X Files - Skinner Nanobotted!

 The episode, "S.R. 819", really has one hell of a hook! Watching a vascular-diseased Assistant Director Skinner with pulsing blood vessels all throughout his body while in the ER on a table dying right before his heart stops and the credits roll...that is quite a way to kick off your episode. And if you are a fan who wonders how the hell the show provides the route for Skinner to survive what looks like a body-ravaging disease, this episode gives us quite a doozy! The return of damned Krycek, disguised in long, scraggly hair, looking like someone out of an alley after a meth binge, emerges with this device attached with a screen pen he uses remotely controlling nanotechnology purposely poisoning Skinner in order to control him. Later, once Krycek resurrects a dead Skinner, whose heart was stopped by the device and then "rebooted", he tells the Assistant Director he'll keep in touch. So the episode leaves another hook: Krycek holds Skinner's life in a device in his control. At any point and time, Krycek can make a demand and if Skinner tells him to fuck off, this remote device can be "triggered up" to stop the guy's heart through the nanotechnology inside the body. Mulder and Scully, under a different boss in AD Kersh, work so hard to find an answer as to what is killing Skinner, are told to quit investigating and return to their previous duties, none the wiser! This entire episode, Mulder and Scully both race against time to help him. And three weeks after Krycek resurrects Skinner literally from a coronary, Mulder and Scully are told to move on. I can only imagine how frustrating that would be. There is even a dying Skinner, all diseased and worsening, telling Scully how sorry he was for not being the ally he could have been. And by the end, Skinner returns to that stone cold concealment and icy pushback distancing his former agents.

With the return of Senator Matheson, set to help sign a bill exporting technology to third world countries in relation to the World Health Organization, and a physicist named Orgel (Towey) who advises on ethics and technology. Orgel had met Skinner as he was going to his office, later determined to be a warning against the bill. Krycek's involvement in all of this is purposely vague, but the control over Skinner he has seems to be as dire as anything Cancer Man might wield against him. This is quite a bad state of affairs to find yourself: at the mercy of this maleficent, insidious known killer. There is always something up Krycek's sleeve. He's always working on an angle. The show kept Krycek around; he's too useful as someone Mulder fans love to detest. He's a great villain, though. Cancer Man might be at the top, but Krycek is right up there with him.

This is one of two Skinner episodes I wanted to watch on Monday evenings. I like that Chris Carter made sure Skinner didn't just fade into the background until he was forgotten. I like that Mulder and Scully didn't always have to carry so much of the dramatic weight all the time. Having another character like Skinner in his hip pocket, Carter could give his writers and directors creative license to involve him in something worthwhile as well.

I wanted to mention that I couldn't help but grin at Skinner in a gym in a ring practice boxing with this muscled guy before his vision went blurry. The blurry vision POV is used and we spend a lot of time in parking garages in the episode. Cars threatening to plow folks. Kidnapped and killed scientists. Blackmailed and threatened senators. For a Skinner "race against time" thriller episode, I thought "S.R. 819" was quite a banger, though the outcome regarding his fate was never in doubt.