I am a fan of the different. The strange, the unusual, the experimental. This sentiment is not always shared. And to the longtime fans of a television series in particular, a general sentiment is that everything is written in stone. To deviate is to blaspheme. And it seems, unfortunately, that is the case with this episode.
Mulder and Scully chase a monster across Los Angeles, to which the witnesses of said monster can not all agree on what exactly the monster is. The twist? It's all being recorded--by the cameramen of COPS.
I thought it was good, funny and strangely charming if a little open ended. But knowing how fans react to the different, strange, unusual and experimental (ironically the very things the X-Files were in the beginning and what attracted many fans, including myself, to the show), I was not surprised to find the episode had been panned. How irrelevant, they howled. Irrelevant to what, one wonders? The tired, seemingly endless plot line about a grandiose alien conspiracy? Is that what we should be saying about the interesting episodes about the Fluke-Man or the ancient killer insects in logs? Surely, there were no Hybrid Alien Government Green-Bloods in those!
Maybe it was just the combination of my two favorite shows. Maybe it was the completely blind-siding concept. Maybe I just love a show that can poke fun at it's self and dare to mix things up. Or maybe it was that itch for the strange and unusual. But regardless, I loved it. And if you keep an open mind, like our intrepid duo, you may very well do so yourself.