Editorials
What’s the Right Way to End the World?
Comparing how the finales of Carter’s ‘X-Files’ and Morgan and Wong’s ‘Millennium’ both explore the end of the world in different ways
With the highly anticipated return of The X-Files having now come and gone at this point, it’s left many people—hardcore fans and casual watchers, alike—asking questions like if this return was worth it in the first place. While discussions over the series’ merits and detriments have been highly catalogued, another topic that’s been brought to the surface are the pandemic-like events that Chris Carter chose to end the tenth season on. The controversial move left a lot of people scratching their heads, but long-time fans of Chris Carter’s body of work were also noticing that the plotting bore a lot of resemblances to another highly contentious finale of one of his shows, that of Millennium’s second season, “The Time is Now.” A finale that he worked incredibly hard to scrub the record of.
Millennium is not a show that is on many people’s radars, and admittedly, a lot of the people that stuck with it were just due to residual X-Files fan fervor. The show had an infinitely bleaker perspective than The X-Files did, an arguably less engrossing mythology behind it, a heavy Biblical background, and it was lacking the balancing act that was created through Mulder and Scully’s repartee. Frank Black’s sounding board and moral center was a yellow house. When Millennium was heading into its second season, Carter was too encumbered not only running the fifth season of The X-Files, but also readying the series’ feature film. In his stead, Carter appointed Glen Morgan and James Wong—two voices that were an integral part of The X-Files early seasons, and contributors to Millennium’s freshman year—to be in charge of shaping Millennium’s second year as he stepped down.
While Millennium is not a very good show, it’s second season is, and it’s absolutely worth checking out when you’ve got the time. It’s kind of incredible how much Morgan and Wong are able to shape this dour series into a serviceable, creepy vehicle that legitimately has something to say about the nature of evil and the end of times. The series’ biggest story point was that the impending millennium was ultimately going to signal the apocalypse, with the mysterious “Millennium Group” trying to police and monitor instances correlating to this event. While Carter mostly kept his foot off of the apocalypse pedal, Morgan and Wong drop a brick on it, with their finale full-on embracing the end of the world.
The conduit to bring about all of this is a deadly virus that is unleashed that kills 75 percent of the world’s population (just look at that promo ad for this finale and try to not get excited), including the main character’s wife, putting some very real consequences on the table. Morgan and Wong are dealing with the highest of stakes and it’s the payoff to what the entire show has been leading up to, with it being exactly what you’d hope for. Adversely, in The X-Files’ “My Struggle II,” Carter introduces an eerily similar pandemic that appears to be killing most of the population, except for those that are alien abductees or have alien DNA.
Furthermore, Carter’s plague does have a slap-dash cure to it, but a highly implausible one at that, and especially one that couldn’t really save what’s left of humanity. In “The Time is Now” the episode makes a point of how there is no cure here and that this is just a virus that wipes out whatever’s in its path. This stays in touch with the bleak theme of the show as well as the shadow corporations that are behind it all.
With Carter’s current attitude towards pandemics, it’s not surprising to see that when Millennium returned for its third season (with Morgan and Wong gone, to boot), it was Carter who retconned all of this effective apocalypse material. Carter retroactively greatly reduces the threat of the breakout (to a mere couple thousand casualties!)—in a means that doesn’t make any sense, no less—in a fashion that I fear will likely be done on The X-Files too, since the show can’t continue to operate in a mostly-dead world. It’s just legitimately insulting to an audience to be all, “Yeah, that stuff that you all saw happen didn’t actually happen,” and it’s the best strategy that he comes up with here. Morgan and Wong take big swings, but mean it, whereas Carter does them for big flashy moments, not thinking through the consequences. It’s a big finale moment to tell us that the world is dying, but in the light of day of a premiere, it’s all too easy to pull back on that.
What’s also crucial here is how the news of a population decimating pandemic is introduced and dealt with on a show. In “My Struggle II” Carter chooses to illustrate his doom and gloom through tacky news reports, heavy exposition, and last-minute developments. A lot of this death happens off screen and within minutes, with this sort of thing being exactly what would have benefited from a classic X-Files two-parter. Never before has the series tried to cram so much in, in so little time.
Over on Morgan and Wong’s Millennium, sure there is exposition, but the series executes this much more with raw emotion, Biblical good and evil, and letting this story have an entire season to breathe rather than a mere episode. That being said, in this episode alone, they straight up show you a mind breaking in half (in what’s the Lynchian thing I’ve seen on TV this side of Twin Peaks). These guys devote ten minutes to psychological mind fuckery to convey the feeling of the apocalypse, choreographed to a breathtaking soundscape that’s—no question—one of the best thing I’ve ever seen on television, while The X-Files gives you Joel McHale talking to a camera and the expectation to fill in blanks during commercial breaks.
Granted, Wong and Morgan supposedly attempted such a ballsy finale because they thought it was pretty likely that the series was going to be canceled. That being said, I sincerely doubt they would have abandoned this plan had they stayed on as showrunners, or that they didn’t have an idea of where they were going with this direction. Millennium would have been an entirely different beast after this point, but a show all about the apocalypse obviously needs to address the apocalypse at some point.
With the creative, different, disturbing way that Morgan and Wong presented their pandemic, it really makes you think how they would have put together “My Struggle II” if they were given the opportunity. Morgan and Wong were apart of the few select people that Carter brought back for The X-Files’ revival. In fact, they even share the executive producer credit with him, in lieu of Fran Spotnitz, so it’s clear that there’s no bad blood in the waters, and that he still values what they have to say creatively. Carter still very much seems to be calling the shots though. His instincts on the matter seem completely counter intuitive to theirs, but with the backlash Carter himself saw this year over The X-Files’ return, maybe in some twisted symmetry they’ll be the ones penning or directing the next premiere, cleaning up Carter’s mess. Only this time, I’m sure they’ll actually be improving on the matter.
Editorials
Before ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Alien Autopsy’ Showed How Real Found Footage Could Feel
The line separating artist from con man is a lot thinner than you might initially believe. While I think we can all agree that lying for the sake of profit is actively malicious behavior, isn’t it also true that the faux documentary aspect of The Blair Witch Project is half the reason why that film became such a cultural phenomenon? After all, if there’s one thing filmmakers have in common with stage magicians, it’s that misleading and misdirecting audiences is simply part of the job.
That’s why I’ve developed a habit of mostly ignoring the moral quandaries behind many of film and television’s biggest “hoaxes” in favor of appreciating the narrative elements that drive productions like Mermaids: The Body Found and even Animal Planet’s highly underrated The Cannibal in the Jungle. However, if there’s a definitive case of a highly publicized broadcast fooling the world into taking it seriously, it has to be Fox’s infamous 1995 TV special Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.
It’s been over three decades since that eerie footage first haunted television screens right at the peak of the ’90s ufology craze, and in that time, the video has taken on a life of its own. From countless parodies and references in everything from The X-Files to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (as well as John Dower’s recently released tell-all documentary The Alien Autopsy Scandal, which I’d highly recommend to genre fans everywhere), there’s no denying the legacy of the Alien Autopsy video. However, I rarely see the tape discussed as what it truly is: a highly convincing found footage film directed by a passionate stage magician and brought to life by masterful practical effects work.
That’s why I’d like to invite readers to join me on a deep dive into one of the most infamous broadcasts of all time in an attempt to reevaluate the footage as a fascinating narrative experience rather than a complete hoax.
The TV Special That Convinced Millions It Was Real
Ray Santilli next to Extraterrestrial replica in ‘The Alien Autopsy Scandal’
For starters, regardless of whether or not you believe that there was in fact an extraterrestrial crash in Roswell during the summer of 1947 and that some form of autopsy was performed on the victims, the producers behind the black & white recordings, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, insist that their video was a “restoration.” Though I’d argue that the proper word is “remake”of genuine footage that was too damaged to air on television. That’s why the duo went on to recruit filmmaker and eccentric magician Spyros Melaris and sculptor/monster designer John Humphreys to bring their version of the autopsy to life and sell it to the highest bidder.
This is where the story of the Alien Autopsy as a narrative experience really begins. Melaris claims that his approach to the faux recording consisted of striving for extreme period accuracy in both shooting equipment and setting while also planting subtle details that would initially seem like mistakes but could later be revealed to actually fit the time period. That being said, the filmmaker was under the impression that the short would be released for free as a PR stunt, with the team later producing and selling an informative documentary chronicling exactly how the footage was faked and commenting on how easy it is to manipulate public perception with a good old-fashioned magic trick.
This obviously isn’t how things went down, and that’s likely the reason why Melaris has since distanced himself from everyone else involved with the project. Yet, no amount of behind-the-scenes drama can undermine the genuine effort that went into making the short as impressive as it is. From the sourcing of real animal organs from a local butcher to make the organic part of the creature more lifelike to the highly detailed sculpt that made use of a hollowed-out underlayer that could be filled with fake blood and assorted viscera, there’s a reason why so many Hollywood specialists are still impressed with the artistry on display here.
Of course, the believability is only half the story, as I think that the best part of the autopsy is how Melaris builds on the existing tension by obscuring certain details and often embracing the chaos of what a real examination of extraterrestrial life could feel like. The camera often goes out of focus at just the right time to make certain effects hit even harder, and we can only speculate as to what the hazmat-suited doctors are gesticulating about during the operation. There’s a real air of mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a cosmically terrifying, cursed film containing forbidden knowledge that civilians were never meant to see.
So when Fox’s Fact or Fiction brings in the specialists to comment on the film and its otherworldly subject, it’s no surprise that we end up with one of the most memorable mockumentaries of all time – albeit one where the participants are unaware that the footage they’re commenting on is basically a large-scale practical joke. A joke that the network was obviously in on, as many participants claim that the TV special cut out significant portions where guests point out that they believe the footage to be an elaborate hoax.
The Lasting Impact of the Hoax Turned Cultural Event
Regardless, I remember going to bed terrified after watching reruns of the special and thinking about the respected pathologist who claimed that the body was almost certainly inhuman, with even effects maestro Stan Winston commenting on how difficult it would be to recreate some of these visuals through practical puppetry. That’s not even mentioning Jonathan Frakes’ dramatic hyping up of the disturbing imagery as if he was talking about the tape from The Ring, with his spooky demeanor here likely being responsible for his later role as the host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction a few years later.
Personally, I’d argue that the Alien Autopsy phenomenon had just as much of an impact on me as a horror fan as The Blair Witch Project, a film that was almost certainly influenced by the success of this immensely popular hoax (to the point where they even produced their own TV special commenting on Heather’s found footage). Even if Fox didn’t intend to produce a narrative feature about the aftermath of the Roswell crash, the end product still holds up remarkably well as a highly entertaining mockumentary exploring the idea that we may not be alone in the universe.
While neither Santilli nor the rest of the production team has ever commented on this, I also think it’s very likely that the idea of a faux Alien Autopsy could have been influenced by Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape/UFO Abduction. I’ve already written about how this granddaddy of found footage was co-opted by rogue ufologists who began selling bootlegs of the tape at conventions as if it were real evidence of a close encounter, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that Santilli and company could have heard about this phenomenon and been inspired to come up with their own highly profitable hoax.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that the Alien Autopsy film is recreating any real footage from Roswell, but I can still appreciate the short and the accompanying television event as a standalone horror story that still influences the way we see found footage to this very day.
After all, the possibility that something could be real is often much scarier than finding out for sure – and that’s why I think Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is still worth revisiting three decades down the line.
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