Case 04, File 17: Tempus Fugit

AKA: The Return of Max

The X-Files is simultaneously a continuity heavy and continuity light show. It has its building plotlines yes, but they are fluid and often getting changed or retconned on the fly and there tend to be long gaps between plot movements because of the monster of the week episodes. As such as plot that, in a more plot focused show like Battlestar Galactica might take a season and a half, takes 5 seasons to play out. And as a result, I think it's awfully presumptuous for The X-Files to expect it's audience to remember a character who appeared in one episode, nearly 4 years ago.

Tempus Fugit opens with Max Fenig (remember him? From Season 1's Fallen Angel?) on a plane where an assassin prepares to take him out but the plane gets a bad case of Aliens before he can. Back on the ground, Mulder is celebrating Scully's birthday when Max's sister, Sharon, shows up to rain on their parade with the news that Max was coming to see Mulder and his plane crashed. Mulder decides to head over to the NTSB investigation, ask about aliens and generally make a fool of himself.

But when Mulder and Scully start sifting through the wreckage they find evidence of lost time on the plane and a particular mustachioed member of the NTSB crew starts erasing evidence. Mulder is just starting to form his theory (that Max was abducted from the plane, causing the crash) when, Max's seat mate is found alive...ish? He's got a lot of radiation poisoning and was also in a plane crash, so he's not doing so great.

Scully, who thinks Max was holding onto something radioactive, goes and confronts Sharon about it. Sharon denies it but also admits she's not Max's sister, which doesn't make her the most reliable witness. She, to avoid getting prosecuted for that whole "Lying to the FBI" thing, starts digging through all of Max's letters to her while Scully figures out that Max worked handling weapons' grade plutonium under an alias, which they skip straight past without considering the implications.

"Aha, it's the massive reveal of me! The...character from 4 years ago you probably forgot."

While Scully is off doing investigative work, Mulder discovers that all the wrist watches have been stolen off the plane crash victims (lost time remember, it's not as stupid as it sounds) and Scully discovers that Max's body was found a ways away from the crash. Oh and Sharon is abducted by aliens while looking through Max's letters. That's important. 

Mulder and Scully end up talking to the local air force traffic controller who tells them a pretty  simple story but argues with another controller when Mulder and Scully leave. They then return to the hotel to find Sharon's room trashed and Sharon missing, and the head of the NTSB crew ready to tell them that the emergency door on the plane had a lot of stress on it, despite being new, making Mulder sure that aliens abducted Max.

Okay, home stretch: One of the air traffic controllers is killed, and the other one goes and confesses to Mulder and Scully that he tracked the plane and thinks the air force shot it down, but Mulder thinks they were trying to shoot down a UFO because nothing can ever be simple. They evade the government wetwork squad, Mulder figures out the UFO crashed in a nearby lake and goes diving for aliens and Scully takes the air traffic controller into protective custody and runs into Pendrell at the bar but the mustachioed NTSB guy shows up again and shoots Pendrell trying to kill the air traffic controller. Oh and Sharon gets returned in front of the NTSB leader. That's important.

This is probably fine, right?

Tempus Fugit is strange episode. Take out the connection to Max and the episode becomes almost generic, but I don't know how much the connection to Max actually added at the time. It's a well put together episode (although as I've said before, two parters have to stick the landing to be really good) but it's rendered strange by its odd connections to previous episode and its effect on the larger series.

The sticking point to me is Max, because I honestly have no idea if the audience at the time had any idea who Max was when they first saw it. I asked my X-Files fan group if they remembered him when they first saw it, but I only got 2 responses. I watched this episode on DVD at the tender age of 14 and had much less time between this episode and Fallen Angel than the original audience had, and even I had trouble remembering who he was. I checked the DVD set to see if the Promos made mention of who he was, but no dice.

And while that knowledge is critical, to give the episode it's emotional underpinning, it also kind of undermines the character they created in Fallen Angel. Max's role in that episode was to be the innocent, caught up in the machinations of the conspiracy. Giving him a more active role in this episode, sneaking plutonium and using fake names, weakens that a little bit. I suppose they could have made up for it by fleshing Max out some more (which is what I seem to recall they did in part 2) but the episode is so devoted to setting up the upcoming plot that it doesn't have time to flesh Max out.

It's  not just me right, the perspective on this shot is a little wonky, right?

And then there's the new face of the human cost of the conspiracy, Agent Pendrell. I like Pendrell, don't get me wrong, but his death doesn't land to me, at least not in this episode. He shows up right at the very end by complete coincidence and immediately dies, so it feels less like an innocent caught in the crossfire so much as a contrivance from the writers. And the fact the Pendrell was always kind of one note doesn't help: He shows up, he hits on Scully, he is gently rebuffed, that's it. He's not exactly a complex or deep character.

Well now that I've spent 3 paragraphs whining about every minor issue with the episode, it feels weird to say that I actually just think the episode is fine. It's not great, but even if it is a pretty generic episode of The X-Files, it's still The X-Files and I do love this show. The pacing is solid, the mystery in engaging and I even think the air traffic controller is sympathetic. Where's more about him?

Honestly, I always liked Max a lot and wished he had showed up more, so maybe I'm just sore at this episode that he finally returned, only to get killed before the opening theme hits. But I can't really blame the series for not being what I want it to be, and as an episode, Tempus Fugit is a perfectly acceptable first part of a two part myth arc episode. We'll see how it sticks the landing, next time.

Case Notes:

• The X-Files is usually pretty good about being specific about its location headings, so "Somewhere over upstate New York" stands out to me.
• The episode treats our first shot of Max as if its some big reveal, which is more than a little arrogant.
• The cold open is very exciting and mysterious, and I like the red herring of the assassin putting together his gun, only for it to turn out to be an alien abduction. Very good.
• Mulder taking Scully out for dinner on her birthday and getting her an Apollo 11 present MY SHIPPER HEART HELP.
• Mulder and Scully were having a nice dinner and then Sharon shows up and ruins it. Come on lady.
• Also I had no memory of who Max was the first time I watched it, and it took me about half the episode to remember who he was.
• Mulder walks into the NTSB meeting and starts spouting off about alien abductions and expects not to get mocked. Come on Mulder, you know better.
• Also, Wikipedia informs me that the name of the lead NTSB guy is Mike Millar, which unfortunately makes me think of famed garbage person Mark Millar.
• The scene of Mulder, Scully and the NTSB guys sorting through the rubble is pretty good. It's not complicated, but it works. I also like the conspiracy guys disintegrating the assassin's body with acid spray.
• I'm sorry, is Scully just skipping past the fact that Max used an alias to get a job handling weapon's grade plutonium? Like, shouldn't the security be tighter than that?
• When Mulder finds out that Max is dead, he hits the denial stage of grief pretty hard.
• Max was still carrying Mulder's business card. That's kind of sad, right?
• Mulder makes a big deal out of the fact that none of the passengers are wearing wrist watches, which it is in this context, but on the other hand, I don't know anyone who wears a wrist watch so...?
• So many of the interactions in this episode are "Mulder acts like a weirdo and Scully covers for it," which is a good portion of their public dynamic. I love it.
• In any other show, Frish would sound like a lunatic but here he's the reliable witness. Excellent stuff.
• Mulder drives his car under landing plane and barely reacts. I also love that.
• The scene where the NTSB guy sees the alien space craft is pretty solid, even if perspective gets screwed up towards the end of it and it looks like the craft is roughly the size of the guy.
• Mulder just assumes he can dive the lake with no problem. Never change Mulder, never change.
• Sudden Agent Pendrell at the bar, and he's completely wasted. And he immediately gets shot to become the human face of the damage the conspiracy is doing. Good stuff X-Files.
• Mulder is, of course, legally required to be completely alone when he finds both the downed alien spacecraft
• As always, these reviews are supported by Patreon. Please check it out so I can continue to complain constantly about The X-Files to myself.

Current Celebrity Watch:

The chief NTSB investigator is played by Joe Spano, who played a main role on Hill Street Blues. He's also currently on NCIS, but I can't figure out how important his character is because the List of NCIS Cast Members wikipedia page is a horrifying nightmare.