Written by Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Rob Bowman
Once in awhile you can see that
this episode is trying to make a point, and there are certainly decent bits of
satire thrown in. But what this episode ultimately comes across is mostly a
mish-mash, with no more nutritional value than the sludge that they use to feed
the chickens in Dudley .
It's a shame, because there are
some fairly decent sarcastic bits here. The very title of its episode, with its
reference to the classic Thornton Wilder play, especially in comparison as to
why this is such a traditional valued town. And there is a certain wonderful
reference tot he double meaning of Chaco Chicken's slogan, 'Good People, Good
Food'. There's also a bit of refreshing whimsy to the fact as to why the good
people of Dudley would revert to cannibalism, and to
why, they would finally turn on their own. But it's not delivered well, and
part of the problem must be laid at the feet of the writer. If this were one of
the Morgan brothers, they might have been able to look at this episode with the
kind of pathos that it clearly needs. But Spotnitz, even in what it only his
second script for the series, seems to demonstrate that he has a clear problem
with the format. It takes almost all his capability to write a decent
conspiracy episode. Monster-of-the weeks? They're somewhat beyond him, even
now.
The episode seems to moves so slowly. It takes almost the entire first act to figure out that there is
something rotten in Arkansas
after all, and that Mulder and Scully aren't wasting their time. Then once
Scully finally does her autopsy, and finds out that the woman we saw die in the
first act is nearly 50, and ill with an incredibly rare disease, it takes us to
the second act to find the slew of dead bodies and that they're connected to
Chaco Chicken. By the time the audience has time to digest what's
going on, we've got a pretty clear idea of what's going on.
Unfortunately, by now, it seems like this episode is already ripping off Red
Museum Dudley
would turn on Walter Chaco after 50 years of loyalty. It seems specious and
arbitrary---- nearly as bad as having the man behind the tribal mask to be
revealed as the sheriff. It has no oomph to it, because there's no real reason
why it should've been him----- other than the laws of scarcity of characters
pretty much means that he was the only one in
the episode we hadn't seen take part in the ritual.
All of this might even be
forgivable if the series could say something new or at least interesting about
this particular kind of scare. But it doesn't try. Instead, it just seems to be
another episode centered around the idea of having Scully in jeopardy. And can
I say, it's starting to wear a bit thin. In Ascension, it was critical that it
happen for the perpetuation of the mytharc. In Irresistible, it was necessary
to help Scully finally come to terms with that abduction. Here, it just makes
Scully seem like a shoddy agent, which by this point in the series, we know is
unworthy of her. And it doesn't even seem like one of the more decent threats
that she's had to face over the last two seasons, and it gets built up with
utterly unnecessary suspense, which just isn't there.
The series just seems to be having
a lot of trouble building up a clear and present threat by the end of the
season. We've had a couple of episodes where Mulder and Scully have been warned
by authority figures that something dangerous is coming, and there seem to be
hints of this at the beginning of the episode, but by comparison to even the
last two, there doesn't seem to be enough energy to make this relevant. Mulder
and Scully actually seem to accomplish something here, even though poor Mr.
Chaco ends up getting fed to his chickens as a result of it. I'd like to give
them more credit, but this episode just seems more or less--- average, even
with the rather substantial 'ick' factor. Fortunately, the writer's would
discover a way around it, the later into future seasons they would get.
My score: 2.25 stars.
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