“Dreamland” (season 6, episode 4; originally aired 11/29/1998)
In which Mulder has a freaky Friday
I can’t remember when I realized I wasn’t going to have a normal life. There had to have been some point, I’m sure, a moment in time when before which, I was certain I’d get a teaching degree, fall in love, get married, churn out a couple of kids, house in a nice neighborhood, barbecues, newspaper subscription, all of that; and then after that, when I understood that while some of these things were still possible, they were going to take more work than I’d ever imagined. I assume it was a process so gradual that I only recognized it in retrospect. Eventually, everyone has to come to terms with the ways the life they have differs from the life they grew up wanting, but the funny thing is, I still don’t think I’m a statistical anomaly. Unless I make an effort, I automatically assume the path I’m on is the common one. You get used to your life because it’s the only one you have, and it’s only when we encounter others that we’re forced to re-evaluate our own choices. That’s one of the reasons I love art: it’s a chance, however imperfect, to put myself in someone else’s shoes, get used to the feel, and then look back at what I left behind.
Which is sort of what happens here, although with a lot more goofiness, and without much soul searching. (At least in part one.) “Dreamland” is the first overtly comedic episode of The X-Files’ sixth season, and it won’t be the last. The cold open hints at the tone, with a set-up that’s so familiar it’s practically self-parody: Mulder and Scully are driving out to the desert, at night, so Mulder can meet one of his informants, a man who supposedly has information about clandestine military experiments with alien technology in Area 51. All that’s missing is an off-hand reference to Samantha Mulder’s abduction and we’d have some sort of Chris Carter Bingo. (Although Carter didn’t contribute to the script.) And while the episode isn’t openly snickering, Scully’s reaction to the whole escapade makes it very obvious the writers understood how goofy this is. She raises the issue of a “normal” life which serves as the thematic crux of the episode: is Mulder missing out by giving everything to his cause? Wouldn’t he be happier if he settled down, raised some rugrats, and stopped wasting his life on an endless pursuit of little gray men?
The answer we get by the end of the first half of this two-parter is a resounding No, although it’s not exactly playing fair. Before Mulder can reach his destination, a squad of army guys stops him, and Mulder comes face to face with a mid-level bureaucrat named Morris Fletcher, played by the terrific Michael McKean. There are a lot of great jokes in “Dreamland,” but the best might be the fact that Fletcher, who to all appearances could’ve swapped places with any of the dozens and dozens of anonymous men in black who have plagued Mulder since the start of the series, has a dull, irritating little life, one which our hero will get to experience first hand. After years of being thwarted, menaced, and provoked by forces he can barely begin to grasp, Mulder gets stuck on the other side of the curtain, only to find that he can’t do much, most of his co-workers are twerps, and his wife and kids are insane. He isn’t contacting a source anymore, he is the source, forced into swapping places with Fletcher via some mysterious alien machine, and instead of finding the answers to his questions, or access to limitless secrets, he’s stuck getting yelled at by strangers for forgetting the milk, and falling asleep in the living room watching porn. (Admittedly, I’m pretty sure Mulder does that last bit in his own apartment all the damn time.)
While this is going on, Fletcher, who presumably arranged the body swap (I think; I forget the second half of this story, but his nonchalant reaction to what happened suggests he was planning for it, and Mulder certainly seems to think so), is having the time of Mulder’s life. This is just an expansion on the sort of tweaking we saw in “Small Potatoes.” Mulder is a good looking guy, so Fletcher takes advantage of this to score with Kersh’s secretary. Mulder devotes his time at work to pissing off his bosses and bucking authority at every turn; Fletcher, who seems to have given his whole life to toeing the line, turns brown-noser and finger pointer with aplomb. But unlike Eddie Van Blundht, who was kind of likable in his incredibly pathetic way, Fletcher is just a dick. Instead of making fun of the ways Mulder’s fixations blind him to what’s good in his life (handsome, young, and Scully willingly spends time with him), Fletcher is a boorish, conceited ass, serving mostly to make us appreciate all the ways Mudler isn’t just a “normal” guy. The dude slaps Scully on the butt! And he calls her “Dana” all the time. Gillian Anderson’s reaction shots throughout this are hilarious, and, while it’s somewhat implausible how long it takes her to accept what’s going on, her increasing frustration over Fletcher’s antics make the padding bearable.
Still, that padding is the episode’s biggest flaw, and it shows up in the plotting as well as in the character behavior. It’s not enough that we see the general and Fletcher’s dickhead co-worker examining a crash-site where a pilot merged with a rock and another pilot is apparently speaking a Hopi dialect. We also have to have the switch explained to us later on, as well as get a scene with Mulder and the others examining a lizard that’s merged with another rock, as well as a scene where a gas station attendant is literally floored. Like Scully’s refusal to acknowledge that “Mulder” isn’t acting right, these scenes work well enough on their own, and the hour never seriously drags, but there’s a lot of repeating concepts and inelegant story-telling. Not all of the comedy lands, either. Nora Dunn does what she can with JoAnne Fletcher, Morris’s presumably long-suffering wife, but the script goes to the shrewish harpy well a few times too often; the small attempt to humanize her near the end (she really does want to make the marriage work, which, when you think about, makes Morris even more of a jerk) turns into a Viagara joke, which isn’t so hot. As is so often the case with humor, it’s a matter of taste, but I started getting bored when Mulder and Fletcher (in reflection) did a take on Duck Soup’s mirror gag. Cute enough, but the joke in the Marx Bother’s movie was that there actually was a different guy mimicking Groucho’s movements. Here, since we know Mulder’s really just seeing his reflection, there’s no tension; it’s just Duchovny acting goofy, us catching the reference, and nothing else.
That may seem nit-picky, and to be honest, for every bit that doesn’t play in the episode, there are three that do. Joanne gets to be a little much, but her immediate assumption that her husband is cheating on her with Scully made me laugh, as did Mulder’s complete and utter inability to handle the Fletcher children. (Seriously, who defaults to “plastic surgery” when trying to think of a question about a teenager’s nose?) McKean is excellent, conveying the smug satisfaction of a clever but unimaginative man who believes he’s pulled off the perfect crime. And while the padding keeps this from being an undeniable classic, it does give the episode a charming, loopy vibe that makes sure everything goes down easy. Things don’t get serious until the very end, when Fletcher turns “himself” over to the authorities as Mulder’s contact, getting Fox (in Fletcher’s body) arrested and leaving Fletcher (in Mulder’s body) free to go about his unholy quest to be a forgettable, if well-fucked, G-Man. It’s a good cliffhanger, and raises the stakes for next week’s episode, but it doesn’t entirely shake the impression that there really isn’t enough content in “Dreamland” to justify two hours. And yet, if The X-Files wants to waste my time this delightfully, who am I to complain?
Grade: B+