The X-Files (TV Series) Lord of the Flies (2001) User Reviews

Mothers are women too.

[Muldernscully · 6/10 · 14 November 2007]

Lord of the Flies is one of those half serious/half comical episodes like Humbug or Quagmire. If you don't take the episode too seriously, you can enjoy it quite a bit.

This episode begins like "X-Cops" with a reality show introduction. Though, that's the only similarity between the two.

Lord of the Flies has a couple of nice bug references. When Dylan comes home, you can see flies on his dinner through the window. Also, Natalie drives a VW "Bug".

The doctor examining the body in this episode is different from any previous doctor on the x-files. First, asking Doggett and Reyes if they're the experts, then asking Scully if she's the expert. It's supposed to be for comical effect, but it's still odd to see a doctor behave in this manner.

Dr. Rocky Bronzino is a great character played by Michael Wiseman to perfection. His come-ons to Scully are very humorous. I love their interactions. Rocky even pretends to be dead to get Scully to perform mouth-to-mouth on him ala "The Sandlot". The teenage guest stars do a good job as well in this episode.

The ending is a bit anti-climatic, no monster vs. agents showdown. Dylan and his mom simply leave town, after stringing Dr. Bronzino up. I wonder who the other bodies are up in the attic, other former husbands of Mrs. Lokensgard?

The Lord of the Flies is not overly complicated: boy likes girl, kills off competitors, finds out mom is a bug too. Other than "dumb ass" being overused a bit, Lord of the Flies isn't too bad. It's not a classic, but it's easy to watch and enjoy.

One of the better episodes of season 9

[kondia8 · 8/10 · 23 November 2011]

I decided to write this review when I saw other reviewers comparing this episode to "First Person Shooter". I realized I had to defend it. Contrary to "First Person Shooter" (which is indeed absolute and utter, brain-hurting rubbish), "Lord of the Flies" is in my opinion a very good episode. It reminds me a bit of the brilliant 6th season episodes that didn't take themselves too seriously. The entomologist that hits on Scully is a good touch. It's also good to see Scully participate more because up to now in season 9 she ranged from an advisory's role to an impotent person's role (which is of course totally undeserving of her). Perhaps this episode is a bit overcrowded. They should have found an excuse and left Reyes out (she isn't really needed in this episode while Doggett at least makes a few attempts at funny jokes). One thing I didn't like was how Dylan's mother took so long to talk to him about their condition. I mean... it's only the most determining aspect of their lives. But, all in all, a very entertaining episode.

A bit of a throwback

[Pythe · 6/10 · 4 July 2014]

After the previous season and a half of character departures, character introductions, retooled mythology, and unyielding darkness and despair, "Lord of the Flies" feels like a deliberate attempt to recapture the lightheartedness and simplicity of a certain subset of pre-Doggett episodes. It would have felt right at home in season 6; the storyline of a misunderstood teenager whose unusual powers alternately empower and complicate his unrequited love for an unsuspecting girl would nestle snugly alongside an episode like "The Rain King."

The cast is pretty good for this one, even if Erick Avari is underutilized as the coroner. Michael Wiseman is a standout as the smarmy, pompous Dr. Rocky; his cocky flirtation with an unreceptive Scully finally gives brilliant comic straight (wo)man Gillian Anderson something to do other than shout about her baby and pine over the lost Mulder. (What that woman could do simply by raising an eyebrow...) Look for future TV stars Jane Lynch and Aaron Paul as a well-meaning single mother and a high school bully with a frat-boy mentality, respectively.

Late television director Kim Manners handles the teleplay's uneven tone deftly, imparting the same understated quality to the humor that brought many a Darin Morgan and Vince Gilligan script to life with such grace. As a prolific veteran of the show, Manners crafts an episode that feels familiar, and very much welcome amidst the inexorable momentum of the unceasingly tense Super Soldiers storyline. On its own, "Lord of the Flies" is by no means a great episode, but in the context of the 9th season it is a pleasant diversion.

Killer Flies Swarm A Mulder-less X-File

[StuOz · 7 April 2018]

High School boys deal with killer flies.

I generally go for the more goofy X-File shows, like this one, that spend less time in the deadly serious FBI office and more time out and about with sort some sort of weird creature/person/thing. Lord Of The Flies begins like no other X-File episode ever made, in fact for a second I thought I put the wrong DVD in my machine, then we see the ugly sight (perhaps too ugly for child viewers) of a dead boy. We soon find out that flies are the enemy this week.

This hour, or this 42 minutes, can't really be called a classic, and I do miss Mulder, but it held my attention and there was something wonderfully retro about it...I think it reminded me of some 1950s creature feature I can't place in my memory right now. Maybe a touch of Irwin Allen's The Swarm (1978)?

Lord Of The Flies is well worth a look.

The kid had crap for brains, the flies couldn't resist.

[Sanpaco13 · 6/10 · 22 July 2008]

Lord of the Flies is about a boy who is a fly. Yeah I know the premise is kind of dumb. However, in spite of myself I like the episode quite a bit. I enjoy the Dumb Ass tapes, Doggett's humor really shines, Rocky is a total moron, the girl is pretty cute, the kid likes Syd Barrett and Bob Dylan, the caved in head is a cool effect. Things that bother me: I don't quite understand why a seemingly intelligent and cute girl is dating a total moron like Derrick, Natalie makes some interesting emotional shifts and reactions, the mom is a total b-word. A little note about Natalie's emotional confusion, I never understood why if she is so freaked out and disgusted by Dylan then how come at the end of the episode when it shows her crying and the fireflies spell out "I Love You" she seems all comforted? I thought she hated him? So would that creep her out even more? I guess there's a reason I'm still single. I just don't understand girls. I like the reference to the old 50's movie The Fly with Rocky squeaking out his "help me" plea in a high squeaky voice. I am also reminded of the movie 8 Legged Freaks where they all get wrapped up in spider web goo against the wall. Anyway definitely not a favorite but worth mentioning. 6 out of 10.

A curious tail.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 6/10 · 2 October 2022]

Doggett and Reyes investigate a shocking discovery after A high school lad dies when a Dirty Sanchez style prank goes wrong.

I can imagine the script for this being devised, the writing team sat in an Office, discussing how to get a Dirty Sanchez themed storyline in, and the Office is full of flies, the conversation, how to link the two.

Not a favourite, but has some points of interest, and not just the appearance of Aaron Paul. It's the first comedy oddball episode of Series 9, and overall it's not bad, it's better than some of the previous ones, overall the words I'd use, is weird, it's just plain old weird.

I thought Michael Wiseman was very amusing as Rocky Bronzino, a name that's perhaps better suited to a heavyweight boxer, not a horny entomologist.

In the previous episode we had an outcast with an overbearing mother, and we have exactly the same here, ten minutes after watching I can still hear Mrs Lokensgard nagging.

6/10.

"The kid had crap for brains, the flies couldn't resist."

[classicsoncall · 8/10 · 26 August 2017]

I'm surprised that none of the six prior reviewers for this episode made any connection to what I believe is the the X-Files story it resembles most - Season Three's 'War of the Coprophages'. It's right there in the title, the word 'coprophage' refers to insects that for lack of a more appropriate word, are dung eaters. The writers refer to it as 'crap' here, but the effect is the same.

And then there's the hilarious Dr. Rocky Bronzino (Micheal Wiseman), the show's answer to Dr. Barbi Berenbaum (Bobbie Phillips) in 'War of the Coprophages'. Say, wouldn't it have been great if the show brought her back to join in the mayhem here? After all, she was a well regarded entomologist too. That way, Scully could have gotten jealous all over again when 'Rocky' would have fallen all over himself to impress Bobbie instead of herself. Think of the possibilities.

Be that as it may, the episode offers it's fair share of gross-out scenes with it's Monster of the Week, in this case teenager Dylan Lokensgard (Hank Harris), and his Mom (Jane Lynch), the high school principal. The kid seemed to attract all manner of house flies with his high concentration of C-13 calliphorone. You know, these X-Files episodes used terms like that which sometimes were real, and sometimes not. When I tried to look it up, the only thing that I found were references to this X-Files episode, so I'm thinking it was made up for the show. Fair enough, it sounded cool in context with Dr. Rocky's theories.

Besides the Shopping Cart of Doom, the biggest kick I got out of this episode was when the shrink wrapped Rocky Bronzino yelled out to the FBI agents to 'Help me' when they found him all enmeshed in a cocoon, ostensibly placed there by Mrs. Lokensgard, along with her long missing husband. That was a really clever tribute to one of my all time fave horror flicks from 1958, "The Fly" starring Vincent Price. It would have been even better though, if director Kim Manners had made Wiseman's Bonzino place some added emphasis on it the way the human headed insect did at the finale of "The Fly". Stuck in a spider web, it shrieked out 'Pleeeeease, help me'. Maybe someone thought of it and decided against because it would have been too dumb ass.

Good Fun

[LogJam101 · 8/10 · 19 July 2022]

This episode isn't anything particularly special, but I really enjoyed it. The tone was refreshingly playful at times, like some older episodes, without undercutting the more serious material. There is a particularly (relatively) moving scene between a boy and his crush, which is then upended in classic X Files fashion.

Scully also has some nice interactions with the entomologist Rocky, and she gets in a great one liner as he discusses never working with a partner before.

As well as this, we get to see Jesse Pinkman before he meets Mr White, and find out 2010-era Sebastian Vettel can control insects. Great stuff.

The Dumbass Show

[n-town-smash · 3/10 · 18 June 2008]

Going through reviewing X-Files episodes, I'm seeing a pattern of the show consistently messing up in the same one or two ways whenever it dropped a stinker.

1. Nice teaser, shame about the everything else: "Soft Light" and "Lord Of The Flies" both suffered the same problem here, of a brilliantly intriguing teaser that only served to throw the crumminess of the explanation into stark relief. Never has this been so true than with "Lord Of The Flies", however. It looks like it's going to be funny. It looks like it's going to be creepy. It looks like it's going to be anything BUT what it turns out to be - a dumb high school story that's only unintentionally hilarious when it's trying to be sincere. It might be that I'm misreading it, but it's either weak comedy or REALLY weak drama.

2. Swarms of something controlled by some guy: like "Teso Dos Bichos" before it, "Lord Of The Flies" feels like it was constructed by committee.

"Let's do one about a guy who controls... something... somehow... for some reason." "How about some kind of animal?" "Maybe. Which ones haven't we done yet?" "Umm.... how about flies?" "Yeah, whatever."

At its best, this formula produces the likes of "D.P.O.", an episode which knew it was rather silly but played itself deadpan. But with that, "Fire", "Schizogeny" and a fair number of others basically rehashing the same supernatural elemental force, what matters is what you do with it. A simple love story doesn't quite justify it.

Even if you try and ignore these things, you're still left with a rather flaccid, rather mundane tale of a high school kid who - get this - gets bullied by some jocks and likes listening to awful music. What can I say? It's a big bag of clichés whether it's serious or not, and the weird continual references to Syd Barrett kind of suggest that it might actually have been someone's important childhood memories or something. Whatever. It's as dumbassed as the show it lampoons in the teaser, if not more.

Did they change directors?

[ebqrkhf · 8/10 · 8 March 2022]

This was a very 'campy' and goofy episode! It felt like the direction & writing was a whole different team.

I enjoyed it, but it just didn't pull off the 'charm' aspect of cult or camp material.

Very 'different' episode, that misses the mark on the conclusion as well.

Probably the series' weakest effort

[markagerholm · 4/10 · 17 January 2008]

The X-Files is one of my favorite shows. I've watched it from the beginning and have seen every episode. A top-notch episode is comparable to a four-star movie (Triangle, Dod Kalm, X-Cops), but unfortunately, the worst episodes make me want to stuff the DVD hole with m80s and toss it like a frisbee (First Person Shooter, Space, Herrenvolk). Lord of the Flies, one of the series' final episodes, is perhaps the most unwatchable episode there is. Thing is, I really wanted to give this episode a shot. Season Nine didn't turn out to be anything great, but I think it turned out better than most people say it did. And this episode happened to focus partially on one of my favorite songwriters, Syd Barrett. Unfortunately, the writing is atrocious and cheesy. It seems as though it's intended to be a tongue-in-cheek episode, which also happens to be my favorite X-Files variety, but the artistic merit is lost when we're supposed to find ourselves sympathizing with characters that act sporadically and often break up the mood when they try to be taken seriously. Overall, this is up there with First Person Shooter for the worst X-File ever made.