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"The X Files" Alpha (1999)


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8 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Will the sun ever shine again?, 2 August 2007
6/10
Author: Edgewalker from Tuxford, England

Alpha is a strange one, on the one hand it is a pleasingly dark X File that doesn't permit a ray of light to touch it's forty minutes, on the other hand it's a head-spinning and confusing episode that makes no sense and has, seemingly, no aim whatsoever. Andrew Robinson is superb as Dr Detweiler, his performance is full of blank-face menace and panto-villain nastiness. Melinda Culea does what she can with the character of Karin Berquist, but when you're playing a people-hating recluse the scope is a little limited. Peter Markle's direction is effective, he makes full use of all the darkness and gloom and you are left wondering if the sun will ever shine again. But the script is so full of holes that you wonder if the episode will fall apart before the end. A great idea poorly executed.

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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Whatsit?, 19 October 2006
7/10
Author: (andyetris@yahoo.com) from Philadelphia, PA

A rare canid escapes while being shipped from China to LA - and leaves two crew members dead in its place. When the semi-mythological creature begins attacking officers of the Fish and Wildlife service, Mulder and Scully look to a cryptozooligist and an animal behaviorist for answers - but more than one person is keeping secrets!

This isn't one of season 6's tooth-grinding 'humor' episodes, but even as an attempt to return to the darkness of the Vancouver seasons it falls a little flat. The actions of the 'canid' don't really make much sense in terms of the range of potential 'alpha's' in the LA area - the season 5 episode "Detour" did a better job with this idea. And why invent a "Wanshang Dhole" when there are REAL crypto-zoological beasties and tricksters? I love Andrew Robinson but he's just wasted in his role, while "Karin Berquist," while an interesting character, behaves totally inexplicably at the end. How exactly is she an alpha? Not one of the best.

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5 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Not everything has to be perfect, 14 December 2006
Author: Rodolfo Anzaldua from Mexico

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Although season six from the X-Files in one of the finest of the series not everything had to be perfect. I think this episode was one: "what do we do next" and it turned out to be a very mediocre episode in a series filled with excellent writing.

I don't know if the idea of a man turning into a murderer dog was an original one or was taken from one of the Harry Potter books. Maybe with a little more time this episode might have been OK, but just OK. Beside the continuous darkness of the photography, the excellent music from Mark Snow, and the acting of Gillian and David, there is nothing good to write about this one and since my mother told me that if I had nothing good to say about someone, don't say it, that's all I'm going to write, I you are watching the DVD's in order this is an episode that you might want to skip.

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8 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Doggone Episode, 24 February 2007
4/10
Author: Muldernscully from Washington Terrace, Utah

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

After one of the best episodes of season six, "Arcadia", comes arguably the worst of this season, Alpha. First of all, we are assaulted with lame dog jokes from Mulder. If it were just one lame joke, I'd be okay with it. But he continually makes these bad jokes throughout the episode, which isn't like him. I also really don't care for the characters of Karin Berquist or Dr. Detweiler. Even if the character of Karin is supposed to act wooden like that, it really bugs me. And Dr. Detweiler is just unlikeable too. On top of that, the writers add this crush that she supposedly has on Mulder into the mix and it just makes things weirder. Scully seems to be the only one onto this infatuation of Karin's. I certainly didn't see it. I don't like it that that dog was just killing people at random without having a specific agenda. Also, there is a scene of Karin walking into the hospital, confronting Dr. Detweiler, then leaving. She came to the hospital just to talk to him and then leave? She didn't even know he was there. And finally at the end, Mulder seems to be distraught over Karin's death, when no connection was really established. At least Mulder gets his "I Want To Believe" poster back out this episode. The story had a interesting premise but I think shoddy writing and some irritating acting by the two central guest stars helped to lower my esteem of this episode. Werewolf stories are just not the X-Files strong point. And to honor Mulder's lame canine jokes in this episode, Alpha is a dog of an episode.

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here, let me save you 42 minutes: Mulder makes bad puns..., 18 September 2009
1/10
Author: DarrenDirt from Canada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

...and flirts with a Crazy Dog Lady, some dumb cops get killed or almost killed by a revealed-too-early plot twist, and Mulder gets a poster from the CDL instead of getting laid.

Oh, and Scully basically phones it in, for some reason playing the confused-irrational role while trying not to fall asleep. It would have been less embarrassing if the writer had just had her "back home with the family" and occasionally on the phone with Mulder. :sigh: To put it in perspective, within my mind I had previously rated the silly "murdered-Jewish-guy-comes-back-to-life-without-a-soul" episode ("Kaddish", S4E15) as a 1/10... but now it has to be bumped up to a 2/10 because THIS ep deserves a lower rating.

There, for the "completists" out there I just saved you the 42 minutes that I will never get back. And I'm one of the strange folks that actually ENJOYS most of the "one-off" episodes (aka "Monster Of The Week").

...musta been a non-regular writer for this ep? (ah... the mind behind the uneven "Rain King" ep, and a few Season 7 eps, that kinda explains it...)

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You get a biscuit Scully., 23 July 2009
4/10
Author: Sanpaco13 from Sandy, UT, United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Unfortunately I fell asleep while watching this episode so i had to watch it twice in a row. The story is just boring. I thought the episode was cast pretty well but I just don't see what is so scary about a wolf attacking random people. Hello Cujo. And it didn't really make sense to me that the guy could shape shift into the extinct wolf thing but he could also shape shift into, say a St. Bernard? Huh? And if he was the St. Bernard that got shot then why wasn't he shot after he killed the vet? Confusing. Oh, and why was he naked when he got killed but never the other times he transformed between dog and man? Dumb dumb dumb. 4 out of 10.

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