X-Files Episode Guide: Soft Light

Written by Vince Gilligan

Directed by James Contner

And so the third and last important writer joins the staff. Gilligan had had some success a screenwriter before joining the staff. He would remain with the show until the end of its run in 2002, and is arguably (with the exception of Darin Morgan) the most important writer The X-Files developed. One can links between Gilligan's work on this series and on Breaking Bad, the television masterwork he would eventually create, but perhaps the most important key to his work is his ability to get inside the souls of the (mostly) little men trying to make their lives important due to supernatural needs.

One could make the argument that is evident in his very first script for the series, except that Chester Ray Banton is not the monster, he's the victim. In one of the most mesmerizing guest spots of the second season, Tony Shalhoub creates a man who desperately doesn't want to commit the horrid acts that he does, yet has almost no control over what happens. The idea of a killer shadow is very frightening, and in a tongue-in-cheek, kind of satirical--- it takes the hazy lighting that has been part of the show since it's inception and gives it a darker edge.

Were it just for the main idea, this would be a fine debut, but unlike so many of the authors that are handed their first script, Gilligan clearly has a very good perception of how Mulder and Scully are supposed to work. There are hints of early episodes (the scene where Scully checks the heat register at the first crime scene is good for a chuckle) in some of the references, perhaps most obviously as to how Mulder and Scully are called into the case. In the first, a weak storyline was buoyed up by having someone from Mulder or Scully's past, but this isn't Ghost in the Machine or Lazarus. Kelly Ryan is clearly a good cop in over her head, who finds herself a woman trying to make it in a  man's world---- a connection that Scully clearly shares and sympathizes with.  Though the tragedy that ensues happens can at least partially be blamed on her, one can tell to the end that she was dedicated to her job.

As if the episode didn't have enough paranoid trappings already, it adds a nice conspiracy wrinkle by having the government officials than Banton is so afraid will try and 'brain suck'  be personalized by X. (I'm not sure how Mulder contacted him without signaling him, but X has a way of finding people.) Steven Williams demonstrates one of his most menacing performances, utterly dismissing Mulder at first, then using him to try and abduct Banton, (and for the first time showing fear in his eyes when his henchmen die at Banton's hands) to his menace when Mulder angrily confronts him near the episode. His performance demonstrates why he was the most fascinating of all of the informants the series would produce.

Mulder and Scully do  a very thorough job of investigating, but this is yet another in a string of episodes where they completely and utterly fail. They deduce who is committing the crimes but are utterly enable to convince the authorities of the danger that their perpetrator poses, they are overruled and the crime scene, and by the end of the episode, Mulder knows that all they might have done is lead the government directly to their case. One can see the frustration that Mulder has been having continue to build, and just like in the last episode, he lashes out at a target. X may hint that bigger things are coming, but it's also clear that darker things are coming.

And just to emphasize that point, there's that last scene. Poor Chester has fallen into the hands of the government, and they are performing something that looks even more painful than the brain suck he might see. Locked into a chair, a light constantly flashing at him, a single tear running down his cheek, he knows that he will never escape. And the haunting sounds of the machine continue until the episode has properly ended, just give the viewer one more nightmare.

This is nearly as assured as a debut as Humbug was for Darin Morgan, but there are a few things that make it not quite as good. The particle physics talk probably will go over the heads of most viewers (myself included) but we now know enough to know that the science is relatively bosh. One doesn't tune into this series for the science, but there were other ways to express it without sounding quite as ridiculous. It also suffers a little by having Mulder and Scully look like stooges, but as we realize that is part of the point, and will be easily overcome in future episodes. Still, it's a remarkably polished script for the first teleplay. When one considers the later glories that Gilligan will present us with just for The X-Files, it's astonishing that this will be considered a lesser effort by him.

My score: 4.5 stars.