The X-Files - S01E07 - "Ghost in the Machine"

"We didn't know much about computers when we wrote this..."

Original air date: October 29, 1993

Because sometimes, computers are just a bad idea.

A very simple summary of this episode, which is about an AI gone rogue in a futuristic office building:

Writers Gordon and Gansa have admitted they were "not computer literate" and felt this was a detriment to their writing.

Yeah, no shit.

This episode is kind of a disorganized Star Trek plot. Mulder and Scully have to decipher the scary world of *~*computers*~*, and it can’t decide whether it wants to be a commentary on genociding a new sentient life or not.

In “Squeeze” we saw Scully’s prior relationships come into play, and here we get something with Mulder. The idea of Fox being portrayed as competent and Agent Lamana basically being Gil from The Simpsons (“just needing that one win, Fox, I promise!”) is a bit of character building, but is starting to give me redshirt radar with guest stars.

I think something I forget about episodic pre-streaming/pre-DVD television is the need to reiterate themes and character beats, because not everyone is going to see them. “Mulder makes choices to chase his obsession at the detriment of being normal. He is an outsider. He is not typical and does not care for the regular trappings of ambition.”

Okay. We got it.

There’s going to be a lot of technobabble here.

Short story is that an AI is learning of a danger to someone shutting it down, so it’s murdering people who may be a threat to its existence. This is a post-Terminator landscape.

The episode is pretty much a “is the audience stupid enough to be bait-and-switched by the developer being the murderer?” which I mean… the episode isn’t set up like that. It’s pretty clear from the beginning that the building is AI, not like… a remote tool.

With that out of the way, the episode is pretty like a tube of toothpaste that’s almost empty: we’re trying to squeeze and use as much as we can before we resign to just moving on.

Lamana stealing Mulder’s profile presents an interesting dynamic, where Mulder does care about credit for his work to a degree (or at least personal privacy in terms of someone stealing it). A truly detached Mulder would be apathetic as to whether his work was being used as long as the goal was success.

With a bit of a stretch, we could imagine that Mulder is paranoid about Lamana rifling through his things, or is part of the bigger conspiracy. But again, that’s headcanon at this point.

I’m not going to go beat-by-beat chronologically here because there’s only a few remaining things I like in the episode.

The end twist

I really liked the idea of the mole, keeping tabs on the AI development just in case the opportunity lended itself to stealing it for government contracts. This is kinda “transparent evil,” rather than subtle, but I think it adds some kind of spark to what was otherwise a boring episode.

Since Mulder doesn’t talk to the AI, he needs someone to be in conflict with, and this kind of real-world threat probably both kept the budget away from elaborate setpieces with the AI, and made it more grounded.

I kind of laugh at the end, where he’s just kind of done with his job and now resigning himself to the drudgery of both hacking dead parts and having to dispose of them. Dude’s just a low-level mook.

The ethics discussion

When I mentioned Star Trek earlier it was because this is kind of a discussion that happens during episodes, even if the Enterprise is being attacked:

• Does the entity have a right to life?

• Is it just instinctually protecting itself?

• Is its aggression towards us something that can be resolved peacefully?

In this case, Mulder is more concerned about the AI being put into government hands, and again, this ethical dilemma doesn’t have a ton of time to breathe. This kind of storyline was definitely done by Star Trek at this point, so the idea of AI in fiction at all isn’t exactly new ground.

Did Deep Throat need to be in this episode?

“We needed someone smart to be able to give us exposition.”

I think this is the worse choice in terms of delivering this kind of plot dump, with the better one being Mulder or Scully discovering some kind of link between the government spying and the company. However, that gives them tangible proof, which might uncover the conspiracy: Deep Throat is a faster solution to this problem, and keeps distance.

I personally think these kind of moments need to be limited to the greater meta-plot, rather than the monster-of-the-week. It makes Deep Throat kind of look stupid for giving out information in broad daylight — it also makes it look like the writers didn’t know how to wrap up this episode, or pace it properly.

This feels a bit heavy-handed at the end of the episode, but is probably the more interesting thing to come out of it: the hippie with principles is not strong enough to resist the oppression of the machine. The bad guys have the developer’s confession to the murders, and despite feeling his talents give him a degree of leverage…

Scully with a gun

Love it.

If you kill an AI, are you obligated to throw in a 2001: Space Odyssey reference?

Anyways. On to the next.

Ice is a banger.