New Podcast! The X-Cast – Fight the Future Minute #52 (“A Well-Manicured Man (Again!)”)

Posted on June 23, 2020 by Darren

So The X-Cast reached the end of the show’s fifth season, and approached The X-Files: Fight the Future. This naturally meant it was time for another breathtakingly ambitious project, so the podcast is going literally minute-by-minute through the first X-Files feature film. I’m joining the wonderful Kurt North for two brief stretches featuring the Well-Manicured Man.

The Well-Manicured Man is – not so secretly – one of my favourite characters in the larger X-Files pantheon. This is partly because he’s played by the wonderful character actor John Neville, but also because he serves as an excellent analogy for the corrupting influence of the sort of power that runs through The X-Files. While the Cigarette-Smoking Man is transparently evil, and while the Elders are vaguely defined at best, the Well-Manicured Man is interesting in large part because he seems actually conflicted about what he has committed to.

In the first of this stretch of minutes, Fight the Future reintroduces the Well-Manicured Man in what is effectively a microcosm of the movie’s approach to storytelling. The audience is immediately given some understanding of who this character is, what he represents and what his motivations might be. It is more economical and effective than elegant, and a prime example of how Fight the Future was trying to position itself as a blockbuster rather than a cult film.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.