X-Files Episode Guide: Biogenesis

Written by Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz

Directed by Rob Bowman

Considering that Two Fathers/One Son finally seemed to wrap up the alien conspiracy earlier this year, and also considering that many people thought that this was the end of the penultimate season of the series, one wonders why exactly Carter thought that it was a good idea to start what appears to be yet another mythology at this point. It's true that in Biogenesis there are some new elements that we frankly haven't seen before - a scientific basis for Scully to finally hang her hat on what she has been witnessing for the last six years, and Mulder finally facing a threat not from death, but from what appears to be the fragmenting of his own consciousness - but the sad truth of the matter is that there are so many elements of this episode that seem to be nothing more than old hat that we're beginning to wonder whether the real threat to this series isn't alien invasion, but rather its own lack of invention.

Hell, at this point even Carter seems to running out of ideas when it comes to the mythos. He has Scully say directly to Mulder that he's basically won - the Syndicate is dead, the experiments that they have been doing are closed, what more can Mulder (or the series) hope to achieve? (Well, there is the apparent alien invasion that is coming to take over this planet by two warring alien races, but why should we worry about this? God knows the series itself isn't going to care about it anymore.). Even Mulder doesn't seem to have a real answer anymore - his response involving his sister is so perfunctory, we get the feeling this is merely the writers doing lip service to an old story point. And while there are definitely a lot of intriguing ideas in Biogenesis, most of them are so buried under old tropes that one wonders what the point was of having them raised at all.

Let's be honest. The idea that life on this planet originated on somewhere other than earth is an intriguing one, and frankly one that we're a little surprised that X-Files has never dealt with it before. And the way that it seems to be explored is done generally pretty well. This isn't a battle between old men in rooms, but rather between scientists who have radically different views of how the universe developed. The ways that Mekmallen and Sandoz seem to finally prove that Mulder might actually be right about his beliefs is genuinely interesting. One wishes that when the writers returned from this next year, they wouldn't have been so inclined to throw it under the mythology bus. And after years of seeing Scully be so closed off whenever even the hint of alien life was raised to her for six years, its frankly revelatory to see Scully finally begin to accept that her partner has been right about this.

It's just that there's so much surrounding this that is familiar, and not in a good way. There's the traditional Carter-speak soliloquy at the beginning of the episode, and just to make sure we get the point, there's another one at the beginning of the final act. Krycek is back again, and he seems to be holding Skinner in check, and killing people who threaten the conspiracy - though really, shooting scientists seems to be completely opposed to his usual level of work. The Smoking Man's survived his colleagues, but since all he seems to do in his scene is just listen to another committee on the end of the world, there wasn't even much point in having him here. And Diana Fowley is back, who seems to be there only to literally start to screwing Mulder over when  he can't defend himself. It's nice to see Albert Hosteen back, but since he only seems to be here for another Navajo healing ritual - this time with him at the center - he's little more than just another wasted character.

There are some good moments here - Duchovny gets to stretch a little more than usual as we see him finally starting to suffer dramatically for his quest - but since the series will never truly give a real reason why or how this happened to him,  as well as just take these elements away from him by the time Season 7 has truly begun, again we wonder what the point is. Anderson, more than usual has to carry the episode, and she's more than up to the task. One of the few good things about the final seasons will be watching as Scully finally starts to come around to Mulder's way of thinking, and really, one would hope that after coming across what appears to be an alien ship that has religious writing covering it that she'd pretty much have to at this point.

Biogenesis isn't really that bad, even by the standards of X-Files season finales go. There are some new ideas in play that almost make you forget that this is a mythology episode. But the key word here is 'almost'. And in a season that has shown some truly wondrous elements when it came to exploring our heroes points of view, its kind of disappointing that the series chooses to end such a good season with such dismaying familiarity.

My score: 2.75 stars