One of the dangers of reviewing a science fiction show that is nearly eighteen years old is how badly it can age in that time. “Space” is a key example. Looking at the photo above of the guest character, Col. Marcus Belt of NASA, do you notice the alien image that is ghosting over his face looks like the famous alleged face on mars photo? It is supposed to. Within recent years, we have now seen photos of the "face” which which show it is a rock formation that bears no resemblance to a face in the slightest. So much for the mystery behind this episode, no?Even aside from that, “Space” is not all that great. The plot is that an alien has possessed a famous astronaut since a spacewalk in 1972. The alien has been using him to sabotage the space program ever since. Luckily for them, Col. Belt has become head of the shuttle program. The episode implies that Col. Belt has sabotaged everything from the Challenger to the Hubble in order to end the space program and keep the aliens’ existence a secret.
Mulder is approached by one of the scientists running the next shuttle mission because her fiance is the commander. She fears for his life because even though the shuttle has shown obvious safety problems in recent days, col. Belt insists on launching anyway. He is, of course, expecting a disaster.
There are quite a few problems with "Space.” A big one is why aliens allegedly from Mars care whether NASA performs routine experiments in orbi9t. In is not like the shuttle missions are deep space probes. Part of the X-Files' mythology is the highest levels of government know aliens exist anyway. How does the scientist know who Mulder is or why he would be the one to talk to? Are you aware of individual FBI agents and their fields of specialty? They do not advertise those things, even inside different federal agencies. The biggest one for me is why destroying this shuttle launch will end the space program when the Challenger, which Col. Belt was also responsible for, did not? None of this makes sense.
You want to know the corniest bit/ Mulder is responsible for saving the astronauts. No kidding. Yes, you can skip this one without missing a thing. Why Chris Carter himself wrote it is beyond me other than the notion he had not quite planned out the mythology at this early date.
Rating: ** (out of 5)
