The X-Files: Medusa

When a man is found with vast amounts of flesh missing, Doggett and a team head into the subway tunnels to investigate, with Scully assisting from the surface.

Splitting up Doggett and Scully works rather well, and because Mulder and she have very infrequently been put in a position like this, it's a novel approach. Both actors are on top form as each character has to deal with an authority figure making a pain of himself and questioning their authority. Gillian Anderson is particularly dynamic when running up against the idiot who wants to reopen the subway system to trains and passengers while she tries to avert a massive contagion from spreading.

Once more The X-Files goes gruesome as we meet a flesh-destroying creature that snacks out on the members of Doggett's team, and will consume him too in time. It's tense, there's great atmosphere and he and Scully work well as a team once again. Frank Spotnitz seems to really have a handle on how they mesh. The effects are superb and the cause of what's happening is gradually worked out as events proceed.

The only problem is the ending; once the reason for the deaths is discovered, Doggett seems somehow immune, the kid that turns up is never adequately explained and the contagion is destroyed a little too easily. Yeah, it's an X-File, but it's a little too unsatisfactory for my tastes. It doesn't spoil a top class episode, though, with powerful performances and some nicely gruesome ideas.

****

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