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The X-Files: “Our Town”

To Serve Man by Sarah Stegall Copyright ©1995 by Sarah Stegall Written by Frank Spotnitz Directed by Rob Bowman I am beginning to wonder if there is, indeed, a conspiracy behind “The X-Files” after all: this is part of a campaign by Chris Carter and his crew to make vegetarians of us all. From “Red Museum“, with its tainted beef, to “Our Town” with its suspect chicken runs a direct line, a connection that gnaws at our cultural taboos about adulteration of food and the eating of forbidden fruit. Or in this case, forbidden meat. Mulder and Scully are assigned…

The X-Files: “Humbug”

Fool’s Gold by Sarah Stegall Copyright ©1995 by Sarah Stegall Written by Darin Morgan Directed by Kim Manners The fool functions in literature and art as a funhouse mirror, in whose distorted reflection we see our own foibles exaggerated for emphasis. Almost always, what we find intriguing in the sideshow freak, the fool, the outcast, is the departure from our norms, the expression of the forbidden. For a society hell-bent in pursuit of physical perfection, it is only natural that the physically deformed should hold a special fascination. Their very existence seems to violate propriety in a culture where plastic…