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'You're taking off?'
'With that thing still on the loose?'
Title: Humbug
Season: Two (1995)
Duration: 45m
Written by: Darin Morgan
Directed by: Kim Manners
Rating: ****
Season two of The X-Files was a fine season, and indeed I regard the first four as being particularly strong before the show began to lose its way around the time of the fifth. Yet that low-key first season began to get broader and more mainstream – season two gave us shape-changing, Terminator-like aliens that had green blood, while season three often became the 'monster of the week' show, with increased gore. That's not to say it was bad, but the eye towards a broader denominator would eventually see the series burn itself out.
That's poignant here with the first comedy episode of the series (and also a major inspiration on this site's parody album art). Darin Morgan was one of the best writers the series ever had, but as soon as you introduce self-referentiality into a series it's only a matter of time before it begins to eat its own tail. Suddenly The X-Files wasn't existing on cases, but existing on itself, and as other writers began to follow suit the tone of the series varied wildly from week to week. From here it was less than three years before we got a black and white episode with a Frankenstein's monster that was addicted to Cher... an episode with 'post modern' actually in its title.
All of which takes nothing away from Humbug in and of itself, a fine albeit slightly pedestrian comic retooling of Freaks. Yet it opened a direction for The X-Files that saw the series gradually begin to dilute itself way past its original strengths. On those terms Humbug easily earns its place in this list as a key episode... not only as a great episode in its own right, but also as one that changed the nature of the series forever.
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Visit X-File On Main St.'s Online Store in association with Amazon for gifts on the series.
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