The X Files and Gabrielle Rose

Stumbled across the first season of The X Files in a thrift store today and picked it up almost out of curiosity, because, given the hours I invested in the show in the 1990's, there's a curious void left in my mind, a lack of impression, like I've forgotten why I ever followed it devotedly. Watching the first two episodes tonight didn't do much to enlighten me, though for light entertainment, it was certainly not much worse than, say, watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Part of my amusement  - besides trying to pin down Vancouver locations - was seeing how goofy and naive the series seems, how it's not much more sophisticated than the monster-of-the-week exploits of Carl Kolchak - a silly, slight thing, nowhere near as gripping as I found it twenty years ago; post 9/11, the conspiracy theories they roll out all just seem so innocent, so childish, so lacking in gravitas or believability that one can only chuckle...

The highlight of the evening was watching the second episode, "Deep Throat," and discovering it co-stars Vancouver actor Gabrielle Rose, as a woman whose husband - an experimental jet pilot - suffers a strange breakdown and is mysteriously "taken" by government agents. She gives an intense, memorable performance, which I nonetheless had completely forgotten, though I knew who she was when I first saw it. After she turns to Mulder and Scully for help, her husband is returned in a changed state, and - the meat of the role, acting-wise - she presents the familiar Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers "that's-not-my-husband" trauma in such a way that you believe her character, Anita Budahas, is on the edge of a breakdown. Acts the hell out of the part, she does - a neurotic powerhouse performance that goes so far in eclipsing what's around it that it borders on being too much. (She also manages, with all her twitching and quivering, to be quite sexy; or maybe that's just me). I was surprised that I'd completely forgotten her appearance; fans of hers should check the episode out (no doubt there's a way it can be watched for free online somewhere). Note that Rose also appears in Season 2, Episode 2, "The Host", in an entirely different role, so apparently the production team was impressed by her, too; that's the episode with the human flukeworm, and I actually do remember her appearance (if only slightly)...