Friday, November 4, 2016

X-Files Episode Guide: El Mundo Gira

Written by John Shiban
Directed by Tucker Gates

This episode doesn't have the best reputation. Considering that it came from John Shiban whose last piece of work was one of the worst scripts in the show's history, and that it seems to not exactly be covering any new territory, one is inclined to rank it at the bottom of the pile. It doesn't help matters that it comes after one of the series true masterpieces.
The biggest problem with this episode is that there's nothing subtle about it. Everything is done in big, extravagant tones like one of the stories that the migrant workers where the episode takes place.  A lot of the problem is the script. There are many things one can say about the situation with illegal immigrants, but listening to some of the dialogue that Shiban gives Mulder and Scully can only make a person wince. Scully's line about the aliens being the victims is relatively restrained compared to some of the dialogue they have to wade through. It doesn't help matters that mixed with all the lines about 'El Chupacabra', we have to go through what is essentially a soap opera between two brothers who seem to love the same woman, who seem to end up in the same situation with another woman. It's all very messy and confused, and it is not helped a bit by Mark Snow's discordant score,  which overplays its hand by the time the second commercial break is over.
But despite all of these flaws, there are some parts of this episode which do work or have some interesting follow ups. There is the fine performance of Ruben Blades as the ultra cynical INS Agent Lozano, whose utter disdain for the people he's following is far more intriguing than Shiban gives us. One could also be intrigued by the presence of Raymond Cruz as Eladio,  who would rise to notice on The Closer  and become magnificent on Breaking Bad--- none of which can help him playing one of the most awfully clichéd performances in the history of the series. (Lost fans will also recognize Lillian Hurst--- Hurley's mother---- in a performance that bookends both parts of the episode.
The ending is also more interesting then it has any right to be. Considering that this had only appeared to be a fairly traditional X-File at best, the fact that no one can agree on what exactly happened between Eladio and Soledad at the migrant camp makes the episode a little more interesting. Some would say that this adds a little pretension to a story that isn't worthy of it; considering that the entire episode has been about the unreliability of stories, there is certainly a level of intrigue in the version of events that we see. It also takes in a certain recurring theme of the season that the supernatural is just the story for something a bit more mundane and far more frightening. It doesn't redeem the episode by any means, but it definitely helps it out a little.
Of course, intrigue doesn't mean viability. By the end of the episode, the migrants have gone from being actual people to being giant infected Typhoid Marys that are, despite their enormous heads, invisible to the affluent West. One would like to give credit to Lozano for all this, but it's straining the credibility of what is, in truth, not much of a supernatural tale. In fact, it's the general lack of paranormal events that make this story work at all, even if the final picture is less than satisfying.
El Mundo Gira is not a very good episode. It's characters never rise much above cliché, the special effects are not particularly remarkable and the technical aspects (especially the music) are pretty blah. But it is not the utter disaster that Teso Dos Bichos was and it's not as weak as the majority of Shiban's scripts will be. If in the long run, it's neither particularly memorable or scary, at least it is not an embarrassment. It probably wouldn't look much better based on where it aired, but it's not as generic as some of the other episodes we'll get.

My score: 2.25 stars.

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