Mulder and Scully discover an artefact that may have the power of life over death. Meanwhile, Hollywood execs are trying to make a movie based around their investigation.
The long-awaited David Duchovny episode is upon us at last, but was it worth the build-up? Well, yes it was.
Despite the film aspect being played up, this is only a minor element of a far more important and absorbing story about the Lazarus bowl, whose grooves contain the sound of Jesus’s voice. It’s good to see that Duchovny doesn’t just go straight for the laughs but provides one of the more imaginative stories of the season. Scully’s religious beliefs are touched upon once again, and although various supernatural phenomena aren’t explained, isn’t that the point?
There are some wonderful images here, from the talking corpse to the bones recombining themselves into a skeleton to the final scene of the zombie dance, all of which are perfectly X-Files, with the recombining bones a wonderful piece of CGI. The main storyline is essentially wrapped up quite early on, from which point Duchovny decides to play it for laughs as Mulder, Scully and Skinner soak up the Hollywood atmosphere from within their respective bubble baths in a hilarious scene. Garry Shandling and Téa Leoni have little to do but do it with aplomb, Leoni in particular pulling off an accent disturbingly close to Gillian Anderson’s. The movie screening is also a treat.
If there’s any problem with the episode, it’s that the movie should feature more, but there are plenty of interesting ideas and outlandish imagery to keep viewers more than happy.
****
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