“Ninety-nine percent of the people in this world are fools … and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion.” – Sheriff Daniels.
MIRACLE MAN [Standalone] Aired March 18, 1994
Episode: 1×17 / 18 Overall
Director: Michael Lange • Writer: Chris Carter & Howard Gordon
The agents investigate a ministry led by a man whose son possesses the power to heal, and to kill, with a touch of his hand.
Chris Carter teams up once again with director Michael Lange and co-writer Howard Gordon, separated for the first time from writing partner Alex Gansa. Given that these reviews are written in a retrospective fashion certain elements are naturally distinct from the perspective of a first time viewer. Like all television series’, certain episodes are more conducive to repeat viewings than others. Re-watching some episodes will actually enhance your enjoyment as you discover new elements by focusing on an overlooked aspect from the initial viewing. Others appear to be lacking in hindsight. Episodes that, while on first impression were enjoyable amidst the excitement of the unknown, viewed through the rose coloured glasses of “new episode fever”, fall flat under the scrutiny of repeated plays. Often, the episodes that fall into this category are those which use mystery or plot twists as their defining ingredient. This argument applies across the board. You only have to watch The Sixth Sense a second time to understand how plot twists can be big on ‘wow factor’ during the initial experience, but hinder the enjoyment when going in for a second round. An episode like Miracle Man almost certainly would have yielded a more glowing review after seeing it for the first time, however since it relies too heavily on mystery to engage the audience, firing up the DVD for a second, third or fourth time leaves a bit to be desired.
Otherworldly elements aside, this is essentially a murder mystery that does a decent job at keeping the audience guessing throughout. It’s unlikely one would suspect Vance as the killer though his reasoning is justifiable and makes sense, so it’s not a cheap misdirect but rather a legitimate twist that feels logical and satisfying. Despite the fact that the mystery is engaging enough the first time around, there is little to draw audiences back once they know the outcome. The pacing is a little off at times, the episode begins slowly and then suddenly ramps up to a somewhat rushed false ending, finally leaving us with an unnecessary cliffhanger that feels a little forced. Samuel appears to have risen from the grave and left the county morgue. This comes across as a hackneyed attempt by the writers to end with the common X-Files trope of unsolved mysteries. This works quite often in the series but here it just feels forced.
The addition of Samantha, Mulder’s missing sister, is also poorly executed. Carter likes to explore his characters’ back stories and emotions deeper than some other writers but the addition of this side plot does nothing to further the story. This is not to mention that the actress playing his daughter bears no resemblance to the appearance of Samantha that the producers finally settle on in later episodes. This is, however, an excusable gripe as the creators had no idea at this point that Samantha would become such a prominent figure as the series progressed. This addition to the plot makes me think that the writer’s didn’t realise they could simply present a straight forward murder mystery as an X-Files episode. It’s arguable that at this early stage they were not so sure of themselves and felt that they needed to include something extraneous like this to tie the episode to the greater mythology. Or perhaps it was just a rare pedestrian effort at character development.
Miracle Man is certainly a successful murder mystery with some interesting characters, however it’s one that fans might skip when doing a DVD re-watch as it doesn’t offer much in the way of deeper analysis.
★★☆☆☆
The X-Files Retrospective Project 