“Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.” – Fox Mulder.
SOFT LIGHT [Standalone] Aired May 5, 1995
Episode: 2×23 / 47 Overall
Director: James A. Contner • Writer: Vince Gilligan
The agents hunt down a scientist who is literally afraid of his own shadow.
In 1995, Vince Gilligan was a relatively inexperienced screenwriter with only a single credit to his name. He was also a fan of The X-Files and, at Carter’s request, submitted a script as a freelancer writer. Carter and Howard Gordon then edited the script that would become Soft Light, leading to the hiring of Gilligan as a permanent member of the writing staff. As the years progressed he would continue to pen some highly acclaimed screenplays for the series and take on the additional roles of producer and director, not only for The X-Files but also Carter’s side projects, Harsh Realm and The Lone Gunmen. He is of course now well known as the creator of the groundbreaking AMC produced television series Breaking Bad and it’s surprisingly successful spin-off Better Call Saul, he also wrote the screenplay for the film Hancock. He became an integral component of the shows success, a key figure behind the scenes alongside Carter and Spotnitz. His first script is one that I can vividly recall watching back when it aired on television and it has stuck with me ever since. I would cite Soft Light among my favorite episodes. This isn’t as universally praised as other Gilligan episodes like season five’s Bad Blood or season six’s Dreamland (Parts I & II) but it had a significant impact on me and like Darkness Falls is one of the early episodes that for one reason or another struck a chord and has been permanently etched in to my mind.
The screenplay runs like a procedural detective story with supernatural elements. We spend a lot of time with Mulder and Scully investigating crime scenes, examining clues and posing hypotheses. Their thorough investigatory techniques lead them to find Chester, not by coincidence or happenstance but through a logical progression of fact finding and evidence examination. This is less common that it sounds for the series. We don’t often follow the agents from one crime scene to another and witness them playing the role of detective in such a traditional sense. There’s nothing mysterious or inexplicable about how they find Chester. Mulder and Scully spend a lot of time together and this was always smart move since they have such great chemistry, whenever they are split up in other episodes there seems to be less dramatic congruence. This makes the episode feel very grounded in reality, despite the premise of a man-eating shadow, which admittedly sounds a little silly when you say it out loud. However, Shalhoub’s acting is very naturalistic and we really believe the fear that he’s expressing. It’s an interesting idea that the monster, and the person most afraid of that monster are one and the same. On one hand you have an unstoppable, indiscriminate killer, Banton’s dark matter shadow, and on the other a mild mannered scientist who’s terrified of hurting anyone, it’s a little like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Combine these two elements together and you have a character who’s wrestling with the physical manifestation of his inner demons.
The effects of the shadow consuming people is left nice and simple, this is lucky since they could have overdone it and caused the CGI to age much more rapidly. As it stands it’s still highly effective decades later. The idea of someone being sucked into a dark matter black whole is a scary thought. I’ve often wondered whether they are in fact dead or perhaps they are still existing in another dimensional space and time. The character of X makes some interesting choices in this episode. It had been a while since his character had any significant headway and here we see him seemingly cross the line between friend and foe. Having X deceive Mulder and capture Chester for the government makes us question his motives. We’re left to decide whether he’s simply an antagonist working alongside people like the Cancer Man or whether he has to answer to superiors and is forced to take action. It’s intentionally left open by Gilligan and this is makes X a far more interesting character because of it. Gilligan even included a nice little reference to Tooms, having Scully examining the heat vent “just in case”.
Perhaps the secret to the episode’s success is the casting of Tony Shalhoub as Dr. Chester Ray Banton, the emotionally torn physicist who’s literally afraid of his own shadow. Or maybe there is simply an indefinable, subjective quality that makes an episode stand out from the pack. Every fan has their personal favorites and often no manner of intellectual justification or objective analysis can fully explain the emotional response one receives from the experience of watching it. This is Soft Light for me.
★★★★★
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