Even though this episode aired almost twenty years ago as I write this, doesn't it seem like the computer technology represented in the story look almost ancient compared to today? That's what's striking if you follow the progress of visionary writers and TV programs from, let's say the Fifties until the present day. There was a Twilight Zone episode titled 'The Old Man in the Cave' that featured a room sized computer basically handling the complexity of computations that an average calculator could handle today. Similarly, when the original 'Star Trek' aired in the mid-Sixties, huge computers on-board the Enterprise were often shown doing the same thing, whereas now, you have your average laptop that can put that technology to shame.
Anyway, the story here is about a subversive visionary named Donald Gelman (Patrick Keating), who never survives beyond the teaser of the story, but has developed a form of artificial intelligence now run amok on the internet with the ability to target programming antithetical to itself. It's a neat plot device, and makes for an interesting but highly implausible story, at least for the late Nineties.
Did you ever notice how obnoxious Scully can get with the appearance of another woman on the scene? I don't think she had to worry much about the Invisigoth (Kristin Lehman), even after the Lone Gunmen fell all over each other upon recognizing her real identity of Esther Nairn, a legend in the techno world for her work in AI programming. Scully softens up somewhat when Esther breaks down upon learning of the death of her mentor Donald Markham, a collaborator in AI along with her and Gelman.
The story had me for a minute when Scully displayed those awesome martial arts moves to take out a handful of evil nurses, making me wonder why we never saw those before, and then we had the answer. It was really a virtual reality Scully going Kung-Fu commando, while Mulder himself had to deal with the missing arms. Those were some pretty cool effects.
So with the subversive AI threatening to blow up just about anything in it's way, Invisigoth manages to find a way to upload her essence to a place one can only guess at, that place of rapture that can only be conceived by brains far outsized to us mere mortals. For Esther, it was a reunion in the ether where she could be together once again with her mentors, at last at twilight time.
Anyway, the story here is about a subversive visionary named Donald Gelman (Patrick Keating), who never survives beyond the teaser of the story, but has developed a form of artificial intelligence now run amok on the internet with the ability to target programming antithetical to itself. It's a neat plot device, and makes for an interesting but highly implausible story, at least for the late Nineties.
Did you ever notice how obnoxious Scully can get with the appearance of another woman on the scene? I don't think she had to worry much about the Invisigoth (Kristin Lehman), even after the Lone Gunmen fell all over each other upon recognizing her real identity of Esther Nairn, a legend in the techno world for her work in AI programming. Scully softens up somewhat when Esther breaks down upon learning of the death of her mentor Donald Markham, a collaborator in AI along with her and Gelman.
The story had me for a minute when Scully displayed those awesome martial arts moves to take out a handful of evil nurses, making me wonder why we never saw those before, and then we had the answer. It was really a virtual reality Scully going Kung-Fu commando, while Mulder himself had to deal with the missing arms. Those were some pretty cool effects.
So with the subversive AI threatening to blow up just about anything in it's way, Invisigoth manages to find a way to upload her essence to a place one can only guess at, that place of rapture that can only be conceived by brains far outsized to us mere mortals. For Esther, it was a reunion in the ether where she could be together once again with her mentors, at last at twilight time.