Premise: A mysterious old man is freezing people to death
Hey, its… The Vancouver Art Gallery (playing a library, apparently. Also, you can see the glass dome of the Pacific Centre across the street)!
How good is this episode?
I’m not a fan of time travel in general, and it certainly doesn’t seem like the best subject for The X-Files to tackle. Still, this episode has a reasonably intriguing story, where it takes us a while to figure out what’s going on. It also takes a more meta approach to time travel than most other works on the subject. As anyone who’s read Douglas Adams (or just thought about the subject) knows, a world with frequent and easy time travel would be an extremely depressing and confusing place to live in, so it makes sense that someone would want to prevent that world from happening. And, since we never hear anything more about time travel on the show, I guess his mission was ultimately a success!
How ace is this episode?
Jason’s romantic feelings for Lisa play a small but important part in the story, as Old Jason is initially reluctant to kill her and Young Jason tries to avert her death. However, it is not enough to save Lisa, who is eventually rescued through a combination of her own expertise and Scully’s presence of mind. And, in the end, the loss of her boyfriend does not prevent Lisa from continuing on with their work.
Favourite moment: “And if your sister is your aunt, and your mother marries your uncle, you’d be your own grandpa.”
Random musings
- I lived in Vancouver for more than a year, but this is the first episode where I actually recognised a specific filming location.
- I don’t think this counts as a “bonding” moment, but I love that Mulder quotes Scully’s senior thesis at her not once but twice. Apparently, he didn’t just bother to read it – he even has parts of it memorised!
C
The Realm of Asexual Possibility 