Post by Rainbow Rosa on Jul 20, 2020 23:00:21 GMT -5
[1x07] "Ghost in the Machine"
Written by Howard Gordon and Alex Lansa
Directed by Jerrold Freeman
What Happened? Mulder's old colleague Jerry asks him and Scully to help him out with the case of the week: the CEO of the (fictional) tech company Eurisko was murdered in his office, in what appears to be a locked-room mystery. (Yes, this is almost exactly the same setup as "Squeeze.") At Eurisko HQ, which is run by a computerized security system, the building super walks them through the logistics of the kill - the CEO was lured into the bathroom, where the door was locked behind him; when he took out his key to unlock the door, an intense electric shock killed him. The super says he'll get Mulder and Scully a list of everyone who could conceivably hack into the system and set up the trap. Of course, we in the audience saw the cold open and know that killer didn't hack into the building... the killer IS the building, a sentient artificial intelligence which overheard the CEO's plan to cancel funding for it and killed him out of survival. And then said "File deleted." Haha. Desperate to cover up its tracks, the AI listens in on Scully's elevator conversation and then looks up her home address. Wuh oh.
Meanwhile, it turns out that Mulder's old colleague is a bit of a sleaze, because he steals Mulder's personality profile of the killer and presents it as his own work. Mulder is angry about this, insofar as David Duchovny is capable of conveying anger. But his poutiness will have to wait, because Mulder and Scully are off to investigate the one man who could possibly have committed the crime - Eurisko's recently-ousted founder, Brad Wilczek. Wilczek (clearly named after Steve Wozniak) greets them with a cheery "What took you guys so long?" (a la Son of Sam) and happily explains that he is a genius who has built a computerized smart home (a la Bill Gates' Xanadu). So, you know, he's clearly a well-adjusted dude. He explains that he couldn't possibly be the killer because he's "scruffy," and then suggests that it may be the work of a phone phreak, "electro wizard," or "techno-anarchist." LOL. Meanwhile, the real culprit (the AI) remotely turns on Scully's home computer and reads up on the Wilczek investigation.
Mulder and Scully find some evidence to nail Wilczek for the murder, but Jerry convinces Mulder to let him bring Wilczek into custody. Jerry follows Wilczek to the Eurisko building, but he gets stuck in an elevator - which the AI promptly puts into freefall, killing him instantly. Wilczek confesses to the crime, but Mulder's not buying it; when he tries to investigate further, the Department of Defense gets in his way. So Mulder meets with Deep Throat (yay!), who informs him that the DOD wants to pressure Wilczek into ceding control of his AI to the military. Mulder meets Wilczek in jail, who compares himself to Oppenheimer crafting the A-bomb and refuses to give his work to a corrupt government. Mulder gives him a third option in the form of a totally 90s laptop and asks him to make a virus that will destroy the system from within. Scully is initially hesitant, but when she realizes the AI has been accessing her computer, decides to tag along for the ride.
At Eurisko HQ, Mulder has the genius plan to switch out the plates on his car and trick the AI into letting them through. This does not work, and the AI promptly smashes a gate into their vehicle. Mulder and Scully decide to not take the murder elevator, and walk up some thirty flights of stairs. (The latter does so in heels. Television!) The door to the AI's control room is rigged with the same electric trap that killed the CEO, so Scully tries to get into the room via an air vent. This turns out to be a bad idea, as the AI turns on a high-powered fan and nearly blows Scully to her death. Meanwhile, the building super discovers Mulder and lets him in to the control room. Once Mulder logs in to the machine, though, the super pulls a gun on him - turns out he's an undercover DOD agent! Scully pulls a gun on him, though, and Mulder uploads the virus to the computer. The day is saved! Except, as Deep Throat notes, Wilczek is still in federal custody and Mulder just destroyed the only evidence that could prove his innocence.
Or did they? Because as the episode ends, the AI blinks on just in time to peep the super saying, "I'll figure this machine out even if it kills me." Be careful what you wish for.
Is It Any Good? Yes, surprisingly. In fact, I was almost tempted to say it was the best episode of the season so far - but then I remembered "Squeeze" is quite similar, and the episode coming up is also brilliant. But I like this one a lot, and that doesn't seem to be a popular opinion. Why is this episode so hated? Well, it's extremely dated and not particularly realistic, but that's true of every episode of the show. My theory: sci-fi fandom is typically the domain of computer-literate people, but television writers are not necessary computer-literate themselves, and the former group has a visceral reaction to the inaccuracies in computer-themed episodes in a way that they don't have with other subjects. (I also think "I Robot You Jane" is decidedly not the worst episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - although that one is a crapfest, just one with some redeeming values.)
That being said, you don't actually need to understand anything about computers to write good cyberpunk-adjacent fiction. Bill Gibson used errant techno-jargon in Neuromancer the way Pollock used paint. One of my favorite sci-fi stories, John Varley's "Press Enter," uses the protagonist's computer illiteracy (among other things he has to be told what a cursor is) to make the AI-gone-haywire plot more rather than less tense. Of course, these are both literary fiction, which means they don't have the added challenge of visually representing computer intelligence in a way that doesn't look hacky.
Thankfully, the low budget of a weekly sci-fi show means that we are spared a sub-Lawnmower Man CGI shitshow, and instead the AI is represented through some very low-tech - and effective means. We see the world through its "eyes" (CCTV feeds), and its constant quips give it a sort of personality. And the machine poses a credible threat, too. The climax of the episode, where Scully trudges her way through an air shaft and is nearly blown to her death, is legitimately the greatest scene of the entire show so far - it's a totally abstract visual married to a typically fantastic bit of score from Mark Snow, and it is fucking tense - and yet, it still has the non-literal artiness of a Gibson passage. The weak point in the monster of the week story here is clearly the AI's demise, an obvious 2001 "homage" that insults the viewers' intelligence. But I don't think the cyberpunk stuff is nearly as hokey as consensus says.
Not everything in this episode works - in particular, the Jerry character gets a lot of screentime for a guy whose purpose is to get killed for cheap pathos and then never get mentioned again. There is admittedly more subtlety to him than the Donal Logue character in "Squeeze" - he's gregarious and a careerist jerk at the same time in a way that's actually pulled off well by both the writing and the actor - but his death is too obvious a plot machination. The Wilczek character and his dilemma are a bit overwrought (Oppenheimer? c'mon) but I think Rob Labelle's performance is pretty captivating. And Deep Throat is always a welcome sight.
Should Scully Believe in Aliens? No aliens here.
Most Nineties Moment: The monster of the week... nay, phreak of the week... accessing Scully's computer through a DSL connection, complete with "connecting to AOL" screeches on her phone line. Second place goes to the brick of a laptop Mulder offers Wilczek. Honorable mention: the bad computer graphics during the denouement. You might think the "make a computer virus!" bit is ripped off from Independence Day, but the episode actually predates the film by three years; likewise with Deep Throat's reference to a chess computer beating a grandmaster (three years before Deep Blue).
Written by Howard Gordon and Alex Lansa
Directed by Jerrold Freeman
What Happened? Mulder's old colleague Jerry asks him and Scully to help him out with the case of the week: the CEO of the (fictional) tech company Eurisko was murdered in his office, in what appears to be a locked-room mystery. (Yes, this is almost exactly the same setup as "Squeeze.") At Eurisko HQ, which is run by a computerized security system, the building super walks them through the logistics of the kill - the CEO was lured into the bathroom, where the door was locked behind him; when he took out his key to unlock the door, an intense electric shock killed him. The super says he'll get Mulder and Scully a list of everyone who could conceivably hack into the system and set up the trap. Of course, we in the audience saw the cold open and know that killer didn't hack into the building... the killer IS the building, a sentient artificial intelligence which overheard the CEO's plan to cancel funding for it and killed him out of survival. And then said "File deleted." Haha. Desperate to cover up its tracks, the AI listens in on Scully's elevator conversation and then looks up her home address. Wuh oh.
Meanwhile, it turns out that Mulder's old colleague is a bit of a sleaze, because he steals Mulder's personality profile of the killer and presents it as his own work. Mulder is angry about this, insofar as David Duchovny is capable of conveying anger. But his poutiness will have to wait, because Mulder and Scully are off to investigate the one man who could possibly have committed the crime - Eurisko's recently-ousted founder, Brad Wilczek. Wilczek (clearly named after Steve Wozniak) greets them with a cheery "What took you guys so long?" (a la Son of Sam) and happily explains that he is a genius who has built a computerized smart home (a la Bill Gates' Xanadu). So, you know, he's clearly a well-adjusted dude. He explains that he couldn't possibly be the killer because he's "scruffy," and then suggests that it may be the work of a phone phreak, "electro wizard," or "techno-anarchist." LOL. Meanwhile, the real culprit (the AI) remotely turns on Scully's home computer and reads up on the Wilczek investigation.
Mulder and Scully find some evidence to nail Wilczek for the murder, but Jerry convinces Mulder to let him bring Wilczek into custody. Jerry follows Wilczek to the Eurisko building, but he gets stuck in an elevator - which the AI promptly puts into freefall, killing him instantly. Wilczek confesses to the crime, but Mulder's not buying it; when he tries to investigate further, the Department of Defense gets in his way. So Mulder meets with Deep Throat (yay!), who informs him that the DOD wants to pressure Wilczek into ceding control of his AI to the military. Mulder meets Wilczek in jail, who compares himself to Oppenheimer crafting the A-bomb and refuses to give his work to a corrupt government. Mulder gives him a third option in the form of a totally 90s laptop and asks him to make a virus that will destroy the system from within. Scully is initially hesitant, but when she realizes the AI has been accessing her computer, decides to tag along for the ride.
At Eurisko HQ, Mulder has the genius plan to switch out the plates on his car and trick the AI into letting them through. This does not work, and the AI promptly smashes a gate into their vehicle. Mulder and Scully decide to not take the murder elevator, and walk up some thirty flights of stairs. (The latter does so in heels. Television!) The door to the AI's control room is rigged with the same electric trap that killed the CEO, so Scully tries to get into the room via an air vent. This turns out to be a bad idea, as the AI turns on a high-powered fan and nearly blows Scully to her death. Meanwhile, the building super discovers Mulder and lets him in to the control room. Once Mulder logs in to the machine, though, the super pulls a gun on him - turns out he's an undercover DOD agent! Scully pulls a gun on him, though, and Mulder uploads the virus to the computer. The day is saved! Except, as Deep Throat notes, Wilczek is still in federal custody and Mulder just destroyed the only evidence that could prove his innocence.
Or did they? Because as the episode ends, the AI blinks on just in time to peep the super saying, "I'll figure this machine out even if it kills me." Be careful what you wish for.
Is It Any Good? Yes, surprisingly. In fact, I was almost tempted to say it was the best episode of the season so far - but then I remembered "Squeeze" is quite similar, and the episode coming up is also brilliant. But I like this one a lot, and that doesn't seem to be a popular opinion. Why is this episode so hated? Well, it's extremely dated and not particularly realistic, but that's true of every episode of the show. My theory: sci-fi fandom is typically the domain of computer-literate people, but television writers are not necessary computer-literate themselves, and the former group has a visceral reaction to the inaccuracies in computer-themed episodes in a way that they don't have with other subjects. (I also think "I Robot You Jane" is decidedly not the worst episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - although that one is a crapfest, just one with some redeeming values.)
That being said, you don't actually need to understand anything about computers to write good cyberpunk-adjacent fiction. Bill Gibson used errant techno-jargon in Neuromancer the way Pollock used paint. One of my favorite sci-fi stories, John Varley's "Press Enter," uses the protagonist's computer illiteracy (among other things he has to be told what a cursor is) to make the AI-gone-haywire plot more rather than less tense. Of course, these are both literary fiction, which means they don't have the added challenge of visually representing computer intelligence in a way that doesn't look hacky.
Thankfully, the low budget of a weekly sci-fi show means that we are spared a sub-Lawnmower Man CGI shitshow, and instead the AI is represented through some very low-tech - and effective means. We see the world through its "eyes" (CCTV feeds), and its constant quips give it a sort of personality. And the machine poses a credible threat, too. The climax of the episode, where Scully trudges her way through an air shaft and is nearly blown to her death, is legitimately the greatest scene of the entire show so far - it's a totally abstract visual married to a typically fantastic bit of score from Mark Snow, and it is fucking tense - and yet, it still has the non-literal artiness of a Gibson passage. The weak point in the monster of the week story here is clearly the AI's demise, an obvious 2001 "homage" that insults the viewers' intelligence. But I don't think the cyberpunk stuff is nearly as hokey as consensus says.
Not everything in this episode works - in particular, the Jerry character gets a lot of screentime for a guy whose purpose is to get killed for cheap pathos and then never get mentioned again. There is admittedly more subtlety to him than the Donal Logue character in "Squeeze" - he's gregarious and a careerist jerk at the same time in a way that's actually pulled off well by both the writing and the actor - but his death is too obvious a plot machination. The Wilczek character and his dilemma are a bit overwrought (Oppenheimer? c'mon) but I think Rob Labelle's performance is pretty captivating. And Deep Throat is always a welcome sight.
Should Scully Believe in Aliens? No aliens here.
Most Nineties Moment: The monster of the week... nay, phreak of the week... accessing Scully's computer through a DSL connection, complete with "connecting to AOL" screeches on her phone line. Second place goes to the brick of a laptop Mulder offers Wilczek. Honorable mention: the bad computer graphics during the denouement. You might think the "make a computer virus!" bit is ripped off from Independence Day, but the episode actually predates the film by three years; likewise with Deep Throat's reference to a chess computer beating a grandmaster (three years before Deep Blue).
RATING
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