Scully's not actually the new Mulder, but "Patience" sees her suddenly being The Open- Minded One when she's paired with the more traditional Doggett. It's a little disconcerting, to be honest, but it doesn't get in the way too much, since they at least avoid trying to make Doggett "the new Scully".
"Patience", for those of us who weren't too fussed about the whole "mythology arc", is the first "proper" X-Files of the 8th series, and I'll be honest, when I first saw it, I didn't really know what to make of it. The whole look of the episode is very slick, with little of the murkiness of the earlier series even during the nighttime scenes. It seems like such a little difference, but it's odd, a nagging doubt about where the show is going that never quite leaves you alone.
Plot-wise, what we have is a bat/man (for some reason). To me, that's a vampire, given the long speech given in "Bad Blood" about the different types of vampire... but it doesn't seem to be mentioned at any point. The bat/man has some connection to a severely burnt corpse that's been dragged from a lake, and it goes after anyone who has any contact with it. We find this out from a guy living out on an island somewhere. At the end, it might be dead, or it might be out to get Scully and Doggett because they were somehow contaminated by the whole experience.
Honestly? It's all very sketchy. It's not exactly bad, but unless you just started watching, you know that the show has done much better than this. The "monster of the week" is welcome if only because of the three episodes of very weighty, plot-heavy stuff that's preceded it, but it's marred somewhat by Doggett and Scully's constant sniping at each other about nothing in particular, which gets in the way of actually following the investigation, in understanding how the agents get from A to B to C. Suddenly they're staking out a guy with a weird hat and you have no idea why.
It's a shame really. It's not bad by any means, but you'd think they'd have wanted to impress us a bit more, or at least not draw quite so much attention to the fact that the show has changed a hell of a lot in a very short space of time.
"Patience", for those of us who weren't too fussed about the whole "mythology arc", is the first "proper" X-Files of the 8th series, and I'll be honest, when I first saw it, I didn't really know what to make of it. The whole look of the episode is very slick, with little of the murkiness of the earlier series even during the nighttime scenes. It seems like such a little difference, but it's odd, a nagging doubt about where the show is going that never quite leaves you alone.
Plot-wise, what we have is a bat/man (for some reason). To me, that's a vampire, given the long speech given in "Bad Blood" about the different types of vampire... but it doesn't seem to be mentioned at any point. The bat/man has some connection to a severely burnt corpse that's been dragged from a lake, and it goes after anyone who has any contact with it. We find this out from a guy living out on an island somewhere. At the end, it might be dead, or it might be out to get Scully and Doggett because they were somehow contaminated by the whole experience.
Honestly? It's all very sketchy. It's not exactly bad, but unless you just started watching, you know that the show has done much better than this. The "monster of the week" is welcome if only because of the three episodes of very weighty, plot-heavy stuff that's preceded it, but it's marred somewhat by Doggett and Scully's constant sniping at each other about nothing in particular, which gets in the way of actually following the investigation, in understanding how the agents get from A to B to C. Suddenly they're staking out a guy with a weird hat and you have no idea why.
It's a shame really. It's not bad by any means, but you'd think they'd have wanted to impress us a bit more, or at least not draw quite so much attention to the fact that the show has changed a hell of a lot in a very short space of time.