“Shadows” was written, much to the creators’ chagrin, at the behest of FOX. The network wanted Mulder and Scully to be more heroic in helping people resolve issues. The writers did a fairly good job of combining an actual crime the FBI would investigate with paranormal activity the show would normally feature, but it is a run of the mill affair compared to later efforts.A secretary for a defense contractor named Lauren Kyle is attacked at an ATM by two assailants. The two are killed by an invisible force which crushes their throats from the inside. Mulder and Scully are called in because the bodies have a high electrical charge which has kept the corpses warm for hours after death. The agents in charge only want to know if Mulder has ever seen anything like this before in an X-File. It is not a very plausible means of getting Mulder and Scully interested in the case, but there you go.
Mulder lies and says he has never seen anything like it. In fact, he thinks the murderer was a ghost and swiped a fingerprint from one of the corpses on his glasses so he can continue his own investigation. A few twists lead them to Lauren, who is not interested in talking to them. Her boss, Howard Graves (Graves. Get it? Grave. Dead. Ghost. The writers really resented drafting this one.) recently committed suicide. She is upset enough over it to quit her job, but odd things have been happening around her lately.
Those odd things are Graves’ ghost protecting Lauren. It killed those two assailants, helps convince Lauren he was actually murdered, and finally helps expose evidence that his partner had sold technology to foreign terrorists and had him murdered when he discovered the crime. The technology sale is what the agents who called Mulder in were investigating.
The story is a little thin. There is a wild goose chase for the second act in which Scully convinces Mulder Graves faked his death, but a DNA screening on donated organs proves he is deader than a doornail. The entire act makes logical sense, but is not very interesting outside of Scully taking on the role of forcing Mulder to be a real FBI agent for a while instead of pursuing his own obsessive interests.
I had a bitter laugh at how the terrorist plot was formulated in the ‘hysteria’ of the original World Trade Center bombing in 1993. It seems almost quaint now when considering the subsequent terrorist threat we have been facing since 2001. Simpler times, simpler times. A simple episode, too. Not bad, but nothing special. Mulder and Scully get dragged into the real world of the FBI for a few days.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
