Fearful Symmetry

This one strikes me as a really silly episode to follow Colony/End Game. I mean, now that we know alien clones are colonizing the planet, why would we care that they are abducting animals from a zoo (and only one zoo at that)? What are we to make of it? How exactly does this fit in with the aliens' plans? After finding out what he did in the last two episodes, why would Mulder come up with his abduction theory at all?

OK, let's work this out. Let's make this make sense. When aliens abduct women, they take their ova and use them to create hybrid babies. Why not do the same with other female animals as well? Well, I find it weird that they would try to hybridize themselves with so many animal species, but why not I guess. Maybe they are being taken for a different reason than hybridization. It's cute that Mulder suggests they are taken for some kind of 'Noah's Ark' type project, but the aliens are not that thoughtful. They are planning on taking over the planet after all. I don't buy that alien conservation bent for a second...



Also, why are they invisible when they are returned from the space ships? That doesn't happen when they abduct people!

And most importantly, how did the aliens manage to impregnate a male gorilla?

Ok, I'm being nit-picky again. I suppose it's probably very difficult to find a female gorilla suit. And also, couldn't they have found sound clips of actual animals making attacking noises? If none of the above challenged your suspension of disbelief, the crappy "grrr..yarghhgrrrr!" certainly did! Right?

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy...

Not even a lot of interesting M/S interaction either until the end when Mulder has been attacked by 'Sophie' the physiologically-male-but-not-in-this-show gorilla. Scully rushes to his rescue then fusses over his cut and that's about it.



So what am I going to do with this episode? Should I use it as a platform to talk about my personal stance on zoos? Danger Bay, as they say. Obviously that was part of the point of this episode. I think it did manage to illustrate both sides of the argument, but obviously it's a complicated issue and I'm not going to touch it. Both sides are right, both sides are wrong.

This one actually hit a little close to home, as my own personal favourite zoo has had an embarrassing run of bad luck, including several well-publicized animal deaths. I know my little zoo means well, but just isn't doing a very good job. If it were up to me, I'd fire everyone there and try to start from scratch. Particularly in the catering department, but that's a different story...

Too bad the animal rights guy here was such a douchebag; ordinarily I would have agreed with a lot of what he said. And he's not wrong when he told the agents about elephant culture, graveyards, etc. But when it comes to human lives, he's completely cold, so he was even pissing Scully off. How often do we see her just lose her temper like that? Mulder even tells her to calm down!



What did I like about the ep? Fun quotes:

M: I'd be willing to admit the possibility of a tornado, but it's not really tornado season. I'd even be willing to entertain the notion of a black hole passing over the area or some cosmic anomaly but it's not really black hole season either . . . If I were a betting man, I'd say it was . . .
S: An invisible elephant?
M: I saw David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear once.

And a random, pointless video conference with the Gunmen. Minus Langley, who doesn't like his face being broadcast; very paranoid, very funny :)



And aside from the nit-picky junk I already described, the worst part is the poor gorilla being hit by a car. It's so effing heartbreaking, even though that woman really shouldn't have been trying to keep 'her' just because she's emotionally attached... But at the same time, viewers can certainly identify with her absolute devastation. So sad.