Case 06, File 04: Dreamland Part I

AKA: Freaky...I Dunno What Day This Takes Place. Tuesday?

There was a subgenre of X-Files episodes that existed for...eh, more or less the first season, where the episode would be about aliens or something similar but not actually involve the larger conspiracy or the government or any of that stuff (Gender Bender, or maybe Conduit are good examples). As the series' metaplot got more complicated and dominant, this style of episode got discontinued, with most of the alien-centric episodes being Myth arc episodes. And while this isn't technically the same thing, an episode with the Conspiracy that isn't a Myth arc episode has me in the same frame of mind.

Our episode opens with Mulder and Scully doing what they do; Driving down the road to meet an informant at Area 51, with Scully asking Mulder why he doesn't want to stop doing crazy shit like this and have a family (I think she's giving ya some signals there Mulder). But before they can pull over and start making said family, they get pulled over by some Area 51 goons. And before any of THAT can go anywhere, a UFO flies over them.

And then Mulder and Scully leave. Except it's not Mulder and Scully, it's Scully and one of the Area 51 guys (named Morris Fletcher) who has switched bodies with Mulder! Morris drives off with Scully while Mulder, who takes a couple minutes to adjust, ends up heading back with the men in black, first to Area 51 (where they're concerned with there being a mole in Area 51) and then back to his home where he sleeps in the living room to avoid being in bed with Morris' wife.

But Mulder is comfortable watching porn in the living room, so Morris' wife comes down and is mad at him and, well after a brief series of interactions with Morris' kids, everyone in the house is mad at him. Whoops. But he manages to get out of the house with only a couple of brief arguments and heads off to Morris' work at Area 51. Meanwhile, the Area 51 agents have discovered the crashed UFO, where the pilot suddenly can't speak English. And the co-pilot is fused with a rock. That's weird.

"Watching porn in the living room with 3 other people in the house? What could go wrong?"

Also, back at the FBI, Morris is doing a piss poor job at imitating Mulder, ingratiating himself to Kersh, banging Kersh's secretary, playing computer golf at work, refusing to work on the X-Files and generally alienating Scully. And if you think that would make Scully more receptive when Mulder slips away and gives her a ring to tell her that the man she's with isn't him, you don't know Scully. Back at Area 51, the Men in Black discover that the reason the pilot can't speak English is cause he's switched brains with an elderly Hopi woman. Neat.

Mulder meanwhile hits up a gas station to grab some sunflower seeds and the gas station is immediately hit by a mysterious force that causes it to go boom and also (as Mulder and the Men in Black discover when they check it out) the gas station attendant to fuse with the floor. Weird. The Men in Black shoot the man and torch the station, discovering later a lizard fused with a rock, which they don't think can even be fixed.

Hokay, home stretch: Mulder continues to alienate Morris' family, and wakes up saying Scully's name, leading Morris' wife to think he's having an affair. Her fears are immediately confirmed when Scully shows up and talks to Mulder, but refuses to believe he's actually Mulder. But, unfortunately for them, Morris is watching and reports them to Kersh and when Mulder meets up with Scully later with proof, the Area 51 guys are waiting, and the episode ends on a To Be Continued of Mulder being led away.

Dreamland is kind of a weird pair of episodes. They're designed to feel very intense in the moment (structured and put together like a 2-part Myth Arc episodes) but they're also kind of ephemeral. I called it a Monster of the Week above, and I'm not certain that's totally accurate, but I'm also not sure it's inaccurate. I'll talk about the ending in the next episode, and try to restrict my discussion to this episode.

"Okay sir, I have a theory: What do you know about a woman named Kitty Pryde?"
"You're an idiot son."

Which is where I think my first problem writing this review is going to come in because there's not a lot of forward momentum in this episode. We've got a handful of things to establish to have the bases loaded for the next episode (the Mulder-Morris switch, Morris' personality, the fact that the they're not the only ones and the things get fused with rocks) but outside of that, the episode proceeds to get bogged down in a series of vignettes about Mulder (and, to a lesser extent, Morris) adapting to their circumstances, or rather not.

Fortunately they're fun vignettes, which takes a lot of the sting out of the plot being unfocused. I especially like Mulder's first morning in the Morris Fletcher household, alienating and insulting everyone he comes across. Morris' story is less compelling (and it begins to strain credulity that Scully doesn't realize Mulder is telling the truth about the body swap given how little Morris tries to conceal that he's different) but Morris is a fun character and I like Scully's increasing shock and exasperation.

This is as good a moment to talk about Morris Fletcher, the character. Morris is instantly a great character, slimy and nasty in all the right ways (he also smokes, The X-Files' instant sign of evil) but he's played so well that you can't help but enjoy his presence. He's also got these hints of how pathetic he is, portraying his unhappy home life and misery at his job as facts of his existence, rather than jokes. It gives his job as a Man in Black the air of what it probably is to him, a low paying government job he hates. Hey that's a theme I've explored in a short story I wrote, shameless self plug. Anyway, Michael McKean does such a great job playing him, I'm not surprised they decided they wanted to bring him back several times.

Every review of this episode is required to include a picture of this face, I checked the bylaws.

Unfortunately outside of that, there's painfully little to actually talk about. The episode has the same issue that a lot of two part episodes have where they know where they want their cliffhanger to be but kind of have to fill time till they get there, hence the vignettes. The guys fused with stuff is suitably horrifying (especially the co-pilot fused with the rock) but it's a small part of the episode. I will say, credit where it's due, the lady playing the elderly Hopi woman is excellent. She gets her time to shine next episode, but she's good here too.

Is Dreamland Part I a good episode? I have no idea. Like many of the two part episodes, it's more or less impossible to approach absent it''s counterpart, but without even the requirement to push the Myth arc forward, the episode ends up even more meandering than usual. I will say, however, that while I'll talk about how I feel about the two episodes together next time, I've never been sorry to watch Dreamland Part I. It's a slight episode, but in a way that's enjoyable and silly, even with it's very intense cliffhanger.

Case Notes:

• I like the opening in the car, Scully trying to convince Mulder to stop seeking aliens and just live his life. It's a blunt, but effective, way to setup the themes the next two episodes will explore.
• Is Morris the first character, other than the Cigarette Smoking Man, who smokes in this series? I love the fakeout with him getting out of the car.
• Scully is the one who brings up the possibility of UFOs, presumably to stop Mulder from saying something crazier.
• Morris: There's no such thing as UFOs. Mulder: You uh, you know I watched one take off in Antarctica, right?
• Morris adapts to what's going on more or less immediately. I don't recall if they address why, but I like it.
• Mulder takes a minute to try and figure out what happened but he adapts quickly.
• I like the conversation in the car between the other guys, the actual ins and outs of trying to be a Man in Black. I may uh, may have written a short story based on that premise shamelessplug.
• I like a lot about Mulder's walk through Area 51, him looking back and forth paranoid and unsure of himself, him realizing his face is not his face, etc.
• Biggest proof Morris is a villain: He has pictures of himself with Ronald Reagan AND Newt Gingrich. Also Saddam Hussein I guess, but meh.
• Scully is clearly weirded out by Morris' behavior from the get go. I mean, he calls her Dana.
• This episode does a lot of work very fast establishing Morris, his strained relationship to his family, his work, and we discover it all at the same time as Mulder. Great stuff.
• I like the character interplay between Morris and Scully but are Mulder and Scully genuinely not allowed to drive down a public road on their own time?
• I love how quickly Morris establishes himself as a massive kissass.
• Scully's abject horror when Morris grabs her ass is amazing.
• I love the bit of Mulder trying (and failing) to navigate dealing with a new family, upsetting everyone in his wake as he tries to get out the door. They make the walk from the kitchen doorway to the car keys look like a million miles.
• Chris (Morris' daughter) is pretty easily upset. I guess I would be too if I were a teenage girl with Morris Fletcher as my dad.
• The scene with Mulder messing with his reflection clearly just killing time (I suspect they had too much material for one episode but not quite enough for two without a little padding) but it's a great opportunity for some physical comedy from Duchovny, so I like it.
• Scully should have figured out Morris wasn't Mulder immediately. He wants to do things by the book. Mulder is physically incapable of doing things by the book.
• Mulder goes and gets some sunflower seeds. Nice detail.
• I like the sarcastic gas station attendant. I'm sorry he got fused with the floor. Or did that get undone? I feel like all this gets undone at the end of the 2nd episode.
• I get why they do it, but I feel like killing your only witness to what happened is a bad call.
• If they were going to establish Kersh's secretary as a character and Scully rival in this episode, maybe they should have put Triangle after this?
• Morris is doing an exceptionally terrible job of acting like Mulder. I feel like if he knew how likely Scully was to solve the problem by shooting him, he might try to disguise himself better. She takes way too long to grok what's going on though.
• Mulder improvising an impassioned speech that Morris' wife takes as a "I have erectile disfunction," is pretty solid.
• Mulder trying to convince Scully while Morris' wife throws his stuff out on the lawn is a great scene, just excellent little comic punctuation to every line/
• The shot of Mulder's face in the car mirror is great in context, but they ruin it by turning the camera around to show Morris' face.
• The episode basically bull rushes its way to the climax to get to its cliffhanger, even if Mulder's rant in the final moments of the episode have to be softly retconned at the start of the next episode.
• Man there aren't many two parter Monster of the Weeks are there?
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Consider checking it out, cause I haven't switched bodies with anyone super wealthy lately.

Current Celebrity Watch:

Morris Fletcher is, of course, played by Michael McKean, an incredibly veteran actor with a career spanning 4 decades and continuing to this day (he's currently Chuck McGill on Better Call Saul and will be playing Shadwell in the upcoming Good Omens miniseries), But, you want me to name check his best known role: Yes, he played the main character in This is Spinal Tap.