AIR DATE: April
8, 2001
Written by Chris
Carter and Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Tony
Wharmby
One has to wonder what Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz were thinking when they decided the "Three Words" to be "Fight the Future" an obvious reference to the X-Files movie and I couldn’t help chuckling every time I heard it. It might have meant something if the aliens Mulder and Scully appeared to be fighting the future in this episode were the same aliens as in the movie, instead we have body snatchers aliens. And to top it off the only way to tell if a person has been taken over by an alien was to check the back of their neck which brought two things to my mind: 1) The great first season X-Files episode "Ice" where a parasite of unknown origin gets into people and makes them act violently and the only way to tell if a person was infected was to look at the back of their neck for any movement underneath their skin. 2) A first season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called "Conspiracy" where aliens took over humans and the only way to tell if a person was taken over was by looking at the back of their neck for a stick like thing sticking out (At least the Star Trek people knew not to continue this plotline, it died when the alien did). It is never a good thing to remind people of other things especially to an excellent X-Files episode that made sense. I’ll say it again, do these people have an original idea in their heads. At this point I don’t really care what happens to the planet Earth. Heck, the aliens (whichever aliens Carter and company decide on for an episode) can take over any time they want to, at least it might make the show more interesting.
A few comments on "Three Words":
They must have done a courtesy autopsy on Mulder. Why else would they not investigate why he has this big scar down the middle of his chest? Let’s not go there because it would mean questioning how Mulder survived 3 months in a coffin if he had an autopsy done on him.
Hey, Mulder, of course your apartment looks different it was torn apart tons of times while you were gone. Most likely poor Scully had to clean it up.
Funniest line was Scully saying to Mulder he doesn’t know what it was like. Excuse me, did we forget our own disappearance. Of course, he knows what you went through, but if he did we couldn’t have that emotional scene of Scully confessing to Mulder about her feelings. Oh yeah, can we have Scully get emotional at least one time where she doesn’t start crying. Not that people don’t cry, but every time.
Doggett had quite a successful rate solving cases and so did Mulder in the first season when Skinner was questioning Scully about Mulder in the episode "Tooms". I guess Mulder went downhill after he was exposed to that alien green goo stuff in the last episode of the first season. Also, didn’t Scully have a hand in any of those cases Doggett supposedly solved on his own.
Doggett must be trying to save on his electric bill because instead of turning on the lights he goes over to a desk lamp to go through his mail. I was quite amazed that Absalom was able to find Doggett’s apartment or that he would even go to him in the first place or he would have a gun. Why is it instead of telling Doggett what he expects to find at the Census Bureau office he talks in riddles or says you’ll find out when you get there? Just another one of those tv/movie clichés where the person doesn’t say what he wants to show the hero and dies just before he is able to show them.
After 8 years I always get a big laugh when one of the characters says it (the conspiracy of the moment) is going to break wide-open. This happened when Mulder said it has been bubbling to the surface for years.
We got psychic Mulder when he was able to pick the exact evidence box where he would find Howard Salt’s laptop. I wish it was that easy for me. Too bad Salt didn’t have a regular computer because it would have been fun seeing Mulder and Scully trying to sneak it out of the building. Scully could have just hid it underneath her maternity outfit. Also, it was good to see the F.B.I. protects their evidence storage area quite well so anyone can go in.
In the X-Files movie it was FEMA being used to cover-up any misdeeds of the government and now we find out the Census Bureau is in on it too. I knew I shouldn’t have sent back the census form. I would certainly hope the Census Bureau put up firewalls because I wouldn’t want anyone to get at that information.
Anyone notice Scully doesn’t even knock to enter Mulder’s apartment.
Great security at the main census office since all Doggett had to do to get into the office was to fire his gun to break the glass.
It would have been nice if Adam Baldwin’s character, Knowle Rohrer, hadn’t been taken over by the aliens because it would have been nice for a change if there was someone Doggett could trust for information that would be his own source. Nope that would have been too hard.
There you have it, nothing much really happened in "Three Words" which has been a common theme of the X-Files for far too long. It would have been nice if there were more scenes between Mulder and Doggett and even better if there had been some scenes between Mulder, Scully and Doggett because this is where the drama would have come from. No, we have to go for the alien takeover plot and the plot to set up Mulder in order to kill. As if we hadn’t been down that road before.
Claudia
E-Mail: Claudia.Cauchon@unh.edu
04/09/01
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