After a string of watchable, if not exceptional, monster of the week episodes, season six dropped a turd. An episode so reminiscent of a few of the lackluster episodes from season one that I’m not even sure it’s worth mentioning. Yet, as the series plowed on to season seven, this episode serves as a reminder that as great as the series was during those first six seasons, it wasn’t perfect.
Alpha was based on a single sentence written on a note card – “Scary dogs in the city.” I’m all for scary dogs regardless if the setting is urban or not, especially if it leans into werewolf tropes. Sadly, this episode does not. It starts on a Chinese freighter where several people have been killed. The culprit was an Asian dog, a Wanshang Dhole, thought to be extinct. Mulder receives a tip from Karin Berquist who is an expert in canine behavior which sends Mulder and Scully on the hunt for this elusive animal.
The animal’s handler and cryptozoologist, Dr. Ian Detweiler, explains that the animal is and later visit’s a veterinarian to get tranquilizers in an effort to capture the dhole. However, the dhole is already there. The vet calls the dog catchers who shoot the animal that then appears to be a Saint Bernard. The vet operates to save the animal when Scully arrives and discovers the vet has been attacked. The Saint Bernard turns back into a dhole. The reveal that it can turn into other forms should have been far cooler than it was.
While Mulder believes that Dr. Detweiler is actually the dhole and that the tranquilizers were for himself so he didn’t kill anyone else, Scully begins questioning Karin Berquist’s motives since she was the one who gave Mulder the tip. Berquist later admits that she suspected Dr. Detweiler when she first saw him and tells them that he will try to finish off the last person he tried to kill.
Berquist is a dog lover, owning several of her own. Her enigmatic personality is why Scully remains skeptical. The woman is interesting enough that I wish the episode was about her connection with the animals so the ending of this episode is the most interesting thing about it. Dr. Detweiler goes to Berquist’s house and she is about the tranquilize him when she sets the weapon aside and challenges the dhole in front of her. Their confrontation ends with them falling out of a second story window with their bodies later discovered by Mulder and Scully.
When Mulder first met Berquist in this episode, she had a “I Want to Believe” poster in her home. At the end of the episode, Mulder receives a package containing the poster to replace the one he lost in the fire at the end of season five. This small gesture shows Mulder putting a piece of his work back together, a way for him to move forward. Honestly, why wasn’t he episode about this woman? She is way more interesting than Dr. Detweiler.
This episode wants to say some things about how you can’t own a wild animal and that its survival is not contingent on that ownership. It somehow segued into “scary dogs in the city” in the writer’s room and I think that is where the episode runs afoul. The cryptozoologist is not at all interesting and his motivations at keeping his secret hidden are never realizes. Is he controlling the dhole or is it controlling him? Is there a back and forth like a werewolf, the change only brought on by certain situations like a full moon? None of these questions are even asked, let alone answered.
What this episode does do is that it reminds me of the 1997 film The Relic where a museum employee/scientist receives a package from a colleague that ends up containing a dangerous animal who was once her colleague. It’s too late when she finds out that the animal shares DNA with her colleague and the animal is unleashed within the museum during an exhibition opening. Unlike today’s episode of the show, this film is actually watchable with a decent cast and cool creature effects. It also reunites Penelope Ann Miller with Linda Hunt who had starred previously in the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Kindergarten Cop.
Until next week, the truth is out there. And so is another turd coming your way next week.
Discover more from Becky Tyler Art and Photography
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
After a string of watchable, if not exceptional, monster of the week episodes, season six dropped a turd. An episode so reminiscent of a few of the lackluster episodes from season one that I’m not even sure it’s worth mentioning. Yet, as the series plowed on to season seven, this episode serves as a reminder that as great as the series was during those first six seasons, it wasn’t perfect.
Alpha was based on a single sentence written on a note card – “Scary dogs in the city.” I’m all for scary dogs regardless if the setting is urban or not, especially if it leans into werewolf tropes. Sadly, this episode does not. It starts on a Chinese freighter where several people have been killed. The culprit was an Asian dog, a Wanshang Dhole, thought to be extinct. Mulder receives a tip from Karin Berquist who is an expert in canine behavior which sends Mulder and Scully on the hunt for this elusive animal.
The animal’s handler and cryptozoologist, Dr. Ian Detweiler, explains that the animal is and later visit’s a veterinarian to get tranquilizers in an effort to capture the dhole. However, the dhole is already there. The vet calls the dog catchers who shoot the animal that then appears to be a Saint Bernard. The vet operates to save the animal when Scully arrives and discovers the vet has been attacked. The Saint Bernard turns back into a dhole. The reveal that it can turn into other forms should have been far cooler than it was.
While Mulder believes that Dr. Detweiler is actually the dhole and that the tranquilizers were for himself so he didn’t kill anyone else, Scully begins questioning Karin Berquist’s motives since she was the one who gave Mulder the tip. Berquist later admits that she suspected Dr. Detweiler when she first saw him and tells them that he will try to finish off the last person he tried to kill.
Berquist is a dog lover, owning several of her own. Her enigmatic personality is why Scully remains skeptical. The woman is interesting enough that I wish the episode was about her connection with the animals so the ending of this episode is the most interesting thing about it. Dr. Detweiler goes to Berquist’s house and she is about the tranquilize him when she sets the weapon aside and challenges the dhole in front of her. Their confrontation ends with them falling out of a second story window with their bodies later discovered by Mulder and Scully.
When Mulder first met Berquist in this episode, she had a “I Want to Believe” poster in her home. At the end of the episode, Mulder receives a package containing the poster to replace the one he lost in the fire at the end of season five. This small gesture shows Mulder putting a piece of his work back together, a way for him to move forward. Honestly, why wasn’t he episode about this woman? She is way more interesting than Dr. Detweiler.
This episode wants to say some things about how you can’t own a wild animal and that its survival is not contingent on that ownership. It somehow segued into “scary dogs in the city” in the writer’s room and I think that is where the episode runs afoul. The cryptozoologist is not at all interesting and his motivations at keeping his secret hidden are never realizes. Is he controlling the dhole or is it controlling him? Is there a back and forth like a werewolf, the change only brought on by certain situations like a full moon? None of these questions are even asked, let alone answered.
What this episode does do is that it reminds me of the 1997 film The Relic where a museum employee/scientist receives a package from a colleague that ends up containing a dangerous animal who was once her colleague. It’s too late when she finds out that the animal shares DNA with her colleague and the animal is unleashed within the museum during an exhibition opening. Unlike today’s episode of the show, this film is actually watchable with a decent cast and cool creature effects. It also reunites Penelope Ann Miller with Linda Hunt who had starred previously in the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Kindergarten Cop.
Until next week, the truth is out there. And so is another turd coming your way next week.
Discover more from Becky Tyler Art and Photography
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
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