X-Files S2E19: Lay off on the salt

Sestra Amateur: 

Yes, "Død Kalm" means Dead Calm, but let me clear this up for you right now: This is not the movie featuring a young, athletic and shirtless Billy Zane. In fact, most of the characters don’t remain young or go shirtless in this one. But Dead Calm is available on cable, so feel free to get your Zane fix then come back to the blog.  [Editor's note: Sestra Pro does not endorse this course of action. X-Files first, of my word!]

In the Norwegian Sea, there’s mutiny aboard the USS Ardent destroyer escort. Some of the crew leave because they think their lives are in danger. They’re right. The mutineers are rescued by a civilian boat, but all the servicemen are deformed. I think they’re supposed to have aged, but old-person makeup was spotty in the early '90s, so it looks more like radiation exposure. 

Mulder and Scully get involved when the lone survivor, Lt. Richard Harper, is brought to Bethesda Hospital. Sculder also learn the Ardent has disappeared. Scully questions Harper’s age and wants to review his medical records, but gets thrown out without any answers by Harper’s doctor. 

Back at the bureau, Fox shows Dana a map of the Norwegian Sea that has experienced suspicious activity similar to the Bermuda Triangle. Mulder mentions the Philadelphia Experiment and tells Scully about the USS Eldridge, which disappeared from Philadelphia in 1943 and reappeared moments later in Virginia, possibly due to alien technology. Too bad there are no cameos by Michael Paré (from the movie) or Brad Johnson (from the sequel). Hey, didn’t Nicholas Lea (Krycek) star in the Philadelphia Experiment remake? There’s only one degree of separation here. 

Sculder head north to Norway to get some answers, but run into a few dead ends. They hitch a boat ride with Henry Trondheim, played by John Savage, who seems to be doing his best Jon Voight impersonation. Poor Mulder is nauseous because didn’t take his Dramamine and he certainly doesn’t have Scully’s sea legs. Henry, who says his radar is screwed up, literally runs right into the USS Ardent. It’s a ghost ship – even though commissioned in 1991, it looks like it’s been abandoned for decades. Now I know why the movie Ghost Ship always felt familiar. It looks like they stole whole scenes from this episode. 

Sculder find the crew members in mummified condition. The agents, Henry and his crewmate get stranded on the Ardent when someone takes off with Trondheim’s boat. Looks like it’s time to make the best of a bad situation. Fox lays his theory on Henry, who is in full skeptic mode. Luckily, Sculder find an aged Captain Barclay hiding in a closet with a bottle of whiskey, so that bolsters Mulder’s story. Barclay doubts Sculder can help him and I’m beginning to doubt it too. Then someone kills Trondheim’s crewman and a pirate whaler named Olafsson is found on the ship. He hasn’t aged at all, so that makes him a pretty good suspect. 

Fox and Henry bring him to Dana. Henry’s line, “He’d have killed me too, if it wasn’t for Mulder” is delivered exactly like a Scooby Doo villain after the gang solves a case: “And I’d have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids.” Too bad Barclay dies while they were futzing around with Olafsson. 

Everyone but Fox tries to get some rest. When he wakes up Dana, both of them have aged. Smart Scully points out that even though their skin has wrinkled, their hair hasn’t turned gray or fallen out. Olafsson is still young and pretty, though. Dana explains the science behind “free radicals” and how that's triggered a reaction in them. Sculder then take a break from exposition to try and figure out why the ship is bleeding. OK, it’s not actually blood, just rust. 

Trondheim watches a tied-up Olafsson, who makes his case for being let go. Fox finds out there’s uncontaminated water available through the ship’s sewage system. Henry learned the same thing from Olafsson, then killed him and started drinking the toilet water. Trondheim claims Olafsson escaped, but we – and Mulder – know better. Dana performs blood tests and learns Fox is doing the worst of them. Scully describes their condition as “Heavy Salt” – pretty much what I do when I order fries or popcorn, but on an even higher level – because this is causing damage on a cellular level. Henry wants Fox’s water rations and pleads his case to Dana. Good luck with that, you one-episode wonder. 

Scully ends up holding Trondheim at gunpoint as he selfishly blocks off the clean water for himself. Down, but not out, Dana tears apart the ship looking for liquids that are safe for her partner to drink. Not tasty, mind you, but safe. Scully concocts a nasty beverage consisting of sardine juice, lemon juice and snow globe water. Snips and snails and puppy dog tails would probably taste better. Mulder uses science to convince her to drink the jar of sardine lemon water. Are they absolutely sure there isn’t any whiskey left?? It becomes a moot point anyway; the ship gets jarred and the jar gets broken. The destroyer escort starts flooding and Henry is the first to go, since he inadvertently trapped himself with the rising waters. That’s called karma, fyr (which is Norwegian for dude). Sculder are the remaining two little Indians. 

Hours later -- I guess it’s sinking slower now -- Dana tells Fox they have nothing to fear in the afterlife and Mulder goes to sleep. Then they die and The X-Files ends its two-season run. OK, it doesn’t go exactly that way. Just when it looks like the end for our intrepid, yet under contract heroes, they are uneventfully rescued. Dr. Laskos, the mean lady who kicked Scully out of Lt. Harper’s room, is now treating Dana and Fox. The doc is able to nurse them back to health since Scully wrote such detailed notes about their condition while on the Ardent. I should’ve kept a tally of how many times Mulder and Scully save each other’s lives. Hopefully, Mulder remembers to take his Dramamine before the Season Six episode "Triangle!"

Sestra Professional:

Aaaaaaaagh! Not much on television scarier than that aging makeup. Evil, that is.

Not that there was any way Mulder and Scully were going to perish -- and particularly not in a non-mythology episode! The premise of this one is simple, benefiting from the claustrophobic nature of the ship, and the dialogue rather unsubstantive (although John Savage was having trouble with it, more on this later.) But what distinguishes "Død Kalm" as a classic is Scully's resolve. Her determination proves to be far heavier than any salt compound. She's a hero about four times over, while Mulder's best contribution might be any excess liquid he throws up.

That's understating Fox's case a little, after all, he did get that Philadelphia Experiment thing pinpointed. And he accomplishes that task despite Dana failing to do her part early on -- there's a sarcastic eye roll insinuated here -- by examining the patient initially brought in. All she was able to determine was that a 28-year-old looked 90. Guess code clearance just ain't what it used to be.

The two of you are full of theories: Maybe Trondheim shouldn't have left his boat running, then he wouldn't have to listen to Sculder trying to piece together the circumstances that led to their untimely aging aboard the Argent. Scully breaks a hand off a corroded dead body -- a priceless throwaway moment courtesy of director Rob Bowman -- then supposes that the area's electromagnetic field is oxidizing everything in its path before figuring out the impossibly high concentrations of salt are to blame.

So Fox is getting worse because he's dehydrated from his seasickness -- another nice touch to this episode by the writing team of Howard Gordon and Alex Ganza. "I think I just lapped George Burns," Mulder quips. Even in the darkest hour, even in the oldest of ages, his humor will not be salted away.

It's not Evian, but...: I think an unheralded part of this episode starts with Scully's search for uncontaminated liquid. The snow globe and sardine juice certainly make for a yummy cocktail, and Scully and Mulder hit all the expected notes trying to convince each other to drink it. But the best moment of all -- and this actually happens off camera instead of in our faces in slow motion and heightened music like in all the "best" action movies -- is the destruction of the jar. What a perfect little moment. Bravo to Bowman again.

Time for more great meta from the Season 2 gag reel as Gillian Anderson plays off the line "But there's one thing I'm certain of, as certain as I am of this life," forsaking the scripted "We have nothing to fear when it's over" with the improvisational "Howard Gordon is a dead man." If you're wondering why Gordon was singled out for such recognition, he wrote the story for this alone before working with partner Ganza on the teleplay. In the official X-Files Guide, Gordon admitted writing a script that forced the already exhausted leads to come in three to four hours early for makeup was "about the worst thing I could have done to them."

How good are you? Speaking of that famed blooper video, there are tons of Trondheim gaffes on it. Guess the heftier dialogue bits from Gordon and Ganza got stuck in Savage's mouth. Maybe the cold temperatures or claustrophobic nature of the set affected him adversely.

Guest star of the week: Savage is too hammy and stilted for my taste, so I'll give the nod to David Cubitt (Captain Barclay), best known as Detective Lee Scanlon on Medium. He's miles away from that role in this portrayal, not even counting the layers and layers of makeup required to turn a 35-year-old ship captain into a Social Security recipient not long for this world.

Coming up: The X-Files reaches another milestone with the first script by a writer who changes the face of the series -- Darin Morgan. He'll only be credited on four episodes over the original run, but the show will never be the same.