OK, getting better. Creepy dream sequences are always a plus.
While this was still less of a typical X-File and more of just a 45-minute horror movie, I do appreciate more the direction the season is going with episodes like 'Redrum' and 'Via Negativa'.
It's true, we already kind of saw this back in the old days of season two with 'Sleepless' and maybe season three's 'The Walk', but it's not like the show hasn't repeated plenty of other ideas before, either. This time, it's not a result of a military experiment, but of someone's intentional abuse of sleep and other people's dreams to murder them. It's again one of those murder weapons that's really hard to defend against.
Since Scully was largely unavailable for this one, it was kind of the inverse of 'Roadrunners', only I guess with the added tension of worrying that Doggett would find out that Scully is pregnant, or worse, Kersh finding out. But I think Doggett only found out Scully was in the hospital and nothing else. I'm not really afraid he'll tell anyone else - he seems like one of those people who's hard-edged and kind of obnoxious about it sometimes, but has a strong sense of loyalty, given his background.
I'm also not entirely sure, given the nature of this episode, what actually happened. I think we can be pretty sure that under the influence of lots and lots of hallucinogenic drugs (where's Walter Bishop when you need him?) and some sketchy mysticism, Tipet was somehow causing people to die in their dreams. Which is something that happens to people all the time, only their dream deaths don't turn out to be quite so literal.
I still hate Kersh. Doggett is maybe starting to believe a little about the possibility of some otherwise unexplainable phenomena, and Kersh basically tells him that doesn't matter. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't really trust someone in law enforcement who believes the ends justify the means. He should care about motive and murder weapon (even though it's pretty much impossible to come up with the latter), not just because it's important to understand why people are doing horrible things, but also because our legal system doesn't really recognise drug-induced dream states as possible murder weapons.
Plus, at least from what Tipet said, most of these killings were accidental. Which makes sense, given his line to the homeless man, "You don't want to know me." Of course, the accidental killings were still indirectly caused by Tipet's persuasive power - I'm pretty sure that as a cult leader, he planted such horrible ideas in the minds of his followers that their dreams ended up killing them.
I don't think Kersh is involved in covering anything up here, he just seems not to really care that much beyond, "We've got our man." And that might work on other shows, but this is The X-Files. Without delving into the purpose or meaning behind these cases, there's really no point to it, is there?
I do still enjoy seeing the Lone Gunmen, especially since they've become more open allies of the X-Files and of the FBI, despite their odd paranoia about the government. It's still weird seeing them interact with people at the FBI other than Scully and Mulder. It's also weird that they can just wander around the FBI and go to Mulder's office on their own, but I'm really not complaining. They're always fun to see.
And, like many episodes, there wouldn't really have been as much tension unless Doggett was affected by this himself. Once he came into contact with Tipet, his own dreams turned against him. Or at least, that's what we were led to believe. Maybe they weren't. Maybe they were just horrifically bad dreams (creepily executed and filmed, at that) and weren't actually going to kill him.
But without even having those, there's no way he would have come closer to actually believing anything about this case. And that's progress.
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