A Little Bit Out There: Darin Morgan's X-Files

Since it is coming up to Octocon, I kind of got in a science fiction mood. I have just finished the excellent Better Than Us (more on that at a later date) and fond myself in a nostalgic mood. X-Files sprung to mind immediately but I wasn't in the mood to binge 218 episodes and two movies. However, the thing I like about X-Files though is that there are several "monster of the week" or standalone episodes to dive into that don't require further viewing so that became the plan. Being a big fan of Darin Morgan's work on the show, I decided to focus on his and a few of the other funnier episodes. I don't think Darin Morgan's impact on the show can be overstated. He took the show in funny and different directions and didn't allow it to take itself too seriously. My favourite comment about his writing comes from co-lead actor David Duchovny who commented, "what I loved about his scripts was that he seemed to be trying to destroy the show." Morgan contributed to one story ("Blood" from season two) and wrote six more but I am going to focus on my three that I enjoyed the most from the original run (the first nine series). I'll try not to be too spoilery.

Clyde Buckman's Final Repose (Season 3 Episode 4)

Peter Boyle stars, in an Emmy Award winning role, as Clyde Buckman, an insurance salesman and a psychic, who is able to see how people will die. Boyle plays the role of a wise-cracking but world weary Buckman to perfection. This episode shows Morgan's ability to highlight the character differences between Mulder and Scully. While Mulder is aghast at Buckman's apathy about his powers and treats him as an X-File, Scully shows sympathy towards the man. Watching the story progress, you would tend to side with Scully and Buckman, who sees the ability as a curse. The episode also lampoons psychics with the appearance of the Tremendous Yappi, a TV psychic, who even Mulder finds fraudulent. It is also the first appearance of Scully's dog Queeqeg.

War Of the Coprophages (Season 3, Episode 12)

A screwball comedy that lampoons War of the World's hysteria about alien attacks with a story about cockroach attacks that causes similar hysteria in a small town. Once again, Morgan highlights the differences between Mulder and Scully. Mulder chooses to use his day off to investigate UFO sightings while Scully is distracted with everyday diversions like cleaning her gun, washing the dog and reading a Truman Capote book. With every new death that occurs, Mulder interrupts Scully's evening with wild theories about the victims being killed by cockroaches only for Scully to provide rational explanations. The story mocks the X-Files' wild conspiracies only to come up with a wild one of its own. 

Jose Chung's From Outer Space (Season 3, Episode 20)

Author Jose Chung (played by Charles Nelson Reilly) is looking to create the first ever "non-fiction science fiction" (a nod to Truman Capote, who the writer is modelled on, and his non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood). He is interviewing various people about an alleged alien abduction. Scully, an admitted fan of Chung's work, agrees to participate but Mulder feels that the resulting book will further mock an area of investigation that he feels is ridiculed enough. The story features a foul-mouthed sheriff whose swearing is hilariously replaced with words like "bleep" and "blank". It also features Scully performing an autopsy on a man in an alien suit. The resulting footage appears in Dead Alien! Truth or Humbug?, an alien autopsy video. The title references Morgan's story Humbug and an actual alien autopsy video that was shown on Fox. (The Tremendous Yappi appears as the host). The video was recorded by a character named Blaine, who longs to be abducted so he doesn't have to get a job. There is also Roky Crickenson, a man who wants to turn the abduction into a screenplay, who is visited by two "men in black" who try to scare him off (portrayed by Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek). There's much more than this but I don't want to spoil. My favourtie aspect though is Chung's telling Scully some of the other people's side of the story, which include Scully uncharacteristically physically threatening Blaine (an aspect repeated to a much larger degree in Bad Blood). I consider this my favourite episode and so was delighted that Chung returned in sequel in Millennium called Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense. I'd actually love to read Chung's books and really enjoyed the extracts from both episodes. He has some entertaining philosophies. 

A list of Darin Morgan episodes:

• Humbug (X-Files, Season 2)
• Clyde Buckman's Final Repose (X-Files, Season 3)
• War Of the Coprophages (X-Files, Season 3)
• Jose Chung's From Outer Space (X-Files, Season 3)
• Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense (Millennium Season 2)
• Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me (Millennium Season 2)
• Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster (X-Files, Season 10)
• The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat (X-Files, Season 11)