This episode is about a past case that has come back to haunt Mulder. In 1986, when Mulder was a newly minted agent at the FBI, he helped with a sting operation that apprehended notorious career bank robber John Barnett. Three years later, in 1989, Barnett supposedly dies in prison. The case is over and closed for Mulder, although he still has lingering guilt over Barnett being allowed to kill Mulder's fellow FBI colleague. But in early 1994, Mulder begins to receive cryptic and taunting notes that eerily resemble the notes Barnett used to leave to get a kick out of taunting the FBI. Mulder becomes convinced that Barnett is somehow still alive, especially when he begins receiving phone calls that sound like Barnett's voice and manner of speaking. It turns out that the prison doctor, Dr. Ridley was doing experiments, using prison inmates as test subjects. Ridley was trying to find a cure for progeria by reversing the aging process, however all his test subjects died shortly after he did his experiments on them. All except John Barnett that is. Turns out that what had failed on others worked on Barnett and for the past four years, he had been living free hiding in plain sight. He is unrecognizable due to his young appearance as his aging was reversed and slowed. So now Barnett looks like a man in his mid/late 20s and his having the time of his life playing cat and mouse games again. He's stolen the doctor's research and the government is trying to buy it from him desperate to get their hands on the fountain of youth. Unfortunately the rest of the episode is predictable and they wasted a great opportunity to tell more about an intriguing story by killing off Barnett. The climax at the end with Barnett at the concert hall was way too rushed and could have been done a lot better. Some of the good things about this episode:
-interesting premise with Ridley's research and quest to find the genetic fountain of youth. Also how he became obsessed with his experiments and getting a high off the work he does rather than actually wanting to help cure people
-Barnett. He's easily one of the best X-Files antagonists of all time, and I like his enigmatic character and disdain for Mulder.
-The soundtrack. The music is very atmospheric, the "Youth" piece especially.
Some of the bad things:
-the salamander hand, and Barnett's eyes (apparently they are the only part of his body that didn't respond well to Ridley's experiments, and are thus deteriorating due to the side effects). These two things don't really add anything to the story and are kind of silly. The eyes do give Barnett an otherworldly appearance, so I will give them that. But the salamander-human hybrid hand has too much of a campy/bad sci fi movie type vibe.
-Alan Boyce didn't have enough screen time, he was the best thing about this episode. So it's a shame he spends most of the episode in shadows and we only fully get to see him late in the episode. An interesting scene they could have done is have Mulder run into Barnett at a place like a coffee shop or supermarket, and have them speak to each other without Mulder having a clue that it's Barnett. It would go well with how Barnett had taunted him by saying "I'm everywhere you are", reveling in how his youthful appearance enables him to hide from the FBI in plain sight.
-The climax at the concert hall. It's a botched and lackluster scene, way too rushed and underdeveloped. It made no sense for Barnett to suddenly gun down Scully in the the middle of a hundred people. Instead, the finding Scully scene should have been much longer, with more focus on Barnett now that they finally showed his full face and figure. They should have done an elaborate cat-and-mouse scenario as Barnett hunts for Scully amid the hallways and passageways of the building. Add to that the musical score used earlier in the scene where Barnett was hiding in Scully's apartment and it would have been perfect.
-Wasted opportunity. The story was perfect for bringing Barnett back in a later episode. They should have just ended the episode with him lying on the E.R. table with doctors/nurses working on him and just left it open for him to return again instead of "oh he just flatlined and died". In fact, they were indeed planning to bring Barnett back in a later episode(s). This is evidenced by the last line of the episode in which Mulder says "I don't think this is the last we'll see of John Barnett." Him flatlining on the operating table really wouldn't have been a problem, as they could easily say he was just revived with a defibrillator a few minutes later. I guess the only reason he wasn't brought back is because the writers got sidetracked by other things, and simply forgot or never got around to writing the sequel episode. This was a show that always tried to do too much, and unfortunately the side effect of that is it became to convoluted, they made too many bad filler episodes, and they got too sidetracked to add more to some of the interesting stories like Barnett's. Though on the other hand, seeing the follow-up episode they wrote for one of my other favorite antagonists, the Pusher, maybe it's better that they just left the Barnett character and story alone before they had a chance to ruin them like they did for Pusher.
-interesting premise with Ridley's research and quest to find the genetic fountain of youth. Also how he became obsessed with his experiments and getting a high off the work he does rather than actually wanting to help cure people
-Barnett. He's easily one of the best X-Files antagonists of all time, and I like his enigmatic character and disdain for Mulder.
- The actor Alan Boyce. He plays Barnett perfectly and his voice is hypnotic.
-The soundtrack. The music is very atmospheric, the "Youth" piece especially.
Some of the bad things:
-the salamander hand, and Barnett's eyes (apparently they are the only part of his body that didn't respond well to Ridley's experiments, and are thus deteriorating due to the side effects). These two things don't really add anything to the story and are kind of silly. The eyes do give Barnett an otherworldly appearance, so I will give them that. But the salamander-human hybrid hand has too much of a campy/bad sci fi movie type vibe.
-Alan Boyce didn't have enough screen time, he was the best thing about this episode. So it's a shame he spends most of the episode in shadows and we only fully get to see him late in the episode. An interesting scene they could have done is have Mulder run into Barnett at a place like a coffee shop or supermarket, and have them speak to each other without Mulder having a clue that it's Barnett. It would go well with how Barnett had taunted him by saying "I'm everywhere you are", reveling in how his youthful appearance enables him to hide from the FBI in plain sight.
-The climax at the concert hall. It's a botched and lackluster scene, way too rushed and underdeveloped. It made no sense for Barnett to suddenly gun down Scully in the the middle of a hundred people. Instead, the finding Scully scene should have been much longer, with more focus on Barnett now that they finally showed his full face and figure. They should have done an elaborate cat-and-mouse scenario as Barnett hunts for Scully amid the hallways and passageways of the building. Add to that the musical score used earlier in the scene where Barnett was hiding in Scully's apartment and it would have been perfect.
-Wasted opportunity. The story was perfect for bringing Barnett back in a later episode. They should have just ended the episode with him lying on the E.R. table with doctors/nurses working on him and just left it open for him to return again instead of "oh he just flatlined and died". In fact, they were indeed planning to bring Barnett back in a later episode(s). This is evidenced by the last line of the episode in which Mulder says "I don't think this is the last we'll see of John Barnett." Him flatlining on the operating table really wouldn't have been a problem, as they could easily say he was just revived with a defibrillator a few minutes later. I guess the only reason he wasn't brought back is because the writers got sidetracked by other things, and simply forgot or never got around to writing the sequel episode. This was a show that always tried to do too much, and unfortunately the side effect of that is it became to convoluted, they made too many bad filler episodes, and they got too sidetracked to add more to some of the interesting stories like Barnett's. Though on the other hand, seeing the follow-up episode they wrote for one of my other favorite antagonists, the Pusher, maybe it's better that they just left the Barnett character and story alone before they had a chance to ruin them like they did for Pusher.