"Have you been drinking Yaje Mulder?"
"Go with it Scully."

A better question might have been was John Shiban drinking Yaje 
when he came up with the idea that killer pussycats could be a 
scary X-Files premise. Sorry to say, but it is not - and for that 
reason this episode of the X-Files fails. It's not terrible, it's 
just not good, and frankly I expect good out of this show. Duchovny 
and Anderson could have phoned in their performances for this show 
so little effort was called for from them beyond their trademark 
tricks. They are forced to try to make little moments out of silly 
dialogue like "The dog ate a cat." "Cat ate a rat." "And the dog 
ate the cat." What a waste.

To me it was pretty apparent that the show wasn't working when
it seemed like they were pulling out all the familiar stops to
*try* to make this more scary. They've got Mark Snow working
overtime on the spooky in the dark music, they've got their
second-class flashlights that don't illuminate as well as their 
top-o-the-line monster hunting brand, they've got false starts 
galore - there's someone there - nope only a dog, only the escape 
from "The Host" museum guy. Worst of all, they try to make it 
scary by separating our heroes in the old "let's send Scully 
into the big spooky house by herself" ploy - I spent the whole 
time just waiting for her to get smacked on the left temple to 
make it a complete cliche'.

However, I really knew that the episode had failed on a grand
scale when I found myself actually laughing out loud while
Scully was being attacked by what appeared to me to be Tounces
on acid. I haven't seen worse scary cat effects since that
horrid made for TV movie a few years back. I have cats. Cats
can be scary sometimes. These cats were just laughable the
whole time. When you are laughing at the monster in a monster-
of-the-week episode and you are supposed to be scared, well, 
something just ain't right. For all the blood that was thrown 
about they found the bodies remarkably intact. I really wanted 
to see a pack of cats managing to drag some guy from outside 
down into the steam tunnels while draping his innards over 
branches - yeah right - that could happen.

From the trademark teaser in another language (which we didn't
even need subtitle for as I think everyone knows someone
muttering "muy malo" is very bad) to the ending Mulder voice
over this thing just wasn't happening. I've always thought
that when they have to use Mulder for the voice over it is
because they still haven't got the point of the episode home
- they need him to explain it or moralize it to us just a
little more. They can't use Scully for it as the premise would
further crumble with the voice of a skeptic.

Even the investigation was somewhat contrived me. Scully does
all the questioning while Mulder just wanders around making
little faces or occasionally piping in about curses or rats.
Bilac is obviously stoned when they first interview him and
yet no one seems to notice. Mulder wanders around in the woods
and chooses to stand right under the intestine tree - maybe 
he's psychic.

There were some good moments. I did find the Scully pulling a
rat out of the car scene quite funny, especially the way she
told the officer to label the bag as "partial rat body part"
like what else would you label it. The rats in the toilet was
interesting and Mulder & Scully's moment of being less than
thrilled at trying to investigate just why all the toilets had
overflowed was funny ("I hate this"). I also enjoyed the little
"Ladies first" exchange with that classic Scully look.

Random Musings
-------------------------
-Good thing they told us we were in the "Highlands" in the
beginning so they could justify the snow.

-Man that green chili was potent stuff - just a little taste
and you get that green kitty-cam effect.

-Haven't people learned yet that you *never* go into a bathroom
on the X-Files? Nothing good can come of it.

-Sorry, but "go with it Scully" just doesn't have enough snap
for an episode tag line. It is no "Sure. Fine. Whatever."

-We've seen Dr. Scully do many wonders in the lab, but being
able to identify a victim from corn chowder and sun flower
seeds in his small intestine - she never ceases to amaze me.

-Scully: "I think Bilac has been tripping". Audience: "duh".

Autumn
"So what are we talking here Mulder? A possessed rat? The
return of Ben?"