The X Files - Ghost in the Machine

While Ghost in the Machine isn’t directly linked to the extraterrestrial story arc with The Cigarette-Smoking Man, it does feature the defense department eyeing the chance to secure technological know-how that produces artificial intelligence in the form of COS (Central Operating System). Designed by a peculiar genius named Brian Wilczek (Rob LaBelle), it is directly responsible for the operations of a major skyscraper that provided the headquarters for a CEO who “downsized” the software program and Wilczek…and kills him! So the CEO gets a good “jolt” that knocks him for a loop (into a mirror ending his life) and the motive for doing so rests with Wilczek, considered a candidate because his baby was being “executed”. Wilczek, though, just doesn’t behave as someone so brazenly, boldly open to kill someone he’s reputed to despise. However, Mulder and Scully (when requested by Mulder’s former Crime’s Division partner to help him) determine later that his technology is to blame not necessarily him. Although the technology seems to be ideal for  great innovations in the future-present, in the wrong hands, COS could be responsible for weaponry and functions to kill. Mulder deduces that the government wouldn’t be able to control this artificial intelligence anymore than Wilczek. Mulder seeks intel from Deep Throat about the government’s interests in the AI, with answers that had already occurred to him. Scully is convinced (until her computer is hacked and later the building’s COS tries to “wind” her into a spinning fan in a ventilation system!) Wilczek is indeed the one to blame (he even signs a confession after Mulder’s agent friend is killed by the COS using a runaway elevator to do the damage). Mulder feels the COS needs to “die” and Wilczek (imprisoned after the agent’s death, taking place in the building his operating system controlled, going there to get information on details regarding the CEO’s death) could very well provide the virus needed to do the job. But will Mulder be able to implement the virus when the defense department (and the COS) isn’t so keen on its demise? Included is the slight subplot involving Mulder’s former partner, Jerry Lamana (Wayne Duvall), needing him to help on the case of the dead CEO, looking to lift his career out of the toilet after a disaster in Atlanta resulted in misplaced evidence and violence towards a judge. Lamana sees Mulder as his ticket out of the doldrums, but Scully soon observes how the desperate agent is a user and her partner is an enabler. Mulder’s hard profile work is stolen by Jerry right out of his office and touted as his own during a meeting with superiors, while Scully addresses such behavior with her partner. Mulder encourages (or tries) Lamana that he is a good agent who just needs a few good breaks to go his way. But this case is the end of him not a catalyst for career improvement…the COS makes sure of that. The ending has Mulder confronted by a defense department plant masquerading as an operations manager (Blu Mankuma), hoping to access the inner workings of the COS if Wilczek gives up the goods…Mulder is persuasive and more than willing to kill the COS, a “monster” needing to be poisoned with virus and “put to death”. To me, Ghost in the Machine is just a regular episode that fills in the expected (at the time) number to fill out the first season. I didn’t think it was all that bad (not as bad as some critical of it seemed to feel) but nothing to necessarily write home about, either. There have certainly been better stories on AI, but this was 1993 so the theory of such technology was considered and why not worked as a threat to our heroes on The X Files? Seemed reasonable to me…