Well yes, this episode sucks. But there was something very strange about it as well... almost like a dream none of the action ties together (could be just terrible editing) and none of it seems set in reality. It seems almost completely outside the X-files canon, even among the litter of bad episodes from the first season.
But completely apart from the style, a few things made me almost jump out of my seat while I was watching it - Colonel Belt insists that the shuttle will burn up on re-entry because the "tiles are damaged." Well, I felt a chill in my spine when I realized this was made in 1993, 13 YEARS before the Shuttle Columbia disaster, where yes, the shuttle burned up on re-entry because of damaged foam tiles.
Furthermore, it gets even weirder. Somehow I stumbled on this NASA commander Clark McClelland while trying to figure this stuff out. He bears an odd resemblance to "Colonel Belt." From the net:
"Clark McClelland is a retired Spacecraft Operator with NASA who during a 34 year career was responsible for ensuring the safety of numerous NASA missions including Mercury spaceflights, Apollo missions, the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle. In a statement released on his website McClelland revealed that he witnessed an eight to nine foot tall extraterrestrial in association with a Space Shuttle mission he was monitoring from the Kennedy Space Center."
So obviously, one of the writers (or Carter himself) read this statement and decided to base an episode on him, right? Except he didn't release this info until July 2008. And to top it all off, this guy was responsible for the safety of the Columbia mission, and there are pictures on the web of him sitting in the cockpit of the doomed ship.
Weird.
But completely apart from the style, a few things made me almost jump out of my seat while I was watching it - Colonel Belt insists that the shuttle will burn up on re-entry because the "tiles are damaged." Well, I felt a chill in my spine when I realized this was made in 1993, 13 YEARS before the Shuttle Columbia disaster, where yes, the shuttle burned up on re-entry because of damaged foam tiles.
Furthermore, it gets even weirder. Somehow I stumbled on this NASA commander Clark McClelland while trying to figure this stuff out. He bears an odd resemblance to "Colonel Belt." From the net:
"Clark McClelland is a retired Spacecraft Operator with NASA who during a 34 year career was responsible for ensuring the safety of numerous NASA missions including Mercury spaceflights, Apollo missions, the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle. In a statement released on his website McClelland revealed that he witnessed an eight to nine foot tall extraterrestrial in association with a Space Shuttle mission he was monitoring from the Kennedy Space Center."
So obviously, one of the writers (or Carter himself) read this statement and decided to base an episode on him, right? Except he didn't release this info until July 2008. And to top it all off, this guy was responsible for the safety of the Columbia mission, and there are pictures on the web of him sitting in the cockpit of the doomed ship.
Weird.