The X-Files: X-Cops (7.12)

It's easy to forget during an era of 'found footage' shit-shows that disappoint crowds of moviegoers every couple of months that there was a time when steady-cam horror film-making was actually pretty groundbreaking. X-Cops is an episode that obviously breaks formula, but also produces something actually thrilling and dynamic as a visual art form, taking the genre histrionics of traditional X-Files episodes and sending them hurdling into the trashy FOX reality series Cops. Vince Gilligan's script doesn't just satirize that show, instead making the spoofery form the entire hour of X-Cops, ending up an actual Cops episode that just so happened to feature two plucky FBI agents investigating the supernatural.

Gilligan does some wonderful work in sending up both Mulder and Scully, as well as the tropes of Cops as a series. Notice Mulder's gleefulness as he appears on TV, compared to Scully's complete embarrassment over the thought of being filmed while her partner talks about werewolves. Then there's the awesome Cops trope satire, from the blurred-out face of the hooker, to the eccentric gay dudes who feature prominently.

Due to the restraints of the episode, a lot of the actual story is merely assumed and theorized, but it doesn't at all dent the quality of the hour. In fact, the monster subplot is eerily inventive -- a creature that can literally turn into your own worst fear, from a psychotic pimp to a colorful moth-man. Don't get me wrong, 'fears becoming reality' is nothing new for genre television, but making it a literal presence that can morph into a physical attacker or (in the case of the gay couple) a kind of repressed, emotional terror is an interesting distinction.

X-Cops is a wonderful experimental episode that easily avoids any of the potential trappings of satire, while simultaneously creating something that feels just as overtly weird as it is distinctly X-Files. A+

Credits
Guest stars Judson Mills (Deputy Keith Wetzel); Dee Freeman (Sergeant Paula Duthie); Michael Maher (Redhead Deputy); Perla Walter (Mrs. Guerrero); J.W. Smith (Steve); Curtis C. (Edy)
Writer Vince Gilligan Director Michael Watkins