The Beginning

Theatre of the Mind ~ The Beginning

1. Hey, I don't think you should show movie clips in the "previously on the X-Files" montage. If people didn't want to pay their seven bucks, then I think they should have to stay in the dark!!
2. Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting. Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear. Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I say, it's all right.
3. Wow! Those set decoration people are awesome! How did they make a desert in Vancouver? What do you mean they moved to L.A.? When did that happen?
4. Roush Technologies. Bad, very bad.
5. The first cactus is for No. 2, and the second cactus is for No. 1.
6. "Is that your IQ or the number of dipwads your mother had?" I gotta remember that one! LOL!
7. And in a piece of casting brilliance by casting director Rick Millikan, the part of Sandy is played by . . . Rick Millikan!! It's a "breakout" role!
8. I think Sandy's house looks eerily like the Petrie's house in "Arcadia." I'd hate to have his electric bill. And his cleaning bill. Ewww.
9. How ironic is it that the X-Files are about to rise from the ashes in Phoenix, Arizona?
10. TWC1: Woo-hoo!! He didn't quit! They didn't win!
11. Scully, it's very rude to be late to an OPR par-tay. Luckily, they didn't make you go sit in the hall.
12. That's Nina Van Horn from "Just Shoot Me." From the FBI to Blush magazine!
13. I guess since we're back to TV, we're back to the boring old OPR people (just not the same boring old OPR people who live in Vancouver).
14. Personally, I'd like to hear more about that death-defying escape from the spaceship and the polar ice too. Like for instance, if the Snowcat was out of gas, how did Mulder & Scully get back to civilization? Has anyone asked that question?
15. Mulder didn't see "Men In Black," but I bet he can't *wait* for "Evolution."
16. ". . . who are growing corn in the middle of the desert which features pollen which was genetically altered to hold a virus which will be taken away by bees whose sting transmits the virus, causing the growth of an extraterrestrial biological entity inside the human host?" Well, it sounds like crap when you say it.
17. LOL: A.D. Maslin was named for New York Times film critic Janet Maslin, and A.D. Bart was named for Variety critic Peter Bart, who both reviewed the X-Files movie with as much disdain and skepticism as A.D.'s Maslin and Bart review Mulder & Scully's report. The A.D.'s even use some of the same lines that the critics used in their reviews.
18. I'm a little concerned that it took the OPR five years to start questioning M&S's "very questionable travel expenses." And more concerned that it apparently took them another two years to start looking into those expenses.
19. Okay, go ahead and tell them, Scully. Tell them about the scientific proof the bee, the virus, the spaceship. Go on, Scully. Tell them. Um, Scully? Apparently, she's still unconscious.
20. "Next time, I'll wear a clown suit and do balloon tricks."
21. Scully says she didn't see anything, the virus is not extraterrestrial, she got the virus but it was probably the 24-hour kind, and the virus doesn't generate a new being inside the human body. Isn't she gonna say, "I had you bigtime?"
22. My Gawd! The Consortium is up to their old tricks again. (But since WMM wasn't there to say it, I thought I'd say it for him. RIP, WMM.)
23. Skinner voting against him is just like one more swat on the butt. Thanks heaps, Walt.
24. TWC2: But, oh, that butt! Almost as good as feet.
25. Good old Walter. He's really trying to help.
26. A big old house plant in the little basement office? That *has* to be an X-File!
27. Diana has recovered. Oh goody gumdrops. Goodbye, Moose & Squirrel. Hello, FowlOne & Weasel.
28. They've got their first case! That file just disappeared without a trace!
29. Hey, CSM, thanks for complying with that "No Smoking" sign; we're conducting brain surgery here, wouldn't want to be too sterile or anything.
30. Poor little Gibson! I hope they're not making him tell them what they each had for breakfast.
31. Aw, just go with it, Scully. You guys are always at your best when you're getting in trouble together.
32. Since he's off the X-Files for the time being, Mulder must be undercover with the New Spartans again. How else to explain the reappearance of those khaki pants?
33. Those must have been some heavy-duty Lee Press-On Nails. "It ain't RuPaul." Tee-hee.
34. If this is what an alien "birth" looks like, for Scully's sake I hope it ain't a little green baby.
35. You go, Gibson! You *know* he knew M&S were there and was protecting them.
36. "I'm not afraid of you." Not much, you ain't, old Smokey.
37. Thanks a lot for reminding us of that hallway scene in the movie and what might have/could have been. Unless you're gonna kiss right here and now, I think we'd better move along.
38. "Gray skies are gonna clear up . . ." Well, that's what happens when you leave Vancouver. 39. A guy named Homer in a nuclear power plant. Doh!
40. Yeah, that's a good idea, Homer. Just stick your hand right on in there. You been hanging around with Agent Mulder or something?
41. I say Doggett & Reyes are a breath of fresh air compared to Weasel & FowlOne.
42. TWC3: I would never deny you access, hon.
43. Based on her experiences with Emily and Gibson, I feel pretty confident in predicting that the name of Agent Scully's baby will be Sweetie Scully.
44. M&S on the run with a special child. Hmmm . . . This could have possibilities.
45. You can forget the cover up, Scully. The kid reads minds, remember?
46. "You already know. You just don't want to believe it." You tell her, Gibson.
47. MSRM: Nothing speaks to me more of their relationship than the fact that Scully is the only person Mulder will listen to. He's ready to use Gibson to find the creature, but using her strict rationalism she convinces him that Gibson is the key and the proof that he is seeking that needs to be protected.
48. Okay, so he had to go and blow the MSRM by going off with the FowlOne: a Bitch Ditch. Although technically, he did tell Scully where he was going, so it was a quasi Bitch Ditch.
49. For those that think this was the worst kind of Mulder betrayal, FWIW, I don't think he really went with Fowley just because she believed him and Scully didn't. I think he saw two very definite leads to finding the scientific proof, and he trusted Scully to protect the one (Gibson) while he pursued the other.
50. TWC4: Though I deduct a few points because he's standing next to the FowlOne, he still looks pretty darn good.
51. Heat makes the virus/gestation speed up? Is that why cold makes the virus slow down? Hey, I've been paying attention.
52. I think Scully is gathering mementos for her own guilt scrapbook. You can see the angst when Gibson mentions being a very special lab rat . . . just like Emily.
53. This power plant seems to have an excellent security system. Not.
54. TWC5: Footwear! Just cause you step in the goo, doesn't mean you have to dip your fingers in it too.
55. I knew Homer learned that move from somebody.
56. Hey, in honor of Season 6, let's have the GPM in each episode (that would be the Good Phone Moment). S: "We're on to something huge a link." M: "I'll call that bet and raise you."
57. As soon as Mulder reminded Scully to take good care of Gibson, you sort of knew that Gibson was in deep doo doo, didn't you?
58. Scully goes ballistic and she wants them to find that little boy! I was waiting for, "Just pick up that phone and make it happen!"
59. Mulder and the FowlOne run around a lot. And then they run around some more. The Expendable Consortium Guy bites the dust. Gibson is left to face the Oilien Lizard alone. The FowlOne goes down on Mulder. Hey, hey, hey! Stop thinking like that! She pulls her gun on him, I meant.
60. TWC6: But Holy Flaming Cow! In his look of shock, he looks pretty damn good.
61. Aww. An empty chair where Skinner should be. Welcome to Alvin "I hate him already" Kersh.
62. The fade from the Weasel to the Fox is quite interesting. Are they brothers? Will we ever know?
63. Ah, the Season Six Mission Statement: Break Mulder's spirit. Good start.
64. Gosh, I'm not used to those Mulder Rational Explanations so I'm quite unprepared as to how to handle them. The FowlOne did all this to *help* the X-Files? Okay . . .
65. When she asks for your trust, Mulder, you *know* what you should have said: "Scully, you are the *only* one I trust."
66. Scully's science keeps him honest again. So we are all part extraterrestrial. Does that mean that our progenitors were alien? That we're here because of them; that they put us here? Perhaps during Season Six, we'll all find out together.
67. So the Oilien Lizards shed their skin and turn into little gray men. Watching this scene again now, I of course can't help but think of Billy Miles shedding *his* skin in "DeadAlive," and notice that there are a few parallels. Does this mean the oiliens have now learned to replicate themselves as human looking beings rather than grays? I guess (maybe) we'll find out in the next two weeks or so. This is also the last we'll see of Gibson for a while. What was he doing the whole time between "The Beginning" and "Within"? Since he could communicate with them, did the aliens take him away and continue to treat him like a lab rat, and then return him and enroll him in the Flemington School for the Deaf? At the end of "The Beginning," I guess I'm just left with one thought:
68. "Does anybody know what the hell is going on?!"

I'll be the first to admit that "The Beginning" was not my favorite season opener, but I don't think it was as terrible as many make it out to be. I think most were just disappointed that despite all that happened in the movie, we seemed to be back at square one again Scully firmly entrenched in her scientific skeptic role and the Dynamic Duo not only not kissing, but seemingly back at odds with each other with the FowlOne still posing a threat. But I'm not worried. Because I think that Season Six was "the beginning" in a lot of ways: a new location, a new team on the X-Files, and a new and different, more personal relationship between Mulder & Scully. It might not be apparent right at this moment, but I think by the end of Season 6 (and certainly perpetuated in Season 7), we will see a definite change in the 'ship for the better, of course. And if you can't see that, I only have one thing to say to you: "What does it take? For this thing to come up and bite you on the ass?"

I apologize. But I was controlled by forces that dwarf and precede all human history.

Polly