The X-Files (TV Series) Redrum (2000) User Reviews

A must see X files episode

[ScothMcBeast · 9/10 · 29 November 2015]

I'd recommend not skipping this one... Nice to see T-1000 and the Skynet mastermind have some screen time together finally.

The end may have been twined together just little more precise but otherwise a good episode. This episode has a hint of the flavor of earlier episode "Monday". I personally like that the central starring character is Robert Patricks character. It was due since the introduction of Agent Doggett.

Joe Morton gives a strong performance. Danny Trejo is Danny :)

All and all I enjoyed this one. It has great rehash to early Twilight Zone episodes and also a bit of mystery solving which are working quite well. Also I like the fact that this is not an X-Files back story related but a strong episode that stands out in it's own merits.

One of the best episodes of the entire series, especially if you're going backwards in time.

[deepfield67 · 9/10 · 6 September 2021]

Scully and Doggett have relatively little screentime, as we see the story unfold (in reverse) from the (alleged) antagonist's perspective, but what little dialog the agents do have is really well-written and delivered perfectly. Anderson is great, as usual, and her scenes with Morton are really compelling. But even the most serious episodes of the X Files have to have a few funny moments, usually quips and one-liners from one of the agents, and Doggett wins this round.

I love stories like this, not-quite-time-travel stories; stories told in reverse. This episode feels like a precursor to Memento, which was apparently in production at the same time, but wasn't released until early the following year. So, The X Files did it first. Although, if the writers for the X Files are traveling backwards in time then it's likely they got the idea for this episode from Memento and then just made it before Nolan had a chance. Regardless, even if you don't care for the Doggett years, I recommend this episode. It's one of my favorites from seasons 8 and 9. 9/10.

Make sure I miss that frickin' meeting

[Sanpaco13 · 9/10 · 23 April 2007]

Redrum is one of the few x-files episodes that stars the guest actor rather than the FBI agents. Joe Morton plays Martin Wells, a state prosecution attorney who has been framed for his wife's murder. The first thing I notice when I see Martin is hey I've seen him before. He has one of those likable and recognizable faces. I'm not sure if he has ever played the bad guy in anything but he is a very good good guy.

Basically Martin wakes up 5 days after his wife's murder without remembering anything from the entire week. So he wakes up in jail with a cut on his face unsure of how he got there and is taken outside to be transported where he is shot and killed by his father-in-law. From here things get weird as he wakes up again but this time it is a day earlier. Things progress as such going from Friday to Thursday to Wednesday etc. until he finally reaches Monday before the murder and gets a second chance to try and stop the killer.

I have somewhat of a weak spot for liking time anomaly type shows like this or like "Daybreak" or "Groundhog Day" where the same day is repeated and others like that. These are the cream of Sci-Fi to me and I will never get tired of the idea. The only other show/movie I can think of that has this idea in it even slightly is "Memento" where a guy with short term memory loss is trying to solve the mystery of his wife's murder and all we see as a viewer is what happened 5 minutes previously until we get to the beginning.

There were few things that I really dislike about the episode. One thing that kind of bothered me although I'm sure it was done purposely is that Martin is kind of clueless. I mean it seriously takes him until Wednesday to figure out that time is moving backwards. The only other thing that jumps right out as having been out of place even though it was obviously done on purpose is that the time of his wife's murder changes without any apparent explanation. The only explanations I can come up with for this change is either Martin changed the time by trying to prevent it (kind of a butterfly effect) or the timecard system needs to re-synchronize its clock with the rest of the world. Despite these seeming holes, this is still one of my favorite episodes and I give it a score 9/10.

First thing you're supposed to say is: "What nanny-cam?"

[Muldernscully · 10/10 · 1 September 2007]

Wow! What a cool episode! I didn't care all that much for the first episode that had the agents as secondary characters (Hungry), but Redrum shines.

Opening shots on spider webs are always good. You can't go wrong there. Redrum is the class of season eight. Using the subtitles, I noticed that Martin Wells murder case number is 8ABX03, the same number as the production number for the episode, though it was the sixth one aired this season.

I like how the web in the cell links to the web on Cesar Ocampo's hand. They transition straight from the one to the other to help you make the connection. It's so different to see Scully filling the role of Mulder and seeing her so open to the idea of time moving backwards. She doesn't jump wholeheartedly into the role. She does so slowly and cautiously.

Joe Morton will always be to me the doctor who sacrificed himself for the future in Terminator 2, just like Robert Patrick will always be the T-1000 to me from the same movie. Joe Morton rocks in this episode. He is strong enough to carry the bulk of the episode, which he does. When Martin asks to see the file of his case, his lawyer hands him a two-inch thick file, and the murder only happened two days ago! I can't believe it is that thick so soon. Even though it's highly doubtful that Doggett would wake Scully up at 4:00 in the morning to go to Martin's apartment, she comes with him just so her watch can be used to bookend the episode with another shot of her watch, this time starting to move forward again.

"Premonition", that was just recently released in theaters is similar to this, except the days of the week happen all jumbled up instead of moving straight backwards. I have a soft spot for "space/time continuum" shows. The story is engaging from beginning to end. It had me totally engrossed. The ending is bittersweet, but well worth the time invested in viewing Redrum.

Check your watch

[nablaquadro · 10/10 · 30 December 2006]

This episode is one of my favorites. I love the entire series of X-Files just for the writers' audacity exploring the endless frontiers of sci-fiction (Chris Carter, a genius!).

*Redrum* combines Minority Report and Memento with sagacity, inserting various elements to reflect above. An innocent prisoner (charged of uxoricide) realizes to live his life backwards as Fate decided to give him "a second chance" to prove he's not guilty. Nobody believes him, obviously, but day by day he'll accomplish his task, anyway with a sour ending I don't want to reveal.

There's some violence and disturbing images which can frighten a lot, so it's not for everyone. Perfect, as always, Mark Snow's music and the well-written dialogs. John Dogget/Robert Patrick is great with Scully, and in the end he just profited of Duchovny's quarrels with production that keep him out of the set for a year, building a new real, convincing character.

**SPOILERS** Naturally the movie Memento came to my mind, but P. Dick's novel Minority Report too, about prevention of the crimes. In facts, prevent the crimes sometimes means just postpone them in the future (like Mr. Wells in this episode), so why should Destiny gift us such a precious opportunity ?

Complex, well executed.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 27 September 2022]

Martin Wells is in prison, waiting to be charged for killing his wife, the trouble for him, is that time is moving backwards, his only chance is to convince Scully and Doggett that he's sincere.

Once again, I find myself impressed by another high quality episode from Series 8.

Spider's webs galore, when I initially saw the spider at work in the opening credits, I had a feeling if it was there, to quite literally explain to viewers that a complex web was being spun...

Very much the case, Redrum is a twisted, complex and imaginative episode. It's a plot device that has been used on other shows, but here it's well executed, and it's done in a way that keeps you glued to the screen, for fear of missing a vital piece of evidence.

Joe Morton is excellent here as Wells, he truly does lead the episode, with Scully and Doggett almost incidental. Morton is a well known actor, one who's made some excellent performances over the years, this one is particularly memorable.

My only issue, why did Doggett not remember his conversations with Wells?

Very good episode, 8/10.

Other reviewers MAY be missing the point...

[xnet95 · 9/10 · 24 September 2010]

I think the other reviews of this episode are making a mistake by taking this one too literally. There is another way to interpret the events of this show. The last scene shows the protagonist in a jail cell 3 months later. If he and Doggett stopped the murder of his wife, then why is he there talking about not being able to escape the jail of his character? If you interpret the show literally, you could say that by withholding evidence regarding the murderer's brother, he got a jail term. I posit another way of looking at it.

Everything we saw before the final scene was his confused and deluded rendering of what happened with the murder. He actually killed his wife. He snapped. He's dazed, confused, and disoriented. He is mentally unbalanced. Everything we see before the final scene is a jumbled fantasy from a mentally deranged person. He didn't go back through time, he's just fantasizing. He gets his face slashed by Mr. Spiderweb Hand in reality, and he mentally lashes back by making this guy the murderer in his fantasy. The only way he can get a 2nd chance is in his mind.

This 2nd way of looking at this episode is a lot like what happened in an old noir movie called Detour. The whole movie is the star's delusional recounting of events involved in the deaths of two people. Were they accidents or did he murder them? We never know because we see everything through his eyes. Everything is his mentally unbalanced fantasy, except for the last scene in a Nevada diner. I wonder if Chris Carter and company used Detour for inspiration here?

Anyway, it's a very thought provoking episode that could be interpreted at least two different ways.

« That's not bad for beginners » (dvd)

[leplatypus · 10/10 · 1 April 2013]

Like the 7th season, I missed this season the first time. As it was aired in fall 2001 in France, maybe I was on the news channel and maybe I followed also the first season of Star Academy. I just remember to have glimpsed "Medusa" in a Belgium youth hostel but my fellows didn't like it and maybe part of the last episode. At least, better late than never so here i come for this first season without Mulder.

It starts with a mythology arc. Like last year, the story drags and could have been more interesting with only one episode. With splendid exteriors and an active Skinner, we can forget a poor plot and we know at last what happened to Gibson who was leftover suddenly in a nuclear plant 2 years ago.

The first episode with the new duo is a big disappointment, even more that is a full package from Carter. This story about a wild manbat that smells its victims ranks among the more stupid episodes ever.

The next episodes are a great improvement: some are still boring and dull ("invocation", "surekill", "salvage" which involves a sort of ridiculous Terminator) but the fun is back: The explanation is indeed, the beginners, the newcomers, that's to say first, John Dogget. His character brings a fresh air to the show as he is totally different from our well know duo. Unlike Mulder who was a "Martian" (and cries a lot), Scully who is a scientist, Dogget is a real old-fashioned cop with a good flair and who does everything by the book. As he understands nothing to paranormal or even science, he has the reaction of the normal guy and what he lacks in open mind, he balances with presence and courage. Later, the same good mention can be delivered to Annabeth Gish. As the production proved it often in the past, they can cast totally newcomers that are immediately convincing!

Along the middle of the season, the other mythological episodes are similarly disappointing. Sure, the poor sidekicks (Diana, Spender) are gone at least but the "personal" plague is still there: in other words, when i watch the mythology, I look for aliens, conspiracy but not for mourning dead family members or pregnancy. Another bad point is the stupidity of some solutions: the return of Mulder is totally unbelievable as much as Dogett's "deep throat"!

But as soon as Mulder is back, the show becomes a real teamwork. The new ideas are interesting but as the first conspiracy, it's very hard to understand the motives. But, there are good thriller moments and it pays homage to the classic invaders theme.

In addition, this year, the special effects are rather up and give some horrific visions and corpses!

It's hard to pick a best episode as the loners are really horrific and gripping and the mythological hard to chunk. I take finally "Redrum" as it's an excellent analysis about time with an old pal of the T-1000.

Wow. Fantastic episode.

[skatez-19801 · 10/10 · 31 January 2024]

I'll admit i'm a sucker for stories about those who experience time in reverse (a hard type of story to come by!) This episode was the first x files episode in quite a while to have me on the edge of my seat, not only due to the looming threat of our protagonist's murder, and the seemingky foregone conclusion that his wife was, or will be murdered (but how?), but also the aspect that it's a race against time, in the most literl sense.

I found the climax especially interesting, as we see martin look at the nanny cam, which prompted me to believe that what happened to his wife was inevitable.

The second chance aspect of this episode is intereresting, because it "could" work without it, but it fits so well, and the episode is so much elevated by the last scene.

This episode, in some way i cannot place, reminds me of the earlier seasons of the x files, when every episode seemed to have a novel new concept. I wouldn't say the show was becoming formulaic at this point, but certainly predictable. I enjoyed the preceding episodes of this season, but I felt like i knew what was coming. This was completely different.

If i were to make a list this would absolutely make my top 15 x files episodes.

"You said something about a second chance."

[classicsoncall · 8/10 · 16 August 2017]

This episode hearkens back to the sixth season episode 'Monday', another time anomaly story, but the hitch for this one has Attorney Martin Wells (Joe Morton) reliving the past five days of his life backwards. Anyone notice that the loop on his wife's murder was closed on a Monday?

The first time I ever came across the word 'redrum', i.e., 'murder' spelled backwards, was in a Stephen King novel. Pretty sure it was "The Shining" without going back to research it, but I'm willing to be corrected. So that was a clever hook for the title of this episode, hitchhiking on the 'backward' theme.

I didn't pick up on it so much while watching, but it became apparent afterwards that this show featured Joe Morton as the principal character rather than Agent Doggett or Scully. The theme of second chances comes up a number of times as the story unfolds, and it was somewhat jarring to learn that Martin Wells wasn't all that ethical in the prosecution of Hector Okampo, who committed suicide while in jail serving a sentence based on Wells' suppression of evidence. All the time you're rooting for Wells to figure out what happened with his wife, and then he winds up in prison himself three months later.

Another reviewer for this episode, 'xnet95', has an interesting pair of alternate views on this story which I think have some validity. I won't dismiss them out of hand because there's some credibility to the idea that Martin Wells in fact became delusional over the death of his wife. I still prefer the more typical interpretation of the days cascading in reverse bringing Wells back to the day the murder of his wife occurred. I guess if you're on the fence about it, you can give the episode a second chance.

A most incredible episode

[pmicocci-18908 · 3/10 · 14 July 2021]

And the most incredible (in a literal sense) part is that a prosecutor would be up for a hearing in front of a judge with whom he's on a first name basis (and that they would address each other by first name in court), or that this prosecutor would be held in a general population with prisoners he had prosecuted. Those are the most fantastic elements of this episode.

A quality anomaly in a show dying slowly

[ttapola · 8/10 · 19 December 2009]

I caught a rerun of this episode by chance and decided to evaluate it, especially since it had three existing reviews already. Reviews that lack objectivity. Two of the reviewers admit they have a soft spot for time-anomaly stories. Well, unfortunately that throws their objectivity right out of the window. As an aside, I see that two reviewers make a spelling mistake when typing "The X Files" - but I can't blame them; they must have been conditioned as the error is so commonly forced upon us that most of the world doesn't seem to even realize that there is *no* hyphen in "The X Files".

With that out of the way, I can say that this one has withstood time better than most of the episodes. It takes a really non-objective fan to claim that at this point the show was more than a shadow of its past glories. Unlike most episodes that lack Mulder, this turns that handicap to its strength by starting with the idea of the writer deciding to make a Format Breaker. Since the classic format of "The X Files" is "Mulder and Scully investigate strange goings-on", most of the "Scully and Doggett (who came up with that silly name?) investigate strange goings-on" era episodes were never able to rise to the same level. Breaking the format by making Scully and Doggett minor characters is a stroke of genius. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with Robert Patrick - over the years he's proved that he is not just a T-1000 but an actor with wide range. It's just that anything else than Mulder & Scully *feels* wrong. Of course, had Fox not been so eager to flog a dead horse, The X Files could have ended with dignity instead of becoming an unintentional parody of itself.

Just doing a Format Breaker doesn't make anything automatically 10/10 or even 9/10. I give this one a more realistic 8/10 because it really doesn't break any new ground - time anomaly stories being a staple of practically most of fantasy and science fiction. Sure, the episode is well made and Joe Morton is excellent, proving he also is more than just a character from Terminator 2, but that isn't enough to make this episode pitch perfect. Achieving a 9/10, or even 10/10 requires something *exceptional*, like "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'", the best X Files episode ever made. Sure, it was a Weird One episode, which allowed it freedom that Stand-Alone or even Format Breakers can only dream of, but it was the way that freedom was used to its fullest potential that makes it the crown jewel of "The X Files" episodes. The more times you watch "Redrum" the more it loses its shine because its main power is in not knowing the outcome whereas "Jose Chung..." is practically impossible to fully absorb on the first viewing and only improves the more you watch it - even the director famously had to read the script multiple times before he understood it.

Here comes the hotstepper, I'm the lyrical gangster, excuse me mister officer.

[bombersflyup · 10/10 · 13 March 2019]

Redrum is about a man on death row, living the five most recent days backwards, the main suspect in the murder of his wife.

Wouldn't say it's the most memorable episode, but indeed quality viewing. A solid guest performance from Joe Morton, from Terminator II: Judgment Day with the man himself Robert Patrick. Agent Doggett terrific and has been thus far, an excellent addition to the series. A small amount of humour in this engrossingly dark sombre episode, but it's all on point. "Yeah well, uh... make sure I skip that freakin' meeting."

MAKES NO SENSE

[djheftydh · 4/10 · 23 January 2024]

This episode of "Groundhog Day* in reverse makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. As if it would be impossible for a prosecutor to prove that he was in an upscale hotel in Washington DC at the time of his wife's death. You have that, the nanny-cam proving he didn't get home until hours after the murder, and the friggin guy who did it & he's still arrested?! Rrrrright!? Talk about a lawsuit and a half. I don't know how much more evidence one needs to prove their innocence in this show, but even in the real world where truth, justice and common sense play no part in a court of law those three things right there would be more than sufficient to not be arrested for something you clearly couldn't have possibly done.