Urgh, this is the kind of pressure society puts on people to
continue looking young, that the gray hairs in me means I'm old and if I
don't want to be perceived as being old I better start dying my hair.  In
"Sanguinarium" the writers were too busy trying to condemn the people who
did the work and the patients themselves than society as a whole.  Let's
consider X-Files, the show, does anyone out there think the X-Files would
have made it past its first season if the majority of its viewers were 50+
instead of the 25 - 40 year range?  I'm sorry if I went on this a bit but
I just found the whole theme of this episode somewhat annoying from having
Mulder continuing looking at his face in the mirror to the doctors having
an unfeeling attitude towards the patients deaths.

	Now onto my miscellaneous musings of which there are quite a few: 

- The writers seem to make the sleep medication a big deal in the
beginning of the episode by having the first doctor not answering how much
sleep he got the night before and Scully conveniently finding the same
type of medicine in the other doctor's pocket after he killed a patient. 
After a while this line of investigation was completely dropped from
consideration.  You would think the doctors would want to know about this
type of evidence since it could help in their defense against manslaughter
charges because I find it hard to believe they would just be up for
malpractice charges.  It was like the second Mulder points out to Scully
the stomach medicine had some witches ingredient the other trail is
forgotten in Mulder's quest to prove there are witches and these men were
possessed which, as he said, in a court of law would be hard to prove. 

- Scully was quite patient with Mulder this week considering everything
she thought of was more logical than Mulder's typical leap of reasoning. 
Let's look at some of Mulder's leaps:  quickly figures out that Coggs and
Franklyn are the same person, and sees spots on a floor and a patient's
body and figures out they are in a shape of a pentagram.

- The best scene was as Scully and Mulder are heading to the murder scene
and as Scully is explaining the affects of the sleeping pills Mulder goes
"Wow" as he checks out a good looking nurse.

- Wouldn't the blood have dried up in the OR room by the time Scully and
Mulder got there since it had to be a few days after the fact.  Oh yeah,
only Mulder would think those marks on the floor would be in the shape of
a pentagram.  I thought it was pretty good how Mulder is trying to
convince Scully of this by showing the video tape of the murder and how
the doctor is standing in the Pentagram though in my mind, and I'm sure
Scully's, this doesn't prove anything since those marks could have been
there for months. 

- Nurse Rebecca Waite might have been a good witch, but she sure was an
incompetent witch.  Not only didn't she stop the deaths 10 years ago, but
she failed this time around.  Why is it I think the name Rebecca Waite
might have been one of the women accused of being a witch during the Salem
Witch trials?

- I get really irritated when Scully and Mulder break someone's
constitutional right to not have an unlawful search.  Where did Scully and
Mulder have the right or warrant to bust into Rebecca Waite's house?  Any
evidence they gather wouldn't be allow in court and they would be in
trouble for doing it.  Also, they did the same thing to Dr. Franklyn's
house where they didn't have a warrant and had no hard evidence of him
doing any wrong doing.  I guess Scully and Mulder are lucky Waite died and
Franklyn disappeared so no one really needs to know they busted into a
person's house without a warrant. 

- Considering the whole concept of the episode was that Dr. Franklyn
killed these people in order to do a blood sacrifice for youth, I found it
hard to believe he would wear glasses instead of contact lenses since
glasses are looked down upon by people.

- For being an evil person who can put things into people's stomach I
found it funny that Dr. Franklyn would call 911 instead of taking care of
Waite himself. 

- You know I have always found it a lot easier to sleep when I levitate
myself instead of sleeping on a lumpy old mattress.  Okay, I found that
scene dumb, whose only purpose was to show us that there is something
unnatural about Dr. Franklyn though at the same time I can't help thinking
the previous scene with Franklyn calling 911 was to make us think the
opposite of him.  I can't help thinking the writers didn't really know
where they were going with the story.  Did they want it to be Franklyn or
maybe Shannon as the evil person?  I have a feeling this episode was
quickly put together.

- Oh yeah, I liked the fact witches have their own calendar, but I was
disappointed that the calendar didn't haven't any pictures as a part of
it.  I guess they couldn't think on anything good to put on as pictures. 

- Also, I liked how all the patients were women except that one man. 
Let's keep up the stereotype that it is only women who have this type of
stuff done.

- It would seem if Dr. Franklyn took the time to carve Dr. Shannon name on
the pentagram in his house it would be important for him that it was Dr. 
Shannon who died and not some random patient who happened to be born on
Halloween in order for him to stay young.  It didn't make sense for him to
succeed except to have the episode end with Franklyn moving to Los Angeles
(where everyone thinks of as the plastic surgery capitol) to show he is
still around and will kill again.  Yeah, that's really scary. 

- Anyone notice how it seemed to be raining outside Dr. Franklyn's house
when Scully and Mulder busted in but they were completely dry. They must
have left the umbrella outside.

- Can someone explain to me why Scully and Mulder wanted the operation
stopped on Dr. Shannon in the first place?  I couldn't quite understand
the point since Dr. Shannon had those things in her and they were going to
kill her if they weren't taken out.

- Was the actor (Richard Beymer) who played Dr. Franklyn the same actor
who played the father of Audrey and owned the hotel in Twin Peaks?  It
looked and sounded like him, but I can't remember who played that
character in Twin Peaks.

	As one can tell I wasn't too fond of this episode because it had
Mulder and Scully just observing things as they went on around them, and I
wasn't too fond of the overall message of the episode.  The only other
episode I could compare this to from this season would be "Home" which
even though I didn't like "Home" too much at least it tried to be
different i.e. a black comedy type thing and it had Scully and Mulder
relating to things.  "Sanguinarium" was an episode that never drew the
viewer into it since it made us not care for any of the major characters
and the whole concept of people's vanity didn't ring true.

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

11/11/96

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