SEIN UND ZEIT

AIR DATE: February 6, 2000
Written by Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Michael Watkins

        "Sein Und Zeit" is one of those X-Files episodes where I don’t know what to think. One moment I’m fascinating by what is going on and what it means to Mulder in his quest for his sister. Another moment I’m annoyed at writers Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz having Mulder’s mother killing herself without the mother/son confrontation we should have had on the show. Otherwise, comparing "Sein Und Zeit" to some recent episodes this episode was like a breath of fresh air where we had an hour of decent writing and no overbearing religious overtones throughout the episode. The only thing that can ruin "Sein Und Zeit" from meaning anything is if they don’t wrap up what happened to Mulder’s sister or the reason behind Mulder’s mother’s suicide. If this was another show I know I could trust them to finish things and move on to something new, but I stopped trusting Carter and gang from understanding the concept of wrapping things up so I’ll be surprise if there is a satisfactory conclusion to next week’s episode.

        First off let’s talk about the bad, which is how Carter and Spotnitz have made Mrs. Mulder into an evil, manipulative person though not as good as Tony Soprano’s Mother. Could Mrs. Mulder be anymore obtuse in her phone message to Mulder? Since she knew she was planning to kill herself she could have came out and told Mulder the truth via the phone message or a letter. Instead she decided to drive her son even further crazy with grief, guilt and despair that he never found his sister to bring back to his mother since losing her all those years. First they make Mulder’s father to be a cold hearted person who was distant to his son and now they make Mrs. Mulder the same kind of person. Personally, there should have been a major confrontation between Mulder and his mother about what his father did and what it had to do with his sister. Now that would have been something to see. Oh well, they took the easy way out and decided to have her kill herself with nothing but a cryptic message for Mulder to figure out.

        Now the good part of "Sein Und Zeit". The acting by Duchovny, Anderson and Pileggi was excellent. One could see the conflicting emotions in Mulder throughout the episode between investigating the little girl’s disappearance and his mother’s death. As we saw in the season three episode "Oubliette" when it comes to little girls being taken Mulder takes it personally so that it affects how he perceives things, not that it hurt him in "Oubliette" because he found the girl while in "Sein Und Zeit" we haven’t yet seen the complete results. Anderson was good as the Scully who is there for Mulder when he is at his most down and needs support. It was good to see Pileggi as Skinner being the man of action who still lets Mulder go out and do his thing. The writing overall was fairly good and we only got one Chris Carter this is important speech bit with Mrs. Mulder’s answering machine message.

        A few comments on "Sein Und Zeit":

-  The best part of the whole episode was the reference to the now canceled TV show "Harsh Realm" by having Bud LaPierre first saying to himself, "This is great" while he is watching the show then when Scully and Mulder questioned him on what he was watching he says he couldn’t remember but that it was good. Does this date stamp the episode as taking place last October during the three week period FOX showed the show or when FX starts showing "Harsh Realm" in March? If the episode does take place in March why didn’t we see that annoying FX logo in the bottom right hand corner?

-  So did the power that was controlling Billie LaPierre tell her to use a felt tip pen to write the ransom note in order to make it difficult for the police or was it the nearest writing utensil in the bedroom.

-  It is funny that ever since they moved production of the X-Files to L.A. a lot more episodes have taken place in California.

-  Those F.B.I. agents are really dedicated when they are working on the kidnapping at 3 a.m.. They must need the overtime. It seems a little weird the F.B.I. would go all out like they did in this episode for a case of a child kidnapping that should be under local police jurisdiction. I know they could be called in, but this seemed a little over excessive.

-   The X-Files express was working overtime in "Sein Und Zeit". Let’s see, Skinner tells Mulder at 3 a.m. he has until Noon to find anything out. By 10 a.m. he is at the LaPierre house in Sacramento, California. What airline did he take that he could fly out of that early in the morning and be in California that soon. What about all that traveling Mulder did in no time going from Connecticut to Idaho to DC to California? Let’s hope Mulder got some frequent flyer miles out of it.

-  It was good to see Mulder back to wearing a suit and tie and looking like a real F.B.I. agent.

-   If Mulder hadn’t been so self-absorbed when his mother called he would have known something was up with her. It sure wasn’t hard for the audience to know that it is highly unusual for his mother to call him and for her to mention a case he was working on. This scene really does sum up their relationship of non-communication. No wonder his life is so messed up.

-  Where did Mulder get this 1987 X-Files file from since all the files were destroyed in a fire two seasons ago? All the work we saw him doing trying to reconstruct all the lost files in the episode "The Beginning" must have paid off.

-  If Kathy Lee Tencate was sentenced to 12 years shouldn’t she have been released by now or about ready to be released since it has been at least 13 years since her child disappeared.

-  Did anyone else find it weird that Mulder would take off for Idaho after going to his mother’s house in Connecticut. Who was taking care of the funeral arrangements or her estate? I suppose she must have some relatives who will take care of this kind of stuff since her son can’t deal with it. I hate when I think of these kind of things when I watch TV shows.

-  The creepiest thing in the episode was this Santa’s North Pole Village existence. It is creepy enough that there are Christmas shops open year round, but this concept of a rundown Santa North Pole Village in the middle of California was too creepy. What parent would take a child to a place like this in the first place if it isn’t around Christmas time? Weren’t those kids who we saw at Santa’s North Pole Village a little too old for Santa’s Village?

-  Doesn’t anyone get buzzed in at Mulder’s apartment? Skinner knocks on Mulder’s apartment door and they act surprised to see him. It’s no wonder the Consortium is able to do things in his apartment building.

-  You know what could have made this episode even better was if Scully had to open that map she used to locate Santa’s North Pole Village and then we see her try to close it back up with no success. It was good to see Scully have the psyche moment this time around. Lucky for them the rental car company was kind enough to leave a map in the glove compartment and a map that had as a tourist site Santa’s North Pole Village on it.

-  Lucky for Scully and Mulder that Nameless Man kept good videotape records of all the girls that disappeared though he appears to be too young to have done anything to Mulder’s sister. Maybe he is the son and is carrying on the family business.

-  Skinner better start jogging some more because he had a heck of a time catching up with Nameless Man who is a bit overweight. Though it would have been more realistic if Skinner, Mulder and Scully had been a little bit winded when they caught up with Nameless Man.

-  The last scene where they pan away to show us an overhead view of what is obviously a mass grave site would have been more effective if they hadn’t used this shot so often in the past.

        "Sein Und Zeit" finally brings up Mulder’s sister whose existence I sometimes think they have forgotten. It will be interesting to see how they work the alien/conspiracy plotline into this plotline of the kids disappearing and the Nameless Man’s video collections of them. Let’s hope they wrap up Mulder’s sister disappearance in a Satisfactory way.

Claudia

E-Mail: Claudia.Cauchon@unh.edu

02/08/00

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