Whither The Flukeman?

If you can appreciate a good teleplay and are old enough to remember the '90s, follow this three step exercise.

First: Name the four best episodes of X-files. Don't actually name the titles — no one with a life can do that without research, just start the description with "The one about..." Go ahead.

OK never mind, I'll do it for you. In no particular order. By title.

• Humbug — Mulder and Scully attempt to solve grisly murders revolving around an encampment of circus freaks. Comic grotesqueries intermingled with droll observations about the arbitrary nature of normalcy.
• Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose — A piece of inspired dark comedy about two psychics on a collision course that, not surprisingly, they both know is inevitable. Death, fate and chance are the real subjects. A good primer for why you don't want to know how you'll die. Just ask Mulder.
• War of the Coprophages — More over to the goofy side of the spectrum what with robotic dung-eating cockroaches, a Stephen Hawking doppelganger, and an entomologist named Bambi.
• Jose Chung's From Outer Space — The one with Charles Nelson Reilly as a author investigating strange goings on that either involve an alien abduction, raging teenage hormones, a government conspiracy, or all three in a plot so complicated that a summary can't do it justice. Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek are Men in Black. You will fear Lord Kinbote. Probably the finest teleplay ever written for a regular TV series, both for the endearing characters and the richly complicated, yet utterly clear plot construction. There are points in this script when you are about three flashbacks deep into the story yet you never lose your place, and there are too many changes in points-of-view to count. Beneath the surface, it is a story of the different ways people move from faith to disbelief. Remarkable.

Second: Take the exercise a step further. Name the two best episodes of the lamentable X-files spin off, Millennium.

• Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense — The one where Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) must protect Charles Nelson Reilly from a cult of Selfologists, founded by a fellow named Onan. Even more irony than usual; it turns out the murderous Selfologists, and the destruction they bring, got their start when someone criticized their leader for being "too dark", as most people had criticized the series itself.
• Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me — The one where the demons meet in a coffee shop to catch-up on the soul destroying business. They each tell an absurdly tongue-in-cheek immorality tale, ending in the silent realization of their ultimate loneliness.

Finally: What do all these episodes have in common? They were all written by the same man, Darin Morgan.

Article Author: David Mazzotta

David Mazzotta is author of the comic novels Apple Pie and Business as Usual.

Visit David Mazzotta's author page — David Mazzotta's Blog