X-Files S4E19: Giving more than the cold shoulder

Sestra Amateur: 

IMDb was certainly to be avoided when it comes to a major plot point in "Synchrony." Yes, it’s been 21 years since it aired, but some people are still watching the series for the first time. If you’re dying for some spoilers, then here you go: Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father and Bruce Willis’ character in The Sixth Sense has been dead the whole time.

Anyway, welcome to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the local time is 11:40 p.m. Jason Nichols and Lucas Menand are walking and arguing, which is rarely a good thing. An old man interrupts to convince Lucas he (Lucas, not the old man) is about to get hit by a bus. Jason is rattled, probably because the old guy knows his name. Security arrives and hauls the senior citizen away. Menand, who is already pissed off, doesn’t buy it. Six minutes later, he gets hit by the bus and dies, just like the old guy predicted. Unfortunately for Nichols, who actually tried to save Lucas, the bus driver thinks he pushed Menand in front of the bus. No good deed goes unpunished.

Mulder takes the case because he just loves Jason’s alibi. Nichols, who was Lucas’ advisor at MIT, tells the police about the old man’s warning. Scully is surprised to learn the security guard is dead and in an “advanced hypothermic state.” Yep, he was frozen solid …inside his patrol car. I know Massachusetts gets cold in the winter, but this is ridiculous. And in true X-Files fashion, his temperature keeps dropping. Scully gloms onto the scientific perspective -- she takes the liquid nitrogen path. At the local jail, Fox and Jason discuss Nichols'  concern that Menand was going to accuse Jason of falsifying his cryobiology test results which would then damage Jason’s reputation and affect his grant. Maybe they can blame the security guard’s death on Nichols after all. To top it off, Dana finds Jason’s prints in the security guard’s car.

At a nearby hotel, the old man meets with a scientist named Dr. Yonechi, claiming he was sent on Nichols' behalf to meet with the doctor. They discuss Yonechi’s accomplishments which apparently haven’t happened yet. The old man is showing signs of sickness, but gets the jump on the doctor -- stabbing him with an instrument that instantly freezes Yonechi. 

At the hotel crime scene, Scully is convinced Jason has an accomplice who killed Yonechi. They talk to Jason’s girlfriend, Lisa Ianelli, another scientist, and show her evidence Dana recovered in the hotel room. Lisa identifies it as a rapid freezing agent. Sculder tell her about the doctor’s death, but she's not convinced that Yonechi is a goner. They bring him to the lab, thaw him out, raise his body temperature (from eight degrees!) and shock the crap out of him. He regains consciousness, but reverses course and burns up, literally. He's certainly dead now.

Ianelli leaves the lab to see Nichols in jail. Luckily (?) the old man is on the same bus. He follows her home and tells Lisa he came there to kill her. She asks who he is and, clearly rattled, the old man leaves without committing another murder. Ianelli reveals to Sculder she was the one who falsified Jason’s data for the grant.

Sculder learn the old man may be at a nearby motel, but his room is empty. Scully finds flight information while Mulder locates a photograph of Jason, Lisa and Yonechi. Instead of assuming they all know each other, Fox jumps to the theory that it’s proof of a futuristic event from at least five years in the future. If only there was a nice, easy tell-tale sign in the pic, like a "Happy New Year 2002" hat to make it plausible. Of course it’s true -- after all, the old man is Jason. (I certainly hope you were able to pick up on that by now!) 

As part of his defense, Mulder quotes Dana's open-minded graduate thesis back to her. Scully admits the possibility, but is convinced humans couldn't endure the process. And she has a point there, old Jason is really not doing well. Ianelli, who realized Jason is the old man, shows up at his hotel room. (Why would the agents cancel surveillance on the old man’s hotel room? They could have resolved this whole thing by now! Any deaths after this are their fault!) 

AARP Discount Jason reveals he’s 40 years ahead of her. Ten years from now, Lisa will meet a man in Zurich who discovers tachyons, leading to her time-travel discovery. Lisa embraces him, but before it gets too weird, Early-Bird Special Jason freezes her to death. Maybe they’ll try to thaw her out too.

Mulder bails Nichols out of jail and takes him to Ianelli. Jason is in full denial mode after hearing the news that the old guy is him. He assumes the photograph is fake, but Fox says it's been analyzed and it’s real. Jason realizes Lisa’s predicament is on him. Nichols and Mulder arrive at the facility, but “Dr. Jason Nichols” has already checked in. The medical staff is trying to revive Ianelli, but her temperature continues to rise, so they put her back into the tub to try and cool her down. It works, Lisa doesn’t spontaneously combust like poor Dr. Yonechi. Mulder learns someone erased Jason’s files from the mainframe. 

Meanwhile, Jason encounters the retirement community version of himself. Hey, casting director, the closeups don’t help with the credibility -- they don’t have the same color eyes or the same style nose or ears. They struggle, but Fox interrupts them. Mulder tells Jason that Lisa is alive and this distracts Nichols enough for the old man to embrace Jason and burn both of them to death. Unfortunately, only young Jason’s body remains, which makes sense. If young Jason is dead than old Jason can’t go back in time to kill him in the first place. (Do you have a headache too?) But you’d think the lab would have had some video surveillance evidence. At least Lisa is OK. Guess she won’t have to falsify her own data for the next grant. Hope it was worth it. Maybe they can freeze Scully until they find a cure for her tumor. 

Sestra Professional:

This is my lost episode of The X-Files. Which is to say that it's always the one I forget about, as opposed to the one that reminds me of fellow cult series Lost. Actually it's not just that it escapes me, but that it feels more akin to something out of Millennium. Darin Morgan might deem that the Mandela ... or Mengele Effect. But not until the 11th season of The X-Files. 

This particular episode -- even though it boasts deft writing from series stalwart Howard Gordon and David Greenwalt (a name Buffy and Angel fans will surely recognize) -- doesn't particularly stand out as a Mulder or a Scully episode. Sure they make their usual suppositions along their usual lines, but not in any particularly memorable way.

Although, let me couch that by being impressed that Fox really does seem to have Dana's thesis down pat, or at least the Cliff Notes version on the subject. He references it several times in this episode. I'm kinda wondering if that's what Mulder has perched on the back of his toilet. "Although multidimensionality suggests infinite outcomes in an infinite number of universes, each universe can produce only one outcome" is quite a mouthful ... and one that might often be heard on The X-Files' sister show. 

Speaking of interchangeable dialogue, Scully's retort "And if your sister is your aunt and your mother marries your uncle, you'd be your own grandpa" is a nice little turn of phrase, but seems kind of out of place in this episode. Maybe it would be more at home in say ... Seattle, spoken by either of Frank Black's police compatriots -- Bletch or Gielbelhouse?

There's been some incongruous evidence I've had difficulty explaining myself: On the other hand, I'm totally impressed by The X-Files' art and special effects department -- particularly as it pertained to the frozen subjects. They eventually were honored for their work on this season's "Memento Mori" (Episode 14) and "Leonard Betts" (Episode 12) respectively, but the detailed work on the human Bomb-Pops provided further evidence that they were delivering movie-quality on a weekly basis.

Puts a whole new spin on being your own worst enemy: I lay the blame of the lack of matching Jason looks as much on director James Charleston as casting director Rick Millikan. It's pretty evident when Charleston -- hey, he did film two episodes of Millennium in addition to his four X-Files -- directs the camera up the nostrils of young Jason that they're not the nostrils of the old man ... no matter how much he may have snorted up there while awaiting his chance to jump into the wormhole back to the past. 

And speaking of casting, Susan Lee Hoffman (Lisa Iannelli) looks like someone who didn't get the part of the adult Samantha Mulder. Or ... she kinda looks like Frank Black's wife Catherine too. I just can't shake that Millennium-istic feeling. Must be why the confusion continued right up to and including this rewatch. 

But back to Lisa. Her look at the sketch of Old Man River and the non-verbal way in which she put the pieces together, figuratively, not so much literally, was one of the episode's nicer touches. I was kinda glad to see her go and not so thrilled when she didn't burn up on re-entry, though. She didn't quite have the staying power of the Megans -- Leitch (Samantha) or Gallagher (Catherine).

Never is a very long time: One last tie to the sister show, the way this episode wraps up with the premise that the future can't be altered even though both Jasons are toast. The attempts to stop the research will fail and eventually the compound and basis for time travel will be discovered. That's the kind of downbeat note that's a trademark of a Millennium episode. I won't bring it up any more, unless -- of course -- I travel back in time to write this blog all over again.

Back to the meta: In the official fourth-season episode guide, Gordon laughed about a piece of advice he had for all would-be screenwriters -- avoid writing about time travel and disgruntled Vietnam veterans at all costs. On "Synchrony" and "Unrequited" (S4E16) -- two of his final three scripts for the show,  he covered both. ... The bursting into flame of Dr. Yonechi -- actually the show's stunt coordinator Tony Morelli -- was a practical effect done in 12 seconds from the start of the fire to the extinguishing of the blaze, according to the guide. ... The "other" Dr. Yonechi, played by Hiro Kanagawa, met an untimely end as a scientist in "Firewalker" (S2E9) as well.

Guest star of the week: Michael Fairman does a fine job as the conflicted elder version of Jason. He imbues him with equal parts anguish and determination. The character actor is a veteran of television of movies, but I know him best from an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati he co-wrote and stars in with Richard Sanders (Les Nessman). Nope, he never did a Millennium guest spot.