54. 2 SHY
WRITER: JEFFREY VLAMING
DIR.: NUTTER
Translator of Renaissance Italian poetry Virgil Incanto (!) is a chat-room chubby chaser whose genetic mutation requires him to literally suck the fat out of his victims. If that's not scary enough, this plot is set in Cleveland. Critique: Incanto (Timothy Carhart) is yet another fine example of an unassuming villain (à la Eugene Tooms and Donnie Pfaster) with strange physiological predilections. Lots of yucks (and we don't mean laughs). B-

55. THE WALK
WRITER: JOHN SHIBAN
DIR.: BOWMAN
Through astral projection, Leonard Trimble, a bitter, quadruple amputee Gulf War vet, is making life hell for his former superiors: After killing all their loved ones, he forces the officers to live alone with their presumed guilt. Critique: If you're going to repeat mind-over-matter murder again, at least come up with a couple of transcendent characters. C

56. OUBLIETTE
WRITER: CHARLES GRANT CRAIG
DIR.: MANNERS
Kidnap survivor Lucy Householder simultaneously manifests the experiences of her abductor's latest victim. Mulder uses her condition as a road map to solving the crime and in the process is once again reminded of his sister's disappearance. Critique: Scully's in aggressive I'm-not-buying-it mode, and what should be a roller coaster of terror isn't, but worth it for Lucy's channeling sequences. B-

57. NISEI
WRITERS: CARTER/GORDON/SPOTNITZ
DIR.: NUTTER
A suspiciously realistic alien autopsy tape puts Mulder on the trail of a salvaged alien craft, a clandestine group of Japanese doctors who appear to be experimenting on alien life-forms, and a secret railroad on which these postmortems are taking place. X advises Scully to dissuade Mulder from pursuing the train. But does he listen? Historic moments: Lots of excitement for Scully. She's ''recognized'' by a kaffeeklatsch of abduction survivors; she finally seeks the meaning of her extracted implant-cum-computer chip, with help from Agent Pendrell (Brendan Beiser), a semi-regular Scully luster; and she identifies one of the doctors on Mulder's tape in a flashback of her abduction, opening up the possibility that it wasn't aliens who took her. Critique: Mulder and Scully on separate — but equally gripping — ground. A

58. 731
WRITER: SPOTNITZ
DIR.: BOWMAN
Continuing where ''Nisei'' left off, Mulder discovers that a secret railway car contains not an extraterrestrial, but an alien-human hybrid. Moreover, the car has been rigged with a bomb, and he's trapped with an assassin sent to kill the cargo. Meanwhile, Scully has stumbled upon a modern-day Holocaust at a West Virginia research facility, where massive graves are filled with what appear to be the same kind of hybrid Mulder has discovered. Critique: Strangely tension-free, and another one of those episodes where Scully's bullheaded allegiance to provable fact makes you want to slap her. B

1 2 3 4 5