The X-Files: Tunguska

Written by Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter

Directed by Kim Manners and Rob Bowman

Starring David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson & Mitch Pileggi

The X-Files created by Chris Carter.

Perhaps I've been spoiled rotten by watching Babylon 5 - which always seems to do such a good job of combining an ongoing storyline with standalone episodes - but it has always seemed to me that The X-Files could do a better job with its own over-arching storyline. Whereas Babylon 5 advances the ongoing storyline (or "arc") a little bit in most episodes, and quite a lot in some, The X-Files' arc stories always seem a little rushed.

It is almost as though the producers are wary of spending too long away from the "monster of the week" formula of the show's standalone episodes, and so try to cram as much of the arc as possible into every arc episode. It would be better for the show if the arc were to be more often referenced in non-arc stories: Season 1's Tooms effectively demonstrates that a single line in an otherwise non-arc story can sometimes advance the arc further than two hours of running around Siberian forests.

That reservation aside, Tunguska is an excellent episode. (Or episodes; it was originally broadcast as two episodes - Tunguska and Terma - in the U.S, although both the Australian broadcast and video release treated it as a movie-length episode) A sequel of sorts to the Season 3 two-parter Piper Maru/Apocrypha, it opens with a scene involving customs officers searching a briefcase carried by a government courier. When a clumsy customs official drops a flask taken from the case, it shatters to reveal a black oily liquid that may be familiar to viewers of the aforementioned episode. It's certainly familiar to the courier, as he frantically bangs on the locked door while the liquid does something nasty to the customs officer. This opening was superb, except that as far as I could tell, no mention was made later on in the episode of these events. The fates of the courier and the officer are left to the imagination of the audience. The only low point of an otherwise excellent episode.

The story itself, once it gets going, is a cracking good yarn. All of the regular arc characters put in an appearance; from Mulder's contact at the UN through to Ratboy himself, Alex Krycek - last seen trapped in a missile silo in North Dakota and left for dead. (Obviously Krycek is somehow related to Doctor Who's Master - they both share the ability to escape from apparently lethal situations as soon as the camera is turned elsewhere.) The Smoking Man and the Well-Manicured Man also have quite a bit to do here, as they scramble to contain the chain of events set in motion by Krycek's reappearance, which include the murder (by Krycek) of a second government courier. And we see some new characters, who will most likely return: It seems that the United States is not the only country with a "Shadow Government" having access to alien technology...

Within this backdrop, we get to see a well-paced action story, as Mulder sets off to the site of the 1908 Tunguska blast to find out where the oily liquid originates. What he finds is a gulag where slaves are set to work digging up rock containing the liquid - referred to by the Russians as "black cancer." More disturbingly, other prisoners are exposed to the "black cancer", but seem not to suffer permanent ill-effects. ("It gets easier every time," says one prisoner, who later aids Mulder's escape, "until it kills you.")

Mulder is exposed, but recovers in time to escape, and returns to Washington in time to save Scully, who spends most of the episode either testifying before Congress or being locked up for refusing to testify before Congress to protect Mulder. No other place for Scully in a very Boy's Own-type episode, as Mulder and Krycek crash around the same piece of forest filmed from multiple angles for variety in the best Doctor Who tradition. Continuing that tradition, there are of course evil camp guards and a local resistance movement, who help our heroes to escape, although in Krycek's case it costs him just a little less than an arm and a leg.

Unanswered Questions

• How did Krycek get out of the missile silo?
• Why does the "black cancer" behave differently in this episode than it does in Piper Maru, where it seemed to possess humans, and give them an immunity to radiation: here, it seems to either kill, paralyse, or have no permanent ill-effects. No sign of possession.
• Is Mulder still infected, or do the Russians really have a cure that they were testing on him, and which worked?
• Was the "black cancer" really used in the Gulf War, or was the right-wing nut making that all up? Or is he supplying misinformation given to him by Krycek? If the cancer was used, where did Saddam get it? The Russians? They seem very protective of it here - would they have been willing to risk it being captured by American soldiers?
• How long has Krycek been working for the Russians? Specifically, was he a Russian agent when he was ostensibly working for the Smoking Man in Season 2?
• Presumably, the "project" referred to in the discussions between the Smoking Man and the Well-Manicured Man is the alien colonisation project. Is there any tie-in at all between the shape-shifting Colony aliens and the "black cancer"? Or were they just worried that the Congressional committee, once it started looking for weird stuff, would find out everything?
• Is the Tunguska rock native to Earth, or extraterrestrial? That mine seemed too big and long-term to simply be digging up a single meteorite or comet fragment. Unless the "black cancer" is using the rocks to somehow reproduce.
• What, exactly, is the reason for the cutting off of the arms? Is it to get rid of the smallpox scars? Or do people infected by the " black cancer" carry it in the arm?

Review Copyright James Bennetts 1997

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