X-Files Episode Guide: Christmas Carol

Written by Vince Gilligan, John Shiban & Frank Spotnitz

Directed by Peter Markle

Much of the mythology of the series has been set based on outside factor. Scully's abduction came about because of Gillian Anderson's pregnancy. And as the fifth season unfolded, much of the decisions for stories were made because of the shooting schedules of Duchovny and Anderson. With Duchovny filming a different movie, the writers had to focus an episode solely around Scully. Even understanding that, one wonders if they made the best decisions when it came as to how they would handle.

One of the things that makes A Christmas Carol work as well as it does is because it finally deals with how Scully has been changing, not only in regard to her recovery, but her exposure to the X-Files in danger. As much as she protested last season in Never Again as to how unhappy she was with the way her life had been turning out, the fact remains, given the chance to embrace a normal life---- or at least time alone with her family---- she would rather chase ghosts, or at least in her case, phantom phone calls. In a way, she has become Mulder. She's still not ready to make the kind of wild leaps that he has or believe in the supernatural---- at least not yet--- but she would rather spend time with the dead than with the living.

This time, she doesn't even have to go to far to realize how frustrating a personality she has become to outsiders---- her own family is willing to tell her as much. Sheila Larken gives one of her strongest performances ---- and unfortunately, one of her last---- as Maggie. For once, she doesn't have to grieve over a hospital bed, but rather express equal parts sympathy and frustration with her one remaining daughter, how she is dealing ---- finally--- with the complication that we learned in Memento Mori about Dana being unable to have a child, and her understandable despair that Dana is trying to make this three-year old child Melissa's. Bill Scully will never be a fan favorite, but the brutal truth of the matter is, from his perspective, everything that he tells his sister is essentially right. Rather then spend Christmas with her family, Dana would rather rush out every few hours, trying to investigate a case that she was only drawn to by what she believes was a phone call from her dead sister.

Against all of this angst is the phantom presence of Melissa. The idea that somehow Emily Sim is Melissa's daughter may be the spark that drives this story forward, but she seems to be a presence in the household as well. Is it possible that Melissa's ghost is hovering over the house where she spent much of her childhood, trying to push Dana to the right path/ Is that the source of the dreams that seem to be leading Dana to revisit her youth (and thus fitting the three visitations that she receives during her time in her old room? Mulder would probably embrace the idea the right away, but its better that he's not there to know it, or that the writers, for once, try not to spell it out for us.

Indeed, one of the strengths of this episode is the fact that the three writers manage to go through the first part of this story with none of the baggage that we tend to get from these mythology episodes---- for that matter, it isn't until the last thirty seconds, when Emily's true parentage is revealed, that we learn that this, in fact, a mythology episode at all . Instead, the writers choose to focus on how askew Scully has become without her partner to force her to lean in the other direction. This is done with rare subtlety by giving her someone of her own to bounce eccentric ideas of---- Detective Kresge, well played by John Pyper-Ferguson. He is  well written, and rather entertaining to watch, so much so its rather a pity that this two-parter will be his only appearance on the series. (One can definitely see him as an early precursor to John Doggett)

Anderson gives another one of her better performances, this time demonstrating how far Scully has come in the four-plus years she has been on the X-Files. We see her let her guard down far more than has, even though we can tell how much she keeps her family at arms length. She seems to still be dealing with a level of the denial we've expected of her, so its seems fitting that it takes an outside force to point out that she just wouldn't be a fit guardian for a child, even when that child is her own. (If only these same writers had remembered this by the time we got to the last couple of seasons.) You wish she could just set aside being right all the time, and just try to be happier, but we're now very clear that she's not capable of it, even here.

This particular storyline is not one that I am fond of, although the reasons will not become obvious why until the next episode. But the fact that for much of the episode, we're not a hundred-percent sure where it fits in the X-Files canon makes a Christmas Carol one of the better episodes of the fifth season. It's jarringly atypical, but mainly because it focuses more on a human level than we are used to at this point in the series. And it adds a level of darkness that we have come to associate with mythology episodes that has been missing for awhile. If Carter and the staff had had the balls to follow through with some of the ideas, this could've been a powerful storyline to follow. But once again, they didn't seem to have the confidence they needed to follow through.

My score: 4 stars.