This November (and a little of December), we’re taking a trip back in time to review the third season of The X-Files and the first (and only) season of Space: Above and Beyond.
On paper, The Enemy seems like a good idea.
Space: Above and Beyond has a reasonably large cast. It has devoted character-centric episodes to the three leads, and done a nice bit of world-building around that. To this point, the shows have typically split the characters up, pushed some to the fore and others to the background. The show is now about a third of the way through the first season, so it makes a great deal of sense to do a show that actually stresses the ensemble dynamic.
Nothing to fear, but fear itself…
A story like The Enemy makes a great deal of sense. When you have an ensemble, you can generate drama from next to nothing. Lock five people in a room together, you’re sure to generate some friction. Character practically defines itself as they play off one another. If you can crank up the tension, it will all come together. So a war story where our heroes find themselves trapped together and cracking under the pressure seems like a solid basis for a good story.
The problem is that The Enemy is just a clumsy mess of a script, and one that stumbles over what should be a fairly robust set-up.
“I appreciate that it was traumatic, but I’m still not sure that producing the episode could be considered a war crime…”
Filed under: Space: Above & Beyond | Tagged: chigs, Glen Morgan, ice, isolated, James Wong, marilyn osborn, pressure, science fiction, shapes, space: above and beyond, the enemy, x-files | 2 Comments »
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