Index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20
The Post-Modern Prometheus
Written and directed by Chris Carter
"When Victor Frankenstein asks himself 'Whence did the principle of life proceed?' and then as a gratifying summit to his toils creates a hideous phantasm of a man he prefigures the Post-Modern Prometheus. The genetic engineer whose power to reanimate matter – genes into life – us – is only as limited as his imagination is."
— Fox Mulder
An episode with a not-so-serious take on Frankenstein. Mulder and Scully are sent to rural Indiana after he receives a letter from a single mother who claims to have been mysteriously impregnated, while unconscious, by an unknown presence 18 years ago.
Tropes:
- All Just a Dream: It's been debated by several reviewers whether the episode's happy ending, or even the entire episode itself, ever actually happened.
- Animal Motif: People from the town look and act like certain animals. The reporter acts like a chicken, young Berkowitz looks like a pig and his room corresponds to that, his friends look like a goat, and so on and so forth.
- As Himself: Jerry Springer.
- Child by Rape: Played with. Mutato and his "grandfather" have been impregnating women by using his "father's" research and, implicitly, farm animal genetics after they're knocked senseless by gas. This is because he wanted a mate, but couldn't find one. While viewed sympathetically by Mulder and Scully, it was not only a crime they never arrest him for, but drastically undercuts his status as a "good" monster.
- Convenient Slow Dance: The final scene.
- Deliberately Monochrome: As an homage to the Frankenstein movies.
- Dramatic Thunder: Played for Laughs.
- Fanboy: Mutato is one of Mask, to the point he even plays Cher during his romantic escapades.
- Framing Device / Book Ends: A comic book.
- Frankenstein's Monster: The Great Mutato.
- The Grotesque: Mutato.
- Homage:
- To Universal Horror, Frankenstein in particular. It is filmed in black and white and comes complete with a hammy Mad Scientist, a gentle monster, and thunder and lightning whenever somebody says something dramatic.
- Mask also plays a major part.
- A lot of the episode's design work seems to be inspired by David Lynch: the prosthetics for Mutato look quite like the prosthetics for The Elephant Man's John Merrick (particularly given that The Elephant Man was also shot in black-and-white), while the diner set mimics the diner from Twin Peaks pretty closely.
- A monster who gives a dignified, even cultured, speech explaining himself to a crowd who came there to kill him? Is this The X-Files or Young Frankenstein?
- Mad Scientist: Dr. Pollidori.
- Postmodernism
- Real After All: The comic book character turns out to be a real mutant.
- Scooby Stack: Mulder and Scully sheepishly look into Izzy's room and the audience see only their heads.
- Shout-Out: Several to Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's book as well as the film — the Pollidori family are named after a friend of Shelley's whom she was on holiday with when she had the idea for the book, and the book's subtitle is "The Modern Prometheus".
- Slow Motion: During Mulder & Scully's dance at the end.
- Torches and Pitchforks: Deconstructed. An angry mob, many of whom are carrying torches, runs amok in a barn. It takes a generous five minutes for the place to catch fire.
- Who Writes This Crap?!: Mulder demands that the authors write a better ending.
