In a thousand years, when the bizarre cyber-humans look back at these times, they will sneer smugly at the pathetic ignorance of the last millenia, just like every generation of humans before them has, but not without pausing to observe: "But Darin Morgan sure was great, though."
Many years ago I wrote an appreciation of Darin Morgan's work on the original X files and it's short lived spin-off, Millenium, which has, remarkably, totally vanished from the Internet. I didn't think you could make something completely disappear from the internet if you tried, but I can't even find it in the Wayback Machine. I originally published it on blogcritics.com. (The happy, friendly old site, not the new slick one, from which it has been summarily removed along with apparently, virtually all articles from that time. Or at least all my articles. Somebody should open an X-file.)
The good news in that I get to write it again for you now, in honor of another brilliant effort from Morgan on the latest X-files, "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat". Before we get to the resurrected X-files, let's review what he wrote for for the original series and Millenium.
Humbug -- Set in an encampment of carnival freaks, Mulder and Scully investigate the Fiji Mermaid which turns out to be a parasitic twin. Extended ruminations on the nature and desirability of normalcy and abnormalcy. Also self-impalement and cannibalism, all in good humor.
Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose -- an Emmy winner. Clyde Bruckman can see your death when he touches you. So naturally, he's a life insurance salesman. The topic here is free will versus determinism. Also autoerotic asphyxiation is no way to die.
War of the Coprophages -- A lighter theme of how we react to perceptions rather than reality. Robot cockroaches cause mass hysteria, an entomologist named Bambi and a Stephen Hawking doppelganger mix it up with Mulder and Scully.
Jose Chung's From Outer Space -- Quite possibly the finest teleplay ever written. Seemingly about the way reality can be shaped by second-hand description, the episode is exceedingly technically adept. There are moments where you are three flashbacks deep, yet you never lose your place. The step-by-step plot of is almost too complicated to describe. Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek are Men in Black. Charles Nelson Reilly is Jose Chung. You will fear Lord Kinbote. Just an tremendous accomplishment all the way around.
Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense -- Jose Chung returns, this time to Millenium and in a battle with a Cult of Selfosophy (probably meant to parody Scientology) and its founder, failed writer Juggernaut Onan Goopta. Fun is made of all the trouble that comes from worrying about being "too dark," a criticism leveled at the series itself.
Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me -- Another from MIllenium. Four demons share coffee and recount their adventures that brought them into contact with Frank Black. The dark comedy of the stories only serves to reveal the pathos of the demons.
Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster -- From the first season of the reborn X-Files, this seems like a standard issue b-movie horror film from the 50s, but a twist at the end makes you wonder who the monster is. Also, Mulder is confounded by his iPhone. (Probably Darin's weakest work, but still head and shoulders above the rest of that abysmal season.)
The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat -- Which brings us to the latest and a brilliant return to form. A strange man appears and tries to convince Mulder and Scully that all their memories are fake, that he was their partner in the X-files over all those years and that there is one man out their, Dr. They, altering everybody's reality with impunity. This is Morgan's take on the "post-truth" world (and he does take a cheap shot or two at Trump, specifically). Whatever the reality, at least we know it's not parallel universes -- that's just crazy. This episode should have been the series finale, since it appears there will be no more episodes after this season.
In all of these scripts, Morgan uses self-referential parody to break the show's tone, opening up his own canvas. His characters then spin in a blender of existential moral and philosophical conundrums, which remain unsolved and broken, leaving them with only their humanity to hold on to. At the end of Jose Chung's From Outer Space, all the supernatural and conspiratorial machinations are for naught and we are left with the bewildered adolescent who started it all, sadly declaring his unrequited love. In Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me, when the demons are done cackling and bragging about all the chaos, sorrow, and pain they've sown, Frank Black looks at them and hits home with, "You must be so lonely." In The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat, once all the surreal upending of the truth has passed, Scully yearns to hold on to it saying, "I want to remember all of it. Exactly as it was." This is where Morgan suprasses the crowd. In the end, it all comes back to simple heartfelt emotions, often elegiac. In the face of the mad and the madcap, when all is said and done, what remains is humanity.
My words do not do justice to the supreme irony, humor, and structural elegance of these stories. You should binge them. You're welcome.
