Spies in Your Vagina

Dana and Fox running from Elon Musk

Or, the Vagina No-Dialogue. Or is that dialog? Season 11's 7th episode of The X-Files only has two human characters: Fox and Dana. X-Files 'shippers have been begging for an episode in which Fox and Dana go on a date, and here it is. And I suppose many of those 'shippers have been dreaming of some heart-to-heart dialogue between Fox and Mulder about "their relationship". But this is an episode with almost no Fox-Dana dialogue.

Twitter bot

For an episode with so few spoken words, the introductory teaser is an amazingly annoying and chatty voice-over account of an artificial intelligence gone bad (see Tay). That's the Hollywood version of the "racist" Twitterbot (image to the left).

Scully's Vibrator

YUM?

The star of the show is Scully's little lost vibrator. After years of over-work, this little guy decides to run away, forcing Dana to actually turn to Fox for human contact. Just kidding...

How we meet the star
When we first see the star of the show, he is pulled out from under Scully's bed by a robotic floor sweeper. The sweeper has two menacing red eyes and was just mysteriously delivered (by a flying drone) to Scully's fully automated house.

Jump the Shark Sushi
The entire episode is built around Mulder's date from hell. He is served a disgusting purple fish for dinner. He can't eat it, but he has to pay for it. Fox tries to complain, but there are no human workers to complain to. He refuses to give a tip and for the next 4 hours he is repeatedly badgered by a phone app reminding him that "it is not too late" to give a tip. Worse, all of the electronic devices near to Fox and Dana begin to harass them. Most of this episode is a seemingly endless series of absurd and tedious "malfunctions" of computerized devices that all seem to conspire to make Mulder give a tip to the robots who made his inedible dinner. Yuk, yuk.

Twilight Zone: man vs machine

Teach Your Children Well
When I saw the previews for this episode, I started imagining that the creators of this episode might manage to tie the drone army that chases Fox and Dana to one of the dangling X-Files plot threads such as the CSM's search for William. But no. This was a stand-alone episode with no apparent relevance to other episodes dealing with Sci Fi topics like alien conspiracies or telepathy.

episode 8

This X-Files episode could have been shaped into a good 30 minute X-Files tribute to an old Twilight Zone episode that was televised back in 1960. However, for a 60 minute show, it felt like it was 30 minutes too long, repeating the same Fox and Dana Keystone Cop-like gags again and again. Ya, I get it already; Fox and Dana have smart phones that magically and inexplicably "go bad". Cut! Next!

I Don't Want to Believe It
I've been fantasizing about the possible emergence of new writers and new show runners who might bring us an "X-Files The Next Generation". However, I'm starting to believe that Chris Carter and his old team are actually not that easy to replace. Judging by the episode 8 preview, even less entertaining filler episodes await before we finally reach the final episode and hopefully a satisfying resolution of the X-Files saga. Like watching a suffering, dying patient, I'm ready for this to end.

Next: Season 11, Episode 8

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