“I’m back and I’m not going anywhere.” – Dana Scully.
FIREWALKER [Standalone] November 18, 1994
Episode: 2×09 / 33 Overall
Director: David Nutter • Writer: Howard Gordon
When scientists watch as their camera picks up a moving shadow on the inside of a smoldering hot volcano too hot for any living creature to survive, Mulder and Scully investigate the strange occurrence.
Howard Gordon’s second script for season 2 is a decent thriller in its own right but suffers due to a feeling of repetition. Tensions run high as a team of scientists fight for their survival in an isolated research station after the discovery of a new life-form threatens their existence. They are displaying violent tendencies and unusual shifts in their behaviour that is generating a sense of distrust and suspicion between them and the F.B.I agents. If this is starting to sound familiar it’s because the plot bares more than a passing resemblance to season 1’s stellar MOTW episode Ice. James Wong, one of the writer’s on Ice criticised this episode as a rehash of ideas, expressing concern that the show may have begun cannibalising itself. Nearly every review of Firewalker makes reference to Ice and Gordon himself acknowledged the similarities, arguing however that the difference outweighed the sames. Watching this episode I found that the recurrence of ideas and themes from an arguably superior episode made this entry feel redundant. Much in the same way that Roland felt like a repeat, thematically, of Born Again, Firewalker plays like a season 2 remake of Ice.
It’s almost unfortunate that this episode follows a more polished version of the same story because without the ability to draw comparisons it’s likely that Firewalker would have been a much more enjoyable affair. The acting is certainly a draw card and possibly the main element that keeps the story afloat. Shawnee Smith and Jason Ludwig in particular have proven on several occasions that they’re quite adept at playing characters with high levels of anxiety and they both deliver convincing performances. Hiro Kanagawa is another consistently believable character actor that helps to ground this story in some level of reality. Parallels have been drawn between Trepkos and O’Neils character and Mulder and Scully’s relationship. Trepkos, like Mulder, is driven by an insatiable quest for truth while pulling along O’Neil who invariably ends up at risk thanks to his disregard for rational thinking. It’s a nice underlay to the script that gives the show a bit of layering but it’s not quite enough to redeem its flaws. Scully remarks to Mulder at one point that she’s back and not going away. This is almost directed at the audience as the writers assure us that Anderson isn’t going anywhere and we can get back to the standard format after the recent departure.
A personal gripe I have with this episode concerns it’s opening sequence. We witness a shadow move across the dead body of a scientist lying on the volcanic floor. Characters remark that temperatures inside the area well exceed those fit for humans and we’re left to assume we’re in for some type of fire monster episode. As we learn that it’s simply Trepkos who is causing the destruction we can’t help but wonder how exactly he is able to walk inside the volcano interior without dying. He is seen with sever burns to his body but nothing is given to indicate any element of super human resistance to heat. This is a type of plot hole that has occurred before in previous episodes. Specifically that what we see in the episodes opening doesn’t fit in to the following story. It seems that in an attempt to peak our interest from the outset, which this admittedly succeeds in doing, the writer has sacrificed a certain amount of logic in the story. Howard Gordon was never a particularly strong writer during his time on the X-Files and had he not essentially ripped of Morgan & Wong with this remake we may well had been singing his praises. Alas. this one just simply came at the wrong time to be considered anything other than an average episode.
★★☆☆☆
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