Having never watched it, I don't know, but I assume most everyone else does: was this episode a crossover from that "Strange Luck" show? The premise seemed familiar; was this the guy from it?
At the beginning of this episode, the text identifies the location as Chicago. However, when the baddies drag Weems onto the roof, you can clearly see that it's the L.A. skyline (specifically, the First Interstate Bank Tower).
I knew that ever since the Millenium episode, they'll have some problems putting dates on succeeding episodes. ;-) Now they're just putting time aren't they?
Loved the reference by Scully to "Wiley Coyote" :-) That's exactly what I thought when Henry got out of the hole.
Well, I liked this episode and would probably review the tape for nits 'coz I missed them first viewing.
was this episode a crossover from that "Strange Luck" show? The premise seemed familiar; was this the guy from it? Man, you said it. Character was the only survivor of a plane accident, good luck ever since. But the actors are different, and the character in "Strange Luck" was named "Chance" something.
As for lucky characters, the best example is from Ringworld by Larry Niven, where he gave a character the ultimate psychic power: Author Control. Teela brown actually had the genes for good luck! This gave Niven an excuse to do anything he wanted with her (at one point, she escapes a funnel storm by banging her head on her flycycle controls and hitting the right ones by accident!).
Aaaargh! At the end, they talk about how long the odds are that Patrone would be the exact right blood type. Now, you can't calculate the odds after the event that way. After the event, the odds are 1:1. To claim beating the laws of statistics, you have to predict that the improbable event will happen before it does.
I'm still unclear why his luck only blinked out, and didn't run out. Was his run of bad luck only one incident, then he began another run of good luck?
Mark: Mr. Weems' "run of bad luck" wasn't a run of bad luck at all: Scully beat him after he left so that Mulder would conclude that Mr. Weems' luck had run out. Thus he would chase after Weems to try to get Weems and protect him. Thus Weems was approached from two fronts (Mulder and the mob enforcer), forcing him into the road and to be hit by a bus. This would not kill him but it put the chain of events into place to get the boy the kidney.
And just to let you know, the mob boss's hand in poker was:
K K 2 4 7
Need I say more?
Muncie, IN nit. Mr. Weems says that he doesn't want to wind up in the witness protection program on some farm in Muncie, IN. Since I am from Muncie, let me say that the only farms are located outside of the city (i.e. "in the country"). No, I don't consider this a "slander against Indiana" (see the board "Voyager's Slander Against Indiana"). I had the closed captioning on but I didn't see if they spelled the name of my hometown right or not.
Anonymous and Mark Morgan, the answer is "no". This was not a crossover with "Strange Luck". The main character of SL was Chance Harper and he once mentioned a FBI agent named Mulder. See The Kitchen Sink - Crossover Madness for details. Yes, this episode's details were very similar to SL.
Nit. The jaundice makeup on Richie was very bad and fake looking.
-12-
Maybe I'm crazy, but IIRC, the first hitman kicked open Weems's door. A little while later, when the second hitman comes for him, the door has been repaired. Who would have done this? Weems was the super: you'd think it would be his job, but he wasn't around to do it.
I don't understand why Weems didn't want to buy a lottery ticket for the large jackpot. Wouldn't that payout be enough to pay for the kid's treatment?
To Anonymous Re: why Weems didn't want to keep the lottery ticket or the jackpot for the treatment.
The payout was in like, eight thousand dollar installments over time. Weems needed the money in a lump sum, right away.
In Strange Luck, Chance Harper finally locates his brother Eric, who turns out to be the victim of a government conspiracy involving germ warfare and has to flee at the end. In a letter to Chance, Eric tells him that if he ever hears anything strange about him that doesn't sound right, to get in touch with a friend of his - an FBI agent named Mulder!
This is for those of you that wondered about a SL/XF crossover due to this episode.
Donna, Anon is talking about the $20M jackpot.
Weems didn't want that one because he didn't want to be greedy. Remember, he kept on saying "I only need $100,000."
-12-
My understanding of why Weems didn't want extra money was that this would be exploiting more "good luck" than he needed (in this case, $100,000 for the boy's kidney). In using his good luck, bad luck always befell someone else, and so using more than he needed was something to be avoided.
Also, yeah, Weems never fell into a bad luck streak (at least, assuming Mulder is correct about everything, which I think he is supposed to be). His being hit by the truck was actually good luck in that he got to see Ritchie arrive and know the situation was dire. (This seems forced, I think I'm forgetting something.) And the "bad luck" of the mother being abducted of course turned out to be the impetus to Weems going to the mobster, and the mobster's eventual death (and kidney match-up). It was all good luck, all along.
Not a nit on the episode's part, but was this episode really about "a force with the power to kill", as the commercial claimed? I guess I can see it, but it's a bit of a stretch. Still, I'd rather see them mislabel episodes than give away parts of the ending (c.f. "Biogenesis")
. Actually, I think that this is one of the best of this season. I thought the best part was Scully's reaction to the Pediatrician's sign blinking out to say "R I CHI E."
. However, is it really plausible that knocking out the transformer in the basement of *one* building would cause power damage throughout Chicago/Los Angeles?
-- Aaron --
Being a fan of Old-Time Radio, I remember that on one of Bob Hope's programs, he had this catch phrase: "I don't know. Just lucky, I guess." This was used in the most improbable conversations. "Say, Bing, how come we haven't made a picture lately?" "I don't know. Just lucky, I guess." That line echoed through my head the entire time this show was on.
This was a cute, whimsical show that explored similar territory (but with a different-style gimmick) to "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose". The acting was mixed. I thought the guy playing Weems was great, but the mobster types were pretty poor. It's interesting that this show can be cute and whimsical, and still get away with as much death as say, "Fresh Bones".
Apparently, the X-Files team are going whole-out to represent all of their various genres. We've had "bizarre fantasy" ("Amor Fati"), "conspiracy time" ("The Sixth Extinction"), "teens in peril" ("Rush"), and now "little fellow with strange secret" in this episode.
Nice job on circumventing expectations--At no time did Weems turn unlucky nor did he die nor did he become greedy.
Finally, the X-Files has been very good at doing "What the devil is going on here?" openings. I totally misidentified the scenario for "Millennium", "Rush", and now "The Goldberg Variant".
Nit
*How did Henry Weems, super to a low-grade apartment building, get into a high-stakes mob game?
Nitpicking the Nitpickers: the organ the boy needs is the liver, not the kidney.
*How did Henry Weems, super to a low-grade apartment building, get into a
high-stakes mob game?
Just lucky, I guess.
BTW, I liked the opening scene with 4 well dressed mobsters at a card table and Weems wearing a drab shirt and windbreaker. I realy like the contrast.
It is impossible, I guess, to nitpick any Plot Oversights for this episode, since any so incidences would be affected by Henry Weems' "super luck".
In fact, you could say that all the episodes before (and maybe after) this were also affected by the luck in order to get Mulder and Scully alive and well for this episode.
I'm wondering how a man who's "off the map" could get a job as a building super. Or make an appointment to replace a glass eye.
I don't know. Just lucky I guess.
Boy I wish this show would get their skylines right.
I also think it's nice that everyone likes Henry's gadgets so much that they leave them set up at all times. Getting them back to start has got to be a big job!
How is it that Henry's glass eye moves naturally, like a real eye?
I loved the look on Mulder's expression, when Henry took off his patch to replace his glass eye.
He looked quite unnerved- meanwhile Scully was probably thinking about how good pizza sounded, right then....
My nitpicks are as numerically proceeds:
1) I was not aware glass eyes could be so fully moveable? You already indicated this, Kellkan.
2) How intelligent is it to pick up a plausible clue or form of evidence and get your fingerprints all over the item? Special Agent Fox Mulder does so when discovering the glass eye. It simply seems unlike the FBI to do such an action.
3) I, too, noticed the dubious nature of one building's electrical disruptions affecting the entire Chicago area. You already indicated this, Aaron. Happy holidays!
When I was watching this episode, I myself had some guesses as to what would happen. They turned out horribly wrong. But I would like to point one of them out. The luck guy, Weems, draws a card for Mulder in the hospital before leaving (this is the card that Scully beats). The card drawn is the King of Hearts. This card is the well known "suicide king". I took this to indicate that something bad was going to happen to Weems. It would have been a nice touch. Unfortunatly, the plot turned a different direction. Oh well.
) I, too, noticed the dubious nature of one building's electrical disruptions affecting the entire Chicago area.
It's simply part of Weems' luck.
I think I see now why Niven called luck the ultimate psychic power: Author Control. Do whatever you want in the story; as long as it is only improbable, and not impossible, you can get away with it.
How do you nitpick this episode? Grrrr....
The whole "luck" thing reminds me of some bhuddist story I probably heard on an episode of "Kung Fu"-
It starts with something that seems like bad luck, which turns out to be good luck, which turns out to be bad...etc. The meaning seems to be that every action creates multiple consequences, and the only way to judge wether or not something is actually "good" luck or "bad" luck is what happens last, and how your attitude deals with it. I know, pretty vague. I'm sorry I can't remember the story. maybe Mark knows it and will tell.
Writer for The X-Files gives granny the willies
MUNCIE - Consider this Part 2 in a two-part Side Remarks Meets
The X-Files.
Side Remarks last week reported that Muncie was mentioned on a
Dec. 12 television broadcast of The X-Files, the Fox network's sci-fi
drama. A character resisting the notion of being put in a witness
relocation program tells FBI agents Scully and Mulder, "I'm not letting
you people move me to Muncie, Ind., to milk cows."
Martha Jackson of Muncie let us know the origin of the line.
Her grandson, Jeff Bell, is a scriptwriter for the TV show. He grew up
in Indianapolis, the son of former Muncie resident Jo Anne Jackson
Bell and the late Dwaine Bell, both graduates of Ball State University.
Now living in Los Angeles, Jeff Bell has written scripts for four
episodes of The X-Files, including the show that will air Jan. 23.
"The first time I saw The X-Files, it was the gooiest, weirdest thing,"
Mrs. Jackson said with a chuckle. "I thought, ÔWhat's my grandson
doing writing for this?ÕÊ"
In the same episode that he made the Muncie reference, Jeff used his
grandfather's first and middle names - Maurice Albert - as the name
of the store clerk who sells a winning lottery ticket.
http://www.thestarpress.com/news/0109sideremarks.html
I also am a Ball State graduate. Go, Jeff Bell!
When the baskektball gadget whirred into action at the end, I thought the final frame was going to be the ball missing, as Weems had achieved his goal of getting the boy a new liver.
The episode reminded me a bit of the luck virus, which first appeared in Red Dwarf's fifth season.
"Luck Thing"
The Story went.
(To every event a wise man said "Whose to say what is good or bad" It's a Taoist thing)
Man Loses horse.
Horse returns with herd of wild horse
Son breaks leg taming horses.
General passes son for army becase of injury.
---
I don't understand why Weems didn't want to buy a lottery ticket for the large jackpot. Wouldn't that payout be enough to pay for the kid's treatment?
---
Yes, but
a) it would attract too much attention to him, he'd basically gone off the grid to stay out of the way after the plane crash, if only to avoid people who'd want to know why he survived and not their friends or relatives;
b) I got the feeling that the amount of luck he experienced would be inversely felt by someone else. As the odds of winning the lottery were likely much longer than the scratch card, he didn't want to inflict that level of bad luck on someone else.
---
The card drawn is the King of Hearts. This card is the well known "suicide king".
---
And he beat it by drawing the Ace of Spades - which IIRC is known as the "death card".