The X-Files Season 8, Episode 6: Redrum

Finally, a decent episode.

This is kind of the episode 'Monday' should have been. We were able to figure out early on that the days were moving backwards, and I picked up somewhere around Wednesday that Martin was being given a chance to go back and save his wife. I thought the whole motive for the murder was kind of shoehorned in - pure home invasion would have actually been better, and his sacrifice then would have been his own life instead of a prison sentence for suppressing evidence.

I would also say this may have been inspired by Memento, except Memento hadn't been released when this episode was made. Still, it reminds me of that due to the backwards motion and the gradual exposition of more information as time reversed itself. I won't even get into the mechanics of Martin living each day forwards but then living the days themselves in reverse order. That defies explanation, but it made for a good episode.

And otherwise, it's a decent murder mystery. And we're given the pieces in the same order as Martin, so we never know more than he does, but he always knows more than everyone else. It's an interesting take on apparent psychic ability, even though in this case, his precognition arises from having already experienced certain events. And interestingly, unlike many of the unfortunate supernatural victims on this show, Martin is actually smart enough to be able to take advantage of the situation and not let anyone else think he's totally lost it. Well, maybe Doggett, a little.

I liked the repetition of various past scenes, with more information revealed each time.

In fact, by the end of the episode, enough had been revealed that I was able to predict Doggett would show up at the last minute and kill Ocampo to save Martin Wells and his wife. Of course, only Martin knew of the possible alternate future that would result if everything played out the same as it had the first time. I was even worried for a minute, when the attempted murder scene even started to play out similarly to the way we had seen it in the flashbacks. I was somewhat afraid that Martin actually wouldn't get the opportunity to save either his wife or himself, but would instead, in trying to stop the murder, end up being in such a position at the scene where he became a suspect.

I also thought that perhaps there would be a one-armed man involved, but since it wasn't a mythology episode, I didn't figure Krycek was likely to show up.

There were two flaws I noticed in this episode, though. One was the droning monologues. I get that there's some philosophical reasoning behind the idea of getting to relive a day or a week or a month of your life, or just being able to change one small detail. That was largely the entire premise of the show, Fringe. But that doesn't mean it has to be constantly explained and philosophised about in the episode. That got to drag a little bit.

The other issue, though, is that like many of the episodes so far this season, we're not really given much explanation as to why this was happening. It may be entirely mystical or paranormal or whatever, but why? Why did this happen? Why did it start when Martin was shot and killed? What if his goal had been more than just to prevent the murder? I mean, why was he not given the chance to go back and undo his mistake of suppressing evidence in the first place?

I don't want to let that detract too much from an otherwise pretty good episode, but I hope that in the upcoming decent episodes, if there even are any left, we're at least shown some resolution from an X-Files perspective and not just from a police investigation one. There are plenty of crime investigation shows, and plenty that sometimes even deal with unusual cases, but this is really the only one where the cases are explicitly set out to be unusual.

It's the paranormal stuff that makes The X-Files what it is, at least partly. The other part that made it what it is is still missing, and I hope they get to that soon, because it actually is more interesting.

Aside: what would you do if the days suddenly started moving backwards for you and no one else? Again, I think there's probably always at least one thing everyone would like to change or undo.