Day 3 of my 2021 holidays themed readings was a big dud.
Mulder and Scully open the X-Files to the 3 spirits of Christmas in this fusion of A Christmas Carol and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It's Christmas Eve in the nation's capitol and the agents are formally invited to a Christmas pageant. Mulder decides to spend Christmas Eve in the office sulking over his long lost sister and gets visited by several spirits. Dana Scully attends the play, only to find herself and the rest of the guests suffering some sort of holiday mania.
I'm not normally one who approves of replacing the Christ in Christmas with the letter X. But for this X-Files one-shot, I found it humorously appropriate. I also loved the main cover which depicts the Cigarette Smoking Man as Jacob Marley. Plus, we've got a healthy dose of Agent Skinner- arguably my favorite character of the show. And that's about all I enjoyed about this holiday special. Well, that and the fact that this is a Christmas comic book...
The writing was a mess. It's scripted by an unknown narrator that waxes poetic about Mulder and Scully in a very unpolished way. About half of the dialogue from Mulder doesn't sound like stuff Mulder would ever say. And I find it hard to believe that a skeptic such as Scully would really be such a closet fan of Christmas.
I also think that the story is trying to do too much. If we had kept it like an X-Files Christmas Carol, that would have been fine. But adding in the whole mind control Christmas pageant angle to things was enough to over-tax the plot.
I also feel that this issue was a missed opportunity. The X-Files is known for it's occasional foray into the absurd. Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose and Jose Chung's From Outer Space are two great episodes in which the agents experience paranormal activity that doesn't take itself as seriously as the overall conspiracy of a secret alien invasion of planet earth. I think this holiday special should have gone down that rabbit hole instead.
Have Mulder and Scully tackle a case where they have to prove or disprove that the guy whose been arrested for climbing down somebody's chimney is really Santa or not. (Why are there reindeer on the roof?) That is the sort of X-File's Christmas I want to read. I would also approve of a story in which fruit cake is discovered to be a sort of MK-Ultra inclusion to the holidays. Though that Santa story would probably be the better idea.
Hey, Chris Carter! I'm available to write that if you and IDW Publishing want to follow up with a 2021 special!
Not Worth Consuming!
Rating: 3 out of 10 stars.
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