The X-Files (S1.Ep5) “The Jersey Devil”

Season 1 – Episode 5 – The Jersey Devil

Director: Joe Napolitano Writers: Chris Carter, Chris Carter Cast: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Claire Stansfield 

This is possibly the weakest of the series so far: the mystery is not as interesting, or scary as it should be. The script is full with exposition. The “big twists” that it’s a woman monster and not a man, doesn’t really change anything at all within the story. And the resolution at the ending comes up quite abruptly leaving the audience with more of a “so-what?” taste in their mouth. However the episode helped defining the series as not just a story of “government conspiracies” but more of an anthology of mysteries and unexplained phenomena: one week an alien, the next a monster.It also gave us a little bit more insight into Mulder and Scully and actually some intriguing glimpses into Scully’s private life which will be developed further in future episodes. So, it’s not a complete car crash of course and on the whole it’s fairly watchable and never boring, but as far as I’m concerned you could skip this one and not miss a lot