This is good, classic X-file stuff. I still remember it when it first aired in my country, it genuinely creeped me out.
Okay, typically for the show we have a well executed thriller. The show had several of these in its first two seasons, even some I don't like but can see their being efficient; Squeeze, Ice, Darkness Falls, even The Host. The problem was usually silly monsters. The better ones were character-based explorations of mental states that had some thriller aspects, a good example is Beyond the Sea.
The thriller here involves possible alien abduction, mysterious body implants, and a hostage situation with Mulder in it. The ending at Scully's home is intense, arguably the most intense moment thus far.
Why I deem this worth watching, quite apart from the show's ongoing fixations and mythology, is that we have a volatile state of narrative truth. We can't be sure of Duane Barry's story of abduction; we can't be sure if our vision of that story isn't being imagined by Mulder, possibly fed by his own paranoia linked to his sister's similar vanishing, down to the imagery of a 'bright light and a presence in the room'; we can't be sure if it is all a hoax masking some other government experiment.
Mulder here is the viewer, Duane Barry's audience in the hostage crisis. He wants to believe, and presumably so do we. He partly is, and so are we, Duane Barry—imaginatively entering a world of borderline madness to experience the intensity of revelation.
Okay, typically for the show we have a well executed thriller. The show had several of these in its first two seasons, even some I don't like but can see their being efficient; Squeeze, Ice, Darkness Falls, even The Host. The problem was usually silly monsters. The better ones were character-based explorations of mental states that had some thriller aspects, a good example is Beyond the Sea.
The thriller here involves possible alien abduction, mysterious body implants, and a hostage situation with Mulder in it. The ending at Scully's home is intense, arguably the most intense moment thus far.
Why I deem this worth watching, quite apart from the show's ongoing fixations and mythology, is that we have a volatile state of narrative truth. We can't be sure of Duane Barry's story of abduction; we can't be sure if our vision of that story isn't being imagined by Mulder, possibly fed by his own paranoia linked to his sister's similar vanishing, down to the imagery of a 'bright light and a presence in the room'; we can't be sure if it is all a hoax masking some other government experiment.
Mulder here is the viewer, Duane Barry's audience in the hostage crisis. He wants to believe, and presumably so do we. He partly is, and so are we, Duane Barry—imaginatively entering a world of borderline madness to experience the intensity of revelation.