With Scully in hospital for tests, Skinner and Doggett investigate the deaths of cult members who have apparently been killed by a single axe blow to the head.
Okay, so in Doggett's first proper case he was attacked by a bat-creature. Week two and Scully gets a worm put into her. All this while Mulder was having experiments done to him. This week it seems as if Doggett is next for the axe/head treatment when he starts to see the man responsible coming after him in his dreams.
Skinner and Doggett make a pretty good team, with Doggett trying to curb Skinner's newfound enthusiasm for the unusual when he comes up with the least coherent but most likely explanation for everything. Doggett's meeting with the Lone Gunmen is also entertaining as they class him pretty good for a beginner. The relationship is clearly built on Doggett's superiority complex as he's currently convinced that sooner or later a more rational explanation will be correct.
The Scully plotline doesn't make a lot of sense; it's fine as a way to write her out for a week, but Doggett's fascination with finding out what's wrong is just strange and doesn't have much point beyond filling out a short script. The parallels with season two's Sleepless are pretty clear, especially with the end coming with Doggett affected in the same way that Mulder and Krycek were.
It's the end section that works best, though. While the main story rather trudges along, the point where Doggett becomes increasingly paranoid and believes that he's not awake is a turning point, as he then becomes terrified of what he might do without wanting to. Robert Patrick looks wonderfully haunted as he tries not to trust anything around him. The only aspect that lets it down is a rather naff ending where Scully wakes him up which isn't particularly conclusive. It's all over as quickly as it began, and aside from some gruesome images, there's not a lot of meat to the bare bones of this story when it comes down to it.
***
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