X-Files Episode Guide: Via Negativa

Written by Frank Spotnitz

Directed by Tony Wharmby

A truly frightening episode. A real test of  the measure of John Doggett. Who could've thought we'd be fortunate enough to get both in the same episode?

On the surface, Via Negativa should be more frustrating for the long-time X-Files viewer. Scully is absent for the majority of the story for the second consecutive week, and considering how erratic the tenor of the episodes we've been getting have been, it doesn't seem ideal to make the focus of this episode Doggett. To a certain extent, the episode hedges its bets a little, for the first time letting us see the supporting cast outside the mythology. Mitch Pileggi gives one of his more intriguing performances, finding himself, of all people, trying to take on the role of Mulder, when there is no clear explanation to what happened in the deaths of twenty cult members. Apparently, once you see a UFO on the X-Files you never go back. The episode also features the first encounter of Doggett with the Lone Gunmen, which for once succeeds on a comic level, when the trio realize, a little grudgingly perhaps, that the new guy in the unit seems to have a better grip on the paranormal than they would've given credit for being.

But jokes are hard to be found in this one. For the first time in at least two years, suspense and scares are truly the word of the day. The storyline would've been a good one  for the X-Files to handle even during the Mulder-Scully era. An apparently kooky cult leader (very well played in  small installments by Keith Szarabajka) preaches the idea of being able to reach a new level of consciousness by the taking of hallucinogenic drugs. Once he gets into that higher plane, though, things begin to spiral out of control, as he finds that in some fashion people who know him, however briefly, begin to die.  Its then revealed that the victims are dying in their dreams, when their worst conceivable nightmares come to life to kill them. The setpieces involving the dreams are quite frightening on their own - the scene where the doctor who has been experimenting on rodents, find himself being devoured by them in their jail cells, is one of the most unnerving sequences we've seen the series do in quite some time. And ultimately, the protagonist of the episode, after an encounter with the cult leader, finds himself unable to tell the difference between dreams and reality.

 All of this makes for a great episode. But what makes it sing is the work of Robert Patrick. This is the true trial by fire for Doggett, and he gives his first truly masterful performance. The way he approaches this case is completely different from Mulder - its police procedural done in a way the series hasn't tried nearly often enough, and rarely as well. As he slowly comes to accept what he is seeing, Doggett finds himself, for the first time in the series, accepting extreme possibilities, however reluctantly that he wants to.  The final act is by far one of the most unsettling things the X-Files will ever do, as Doggett finds himself walking the halls of the FBI, unable to tell for certain if he asleep or awake. Ultimately, of course, its revealed that he is - we know the series will eventually play certain tropes. But seeing Doggett come face to face with the possibility of killing Scully is arguably even scarier than it would be if Mulder had been the one to hold the ax. We've become so convinced of Mulder and Scully's link that we'd never believe that one would kill the other by now. Doggett is just enough of a tyro in the X-Files for us to think he might - and it reveals a lot about his character that, even in a dream, he'd sooner kill himself than Scully. The sequence where he walks into Scully's apartment, strobe light flashing, each step getting closer to realizing his nightmare, reveals that the series still has the possibility to enthrall even in its eighth season.

An impressive story, its even more remarkable considering that it comes from the mind of Frank Spotnitz. By this point, Spotnitz had been with the series longer than anybody with the exception of Gilligan and Carter himself. Its been harder to get the measure of Spotnitz's work than anyone else on the series, mainly because the majority of it seems to be tied with the mythology, and the remainder of his work has almost always been done in collaboration, usually with Gilligan and/or John Shiban. As a result, its been harder to get a measure on his particular style, even after nearly six seasons of writing for the X-Files. This episode is truly one of his greatest accomplishments, a relative simple story, with scary setpieces, and a doozy of a climax. He'll actually do some of his best writing during this season, finally showing some range in a way he hasn't. Equally impressive is the fact that this is the series debut for director Tony Wharmby. This is an episode that needed to be shot well, if it was going to have the power it needed. To find that its being done by a series freshman is remarkable still.

Via Negativa is one of the scariest episodes in the entire X-Files canon. And by centering it around a completely new character, it almost entirely justified the fact of the series continued existence. If the writers had managed to maintain this level of skill, the eighth season would've been even more impressive. Sadly, this is not the case, as will quickly become clear.

My score: 5 stars.