Summer is long gone and that means the Multiversity 2017 Summer TV Binge is winding down. I’ve spent the last couple of months looking at the first season of The X-Files and we’re getting close to the big finale. This week, I’m looking at “Darkness Falls,” one of the best “monster of the week” episodes of this first season.
1. The Premise
“Darkness Falls” opens with a group of loggers being attacked by something they don’t see coming. It looks like some kind of swarm of bugs and it takes them all out almost immediately. Mulder catches wind of this and shows Scully the case and also points out that another group of loggers went missing in that area in 1934. He doesn’t immediately believe it to be an X File but there’s something about it that makes him want to go. They team up with the owner of the logging company and a US Park Ranger and things get bad very quickly.
2. Bugs Are Bad
Part of my enjoyment with “Darkness Falls” is that I have a phobia of bugs. I hate bugs. I hate bugs that fly. I hate bugs that crawl. I hate bugs. This episode makes me feel justified in that as the monster this week is not a werewolf or alien but bugs that were born and mutated here on Earth. These bugs only come out in the darkness and they devour your insides and it’s gross and creepy in every way. This is the kind of monster of the week that I can get behind. Scully and Mulder discover them hidden in the hundreds of year old trees that the loggers are cutting down. What they realize is that these bugs have lived in those trees, dormant and are now being let loose because of the logging. These bugs are uncontrollable and it puts Scully and Mulder in a situation that they can’t fight their way out of without a little luck on their side.
3. Season One Mulder Is A Moron
As the episode goes on, we are introduced to Doug Spinney, an “eco terrorist” who’s crew is stranded elsewhere. Spinney and his crew have come up against these loggers often because the loggers are cutting down trees that had been marked for safety. In fact, Spinney and his guys are in the right here because had the trees not been cut down, no one would be in this situation. Anyway, Mulder catches Spinney trying to leave to rescue his crew. To do this, he tries to take a jeep and the last of the gasoline that’s keeping the generators running, thus putting them all in danger. Mulder, despite not knowing this man, lets him go. Yup, Mulder just lets the guy go and puts himself, Scully and the park ranger at risk. Spinney says he’ll return and he eventually does but this ends up being so much more complicated and dangerous because Mulder is far too trustworthy. Mulder’s biggest issue early in the show is his inability to be a little bit more skeptical of people. It is here that you realize that he’s kind of dumb and lucky that Scully entered his life.
4. Pro-Environment Episode
The X-Files is a political show. There’s no reasoning around that. If you believe otherwise, you are just being willfully ignorant of what’s in front of you. In “Darkness Falls,” despite the weirdness of Mulder just trusting Spinney the way he does, Spinney is not the villain. He’s not the one you should be mad at in the episode. That frustration should go straight to the loggers and their boss who are cutting down the hundreds of years old trees. “Darkness Falls” has a pro-environment stance as it shows the dangers of messing with what exists in nature too much. There are things in the world that we still don’t entirely understand, particularly in nature and maybe in real life, it won’t be so drastic but this episode taps into that unknown stuff to great effect.
5. “That is not an option, Mr. Mulder”
This chilling line is said to Mulder as he, Scully and the park ranger recover in a government facility. After the 3 of them were cocooned and left for dead, they are rescued just in the nick of time by the government. They are aware of the bugs and the situation down there and Mulder asks what they will do. They plan to completely eradicate the area through pesticides and fire but what’s so chilling here is the power of the government. The X-Files always tells us to trust no one when it comes to the government. It’s a theme that is spread out all through this show and this is another little tease of how powerful this version of the government actually is. Mulder stares off into the distance kind of taking in this power and while this season doesn’t get deeper into that, we will in later seasons so this is kind of a nice little tease.
