I Saw Elvis In A Potato Chip Once 2 - The X-Files 1.02: Deep Throat

So by this point the appropriately eerie theme music by Mark Snow and those famous titles are now in place. It's a grab bag of odd images and photographs, but the one that stands out to me is of course the glowing blue hand. 

That's a example of a Kirlian  photograph and the story behind their discovery was one of the first things that grabbed my attention in the early issues of "The Unexplained" partwork magazine (let's be honest - I will probably keep coming back to articles from it throughout this project). In 1939 Semyon Kirlian and his wife Valentina discovered that if you put photographic film on a conducting plate and attached another conductor to an object (such as a leaf, plant or hand) and charged them, an image was produced which showed the object surrounded by an aura of light. They were convinced that this was the life force which showed the physical and emotional state of the subject. Others in subsequent years used the technique to supposedly prove the existence of the Chinese "Chi" that permeates all living things.

As interest in the paranormal increased, Kirlian photography began appearing in popular culture and was used in films and on album covers - most famously that of George Harrison's "Living In The Material World". Nowadays the esoteric claims for what causes the coronal discharge have been disapproved, but it's still a beautiful and mesmerising effect.

So now having got past the titles it's time for:

Episode 1.02 - "Deep Throat"

This is essentially the start of the alien conspiracy mythology that I know becomes the spine of the show (for good or ill, I guess time will tell - remember I haven't seen anything past around episode 1.04 before). After the alien abduction storyline last week, it's time for the introduction of other elements that Joe Public has probably most familiarity with ( before the really weird stuff starts). Government cover-ups. Area 51. Roswell. Military aircraft using appropriated alien technology. Mind-wipes. Men In Black. Aliens have visited Earth and they are still here. All this plus a shadowy nameless informant. It's a UFO enthusiasts Christmas wish list. Actually some sections of this episode reminded me of another much older American TV series - "Project U.F.O" from 1979. In the UK, To distinguish it from the classic Gerry Anderson series it was renamed "Project Blue Book".

It was loosely based on the real life project of the same name and featured two U.S. Air Force investigators  travelling around the country investigating U.F.O.sightings, theoretically to see if there was a threat to national security. Unlike their real world counterparts - who never found any evidence to prove the existence of extra-terrestrial life despite seventeen years of searching and thousands of reports - the pair often found things they could not explain. As the series went on, in a kind of proto"X-Files" way, they spent much of their time trying to find alternative rational explanations, only for the last five minutes to reveal that alien spacecraft really were involved. The show lasted for twenty-six episodes.

That big money-shot of the triangular military craft hovering over Mulder's head with all it's running lights? That's the kind of thing I remember from "Project Blue Book". I'm sure it wasn't that impressive back in 1979 though.

It's a hugely enjoyable adventure, even if Mulder won't remember a large part of it. You can see the building blocks of the season to come slotting deftly into place and the quip quotient is noticeably higher than the pilot. The pair have assumed their default roles, even if Scully does come across as a little *too* inflexible. She'll mellow. For me this was an interesting jaunt down memory lane as bits and pieces of all those UFO reports I devoured back in the 1980s kept popping up like icebergs in my deep subconscious. I didn't realise how much was still there.

Other things that I noticed while watching this weeks episode:

• The episode is called "Deep Throat" in reference to the famous informant that passes data to the Washington Post and revealed the Watergate scandal. Maybe Mulder's mysterious helper can explain why a toilet with cubicles has a lock on the main door...
• One of the soldiers busting down the door and invading the house at the steer looked very flustered. First day on the job?
• Nothing says 90s drama like men in business suits with ratty ponytails.
• Scully looks very glamourously made-up for an FBI agent. Now I've nothing against Gillian looking like a no-nonsense power-dressing bad-ass woman in control (with added Harry Potter glasses), but she does appear to have piled the slap on a bit thick this morning. Her lipstick completely changes several times through the episode, so she must have a plentiful supply in that overnight case. Maybe I'm looking at her lips a bit too closely. Erm... where was I?
• Actually that's some major pink lipgloss Mulder is wearing. Is Denise from "Twin Peaks" creeping out?
• I think sometimes we forget how much the landscape of script writing must have changed with the development of mobile phones and especially the internet. A whole swath of familiar plot tropes suddenly became unusable. This week: paper maps. 
• A very, very young Seth Green as a stoner watching the light shows. This was definitely Mulder as a teenager. He probably had that terrible goatee too. 
• An Immelmann turn gets its name from a World War I flying maneuver, although nowadays it's more often used to refer to an ascending half-loop followed by half roll, so the aircraft is facing the other way at a higher altitude. I've clearly watched too many war films.

"Can I borrow that lipgloss when we get back, Mulder?"