X-Files Episode Guide: Chinga

Written by Stephen King & Chris Carter

Directed by Kim Manners

A brief confession: when I first watched Season 5, I thought the sun rose and set on Stephen King. Throughout high school, I read and reread the majority of his books repeatedly, and was always quick to by hard covers of his most recent bestsellers. So when it was announced in February of 1998 that Stephen King was writing an episode of X-Files, I practically jumped for joy.

Then I saw Chinga. And even though I didn't know a thing about the behind the scenes process that had led to Carter doing a couple of rewrites on the episode, I was vastly disappointed. From that point on, I was never able to look at King's work either on the page or on the screen with the same surety.

My disappointments with the author aside, this episode remains one of the strangers beasts in the X-Files canon. Considering the natures of King's work, one would think he would be an ideal match for the world of this series. But it is clear from very early in the episode that King, despite being a self-proclaimed fan of the show, has a very poor idea of how to make it mesh with the type of writing that he does. He keeps Mulder almost entirely in the background, saving him for comic interludes that, frankly, aren't very amusing.. He has Scully travel up to Maine--- where else--- for her vacation, only to find herself constantly involved in one of the more gruesome scenes she will ever undergo. And despite the fact that she is part of the investigative process, Scully has very little to do with the solution of the case, suggesting the idea of extreme possibilities by the halfway point, returning to Melissa Turner's household by the time the final act begins, and somehow managing to grab the killer doll out of Polly's hands, and sticking it in the microwave to finally bring its reign of evil to an end. Only, in classic King tradition, you can't kill the monster.

Admittedly, there are some good elements in the episode that work. The opening sequence is one of the more terrifying that we've seen on the show in quite some time. The constant playing of a recording of the Hokey-Pokey is very unsettling (though frankly it seems like King is channeling Morgan & Wong from last season). And the segment where the old fisherman reveals just how the doll in question may have killed Melissa's husband is very good.  But the major problem with the episode is that a lot of it seems like King is raiding the closet of some of his best work. (The idea of an autistic child terrifying his guardian was used in King's novel 'The Regulators', and the idea of a  cursed object bringing death every time that it opens its eyes is something out of his short story 'The Monkey') The writer does seem to be able to mesh some parts of his work, but the majority of is doesn't fit well with the X-Files canon. And its clear that he didn't have enough confidence to create a world where both Mulder and Scully could interact together, so its clear that he doesn't have a good grasp on the dynamic of the show.

Another problem is that King, when he is writing well, is better known for the quality of his prose, the way he manages to take the archetypes of traditional horror and bring it into the modern age. Considering that is what the X-Files could do when its firing on all cylinders, you think that they'd be a perfect match. But once he comes up with his gimmick, King just runs variations on it over and over. Sometimes, admittedly, it can be very terrifying, but after awhile it can get to be more than a bit repetitive. it's terrifying to see a bunch of people in a supermarket start attacking themselves, but the more often the set-piece is repeated the less effective it becomes.

What makes the episode work at all are the performances. Susannah Hoffman gives on of the more intense portrayals of the entire fifth season, playing Melissa Turner as a woman who has absolutely been worn to a frazzle having to deal with the horrors that the doll seems to be bringing about. Larry Musser gives a good performance as the Sheriff who seems to have a better handle on what is going on that his Maine temperament would lead you to believe. And Henry Beckman, whose work as Policeman Frank Briggs was so brilliant in Squeeze, gives another memorable cameo as the fisherman who saw Jack Turner die. The acting is, by an large, good enough to almost make you forget about the discontinuity of the writing.

 Chinga ultimately doesn't fit well into the category of either a good X-File or a highpoint of Stephen King's work on TV. It's neither fish nor fowl, neither failure nor bad enough to be considered a guilty pleasure. It just seems to be an episode which had the potential of its authors best work, but rises more to the level of a middling short story.

My score: 2.5 stars.