Reluctant Oracle by Sarah Stegall copyright 1995 by Sarah Stegall Writer: Darin Morgan* Director: David Nutter *Winner: 1996 Prime-Time Emmy ®, Best Writing in a Dramatic Series “How can I see the future if it didn’t already exist?” — Clyde Bruckman How, indeed. The whole concept of fortune-telling is grounded in the assumption of a mechanistic, Newtonian universe, a theory still bearing the forge marks of the medieval determinism that invented it. The basic premise is borrowed from St. Augustine’s famous analogy of time as a winding road, so bent and so contorted that only God, from his lofty perspective,…

The Man in the Iron Mask by Sarah Stegall copyright 1996 by Sarah Stegall Writer: Howard Gordon Story: Howard Gordon and David Duchovny Director: James Charleston It’s been a rough year for Walter Skinner. We began the season with an armed confrontation between the X-Files agents and their boss. He got shot in the gut for pursuing the investigation into the death of Melissa Scully. Now he gets framed like a Picasso by the same guys, for the murder of a prostitute. No wonder the man rarely smiles. Friday’s X-File, “Avatar”, takes us behind the mask that Assistant Director Walter…