Tag Archives: The X-Files

‘The Man in the High Castle’ teases alternate history

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themaninthehighcastleamazon

I haven’t spent a lot of time on Amazon lately, in great part because I haven’t liked what I’ve heard about the way the retailing and publishing giant has squeezed publishers and authors after years of putting the hurt on independent bookstores. The fact that I didn’t buy any books or music through Amazon this past Christmas – and a few months before that – is decidedly immaterial to Amazon, of course.

I have gone back to Amazon recently however – without breaking out my credit card – to check out two projects from Amazon’s burgeoning original movie/TV production house.

One is “Bosch,” a series based on Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch crime novels. Another is “The Man in the High Castle,” based on Philip K. Dick’s 1962 alternate history novel.

It’s a testimony to the lasting fascination with World War II that “The Man in the High Castle,” the book and the Amazon pilot I saw, are still so vital.

When the book by Dick – the author of the stories behind classic films like “Blade Runner” – was published in 1962, World War II vets were still strong and vital men and women, the driving force in our society, albeit soon to be supplanted by their children, the generation that came of age in the 1960s. But in 1962, the heroes of World War II and the scars of the war still loomed large.

Dick’s story is set in a world where Japan and Germany defeated an overmatched Great Britain and Russia and an unprepared United States. The US is divided between a Japanese colony on the west coast and a German colony on the east. In between is a rough neutral zone.

The Amazon pilot – which streamlines Dick’s story – tells the story of two people: Juliana, who journeys by bus from San Francisco to Canon City in the neutral zone to complete a mission started by her sister, who is killed by Japanese authorities, and Joe, a young New Yorker who seeks out a dangerous mission for anti-German resistance underground and drives a truck to Canon City.

Each is carrying a newsreel, “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy,” which seems to show the US and its allies triumphant over the Nazis and Japanese. But that didn’t happen, did it?

The newsreel – a book in Dick’s original novel – is the product of a mysterious figure known as “The Man in the High Castle.” What his role in the story is and what happens to Juliana and Joe are still unknown to Amazon viewers because the creators – including former “X-FIles” producer Frank Spotnitz – have barely scratched the surface of Dick’s book. We’re not even sure if there will be more episodes to follow the Amazon pilot.

The most chilling moment in the pilot is when Joe is stopped by a swastika-wearing sheriff who acknowledges he was a US soldier in the war. “Can’t even remember what we were fighting for now, though.”

Joe notices ashes drifting down around them and asks what they’re from.

The hospital, the sheriff replies. Just the regularly scheduled burning of “cripples and the terminally ill (and other) drags on the state.”

“The Man in the High Castle” is visually stunning, from the opening credits to the newsreel images to the lived-in look of the US under occupation. The look of the series pilot is big-screen-movie-quality.

The characters are intriguing and the story is fine, although I felt like I saw the last-shot twist coming.

Maybe we’ll see where “The Man in the High Castle” takes us.

Classic ‘X-Files’ – ‘Jose Chung’s From Outer Space’

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x-files jose chung's from outer space

It’s funny, as the 20th anniversary of the debut season of “The X-Files” rolls along, to see how sharp and canny many of the episodes are even when watched anew and not viewed through the filter of a couple decades of nostalgia.

“Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” was the 20th episode of the third season of the series, originally airing in April 1996, and written by Darin Morgan (who played the shape-shifting grifter from “Small Potatoes”) and directed by Rob Bowman.

The episode is told in flashback form, from more than one viewpoint, as Mulder and Scully unravel a reported alien abduction of two teenagers.

Jose Chung X-Files

Framing the story is Scully’s interview with author Jose Chung, played in a relaxed and funny performance by Charles Nelson Reilly, who had been best known to a generation of TV watchers for game show appearances, including “Match Game.”

While Scully is a fan of writer Chung, she plays her typical role of skeptic here, arguing that some kind of sexual trauma occurred, while Mulder believes the story of alien abduction.

Random observations:

Reilly returned as Chung in an episode of “Millennium,” the “X-Files” spin-off.

The “Men in Black” who show up to discourage one witness are played by Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek.

The story as retold by a young D&D fan is maybe the best version, with Mulder giving out a little scream when they find an “alien” body and Scully – a man posing as a woman but not quite pulling it off, according to the witness – threatening to kill somebody.

“I didn’t spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage,” the young witness says.

Vintage commercials during the episode I have on videotape: New at the movies: “Scream 2” and “The Postman.”

Classic ‘X-Files’ – ‘Home’

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xfiles home mulder scully

I’m watching old episodes of “The X-Files” lately – on videocassette, no less – and not just because this week marks the 20th anniversary of the show’s debut.

I’m watching them because I haven’t seen them lately, and that circumstance applies in particular to one episode I’ve watched only a handful of times since it premiered nearly 17 years ago.

That’s just how disturbing “Home” is.

The second episode of the fourth season, originally airing in October 1996, “Home” is a monster of the week episode but just might be the creepiest hour of TV ever, from the opening moments of what appears to be a group of deformed creatures overseeing a misbegotten birth to the macabre ending centered around the trunk of a vintage Caddy.

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When a group of kids playing baseball find the bloody, buried remains of a severely deformed fetus, Mulder and Scully are called to the small town of Home to investigate the discovery and meet not only Sheriff Andy Taylor and his deputy, Barney, but also – at a distance at first – meet the Peacock family, three adult brothers who have been living on their own for 10 years. The Peacock boys have isolated since their parents died – or were injured – in a car accident. I say “died or injured” because, after the accident, the brothers made off with their parents and Sheriff Taylor says it’s only assumed the Peacock parents died.

That’s not the case, of course. The dark, dark secret of the Peacock family and the town of Home seeps out thanks to the investigation of Mulder and Scully.

For once, Scully is the instigator of the deeper investigation. Fueled by her concerns that the Peacock brothers might be kidnapping women to breed, Scully pushes Mulder into probing just what the Peacocks are doing in their remote house.

“Home” is the stuff of which nightmares are made.

Written by “X-Files” veterans Glen Morgan and James Wong and directed by Kim Manners, “Home” hits so many horrific notes, from the initially barely-glimpsed deformities of the Peacock brothers to the horrible attack on the sheriff to the glimpse of eyes through a crack in the floorboards of the Peacock house.

Random  observations:

“They raise and breed their own stock, if you get what I mean.” Holy shit, sheriff. Seriously, I think it’s time to bulldoze the Peacock homestead.

The brothers’ drive over to Sheriff Taylor’s house with Johnny Mathis’ “Wonderful, Wonderful” playing on the car radio – and what happens after they arrive – is enough to make your skin crawl up and off your body and out the door.

I wasn’t sure how the brothers could be quite so deformed, but Scully does make a reference to generations of in-breeding. And sure enough, a family photo shows the Peacock parents had weird noses. Or somethin’.

“Oh no,” Mulder exclaims as he spots something in the Peacock house: It’s the front page of the newspaper from when Elvis died.

Even though the episode was set in Pennsylvania, the writers plainly intended to evoke backwards southern stereotypes. Not just incest but a reference to “The War of Northern Aggression.”

As I’m watching these episodes from videotapes I made at the time they aired, I’m also catching a glimpse of commercials from the time. This episode included an America Online TV spot. New at the movies: “The Long Kiss Goodnight.”

Classic ‘X-Files’ – ‘Small Potatoes’

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x-files small potatoes mulder scully

By the 20th episode of the fourth season of “The X-Files,” “Small Potatoes,” the Chris Carter series about two FBI agents investigating unexplained phenomena, had really hit its stride. Episodes had not only explored the mythology of the show – admittedly one that would eventually implode – as well as monster-of-the-week stories. And, as in “Small Potatoes,” darkly comic mysteries.

x-files small potatoes tabloid

Agents Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) go to a West Virginia small town that – according to a tabloid – has seen a rash of “monkey babies” – infants with tails – born.

By this point in the series, Duchovny had settled into his wry conspiracy theorist role and Anderson was firmly in her “voice of reason” mode.

The X-Files Small Potatoes baby tail

When Mulder discovers a schlubby janitor, Eddie (played by Darin Morgan, one of the series’ writers) is the likely culprit, Scully theorizes he’s used a date rape drug to take advantage of the women. But before the first commercial, the viewers learn that the janitor has the ability to change his appearance to look like anyone. He comes from circus folk, you see. Not only do tails run in his family, but so does a muscle mutation that allows short-term appearance changes.

Eventually, Eddie impersonates Mulder, leading to a climactic scene when Mulder attempts to seduce Scully, a twist of the “will they or won’t they” tease for Mulder and Scully ‘shippers.

Random observations:

“The birds and the bees and the monkey babies, Mulder.”

The episode debuted April 20, 1997, when the series was broadcast on Sunday nights.

Eddie actor Morgan won an Emmy for writing the 1996 episode “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” featuring Peter Boyle as a psychic.

Christine Cavanaugh played the young woman whose delivery of a baby with a tail prompts the visit from Mulder and Scully. She’s best known for her work as a voiceover actor, providing the voice for Babe from “Babe” and Chuckie Finster from “Rugrats.” Until just re-watching the episode, I thought the of the woman seduced by Luke Skywalker had been played by Elizabeth “E.G.” Daily, who played Dottie in “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.”

Duchovny has a field day playing Mulder as impersonated by Eddie, making goofy faces and almost getting in trouble with their boss, Skinner.

The episode was written by one of the series’ best writers, Vince Gilligan, who went on to create “Breaking Bad.”

One of the commercials that aired during the episode – I know, because I watched it on my ancient VHS tape – was a TGIFriday’s commercial featuring none other than “Breaking Bad’s” Bryan Cranston.

‘Alcatraz’ developing key mythology?

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True fans don’t have to be reminded, unfortunately, of TV series that loaded up on their own mythology only to disappoint fans before the end.

How bizarre was it that “The X-Files” — once one of my favorites shows — spent several seasons establishing that FBI agent Mulder’s sister had been taken by aliens … only to throw all that out the window with a late-in-the-series revelation that Samantha Mulder was kidnapped by a plain old human killer?

How inexplicable was it that “Lost” — once one of my favorite shows — spent several seasons laying out what seemed to be an intricate backstory for the island and its occupants … only to ignore most of it, explain the rest away and, most mind-bogglingly of all, prove its early Internet critics right by declaring in the final episode that the characters we had grown to love had been hanging out in limbo after all.

So upon watching “Alcatraz” tonight, I found myself hoping that the series’ makers really do have the key to the mystery they’re developing.

If you haven’t watched this show, which aired its fourth installment in three weeks tonight, the basic plot is that more than 300 prisoners and guards disappeared from the island prison of Alcatraz in 1963. They’re reappearing in modern-day San Francisco, they haven’t aged a day and most seem to be on some kind of quest. Not to mention that they’ve returned to their old habits of bank robbery, kidnapping and murder.

Tonight’s episode, “Cal Sweeney,” introduced a bank robber whose objective seems to be an old-fashioned key. It’s the second of these keys that have shown up. Now they’re in the hands of federal investigator Hauser (Sam Neill) running the inmate recovery project.

I’m really hoping there’s some meaning to the keys, just like I’m hoping there’s some meaning to investigator Rebecca Madsen’s (Sarah Jones) discovery that her grandfather was a convict and is now roaming the present.

As for researcher Diego Soto (played by lovable “Lost” grad Jorge Garcia)? I’m just enjoying his amiable presence.

The show is teasing us with several little mysteries, including characters who seem to be represented in both time periods.

But if those keys mean something now … they damn well better mean something later.

Or Samantha Mulder’s ghost just might step out of that flying saucer and open up a can of suspension of disbelief.