A high school kid making a living from starring in 'The Dumbass Show' is killed by having his skull eaten away inside his head, apparently by flies. It seems that a geeky kid at the school, the son of the headmistress, is responsible, but how?

Oh, it's been a while since we've had one of these. Remember D.P.O. back in season three? Hungry in season seven? The disaffected outcast kid with special powers extracts vengeance on his peers for being a bunch of little bastards, or something of that nature. Things aren't really that different here, and long-term fans are hardly going to be shocked and amazed by any of the events that unfold here. The only real difference is the cause of the kid's abilities and what happens to the other students, the first death being particularly nasty, especially in the autopsy when all the flies escape from the body.

Once the school's headmistress starts trying to talk to her son about changes happening to him, you know she is aware of what's going on and things come into focus. It's a puberty thing, and he's gradually mutating into a fly thanks to the genes passed down from his mother. When you have worked this out, there's not much else to say really, and everything plays out as you'd expect. The 'Dumbass' segments at the start are nicely shot and a little different, but these go on too long really. The love aspect to the story (the kid loves a long-time friend from school who gets a nasty shock when kissing him) is a rather sweet little twist to throw in, but it doesn't really elevate this above the usual fare for this kind of X-Files story.

***

Would you like to go to the X-Files Season Nine guide, head back to the main TV reviews page, read older reviews in the Reviews Archive or return to the front page?