War of the Coprophages (3×12)
Episode Grade: B-
Original Air Date: January 5th, 1996
Writer: Darin Morgan
Director: Kim Manners
Notable Guest Stars: Tyler Labine, the poor man’s Jack Black who would later star on Reaper and Tucker & Dale Vs Evil, makes a brief appearance as a bleach-blond stoner.
Recap & Review: Behold the mighty cockroach! This one is pure old-fashioned B movie schlock with a nudge and wink by Darin Morgan. In a small Massachusetts town, cockroaches are on a murderous rampage. There’s also a beefy sheriff with a standard-issue mustache, some drug-addled teens, and sexy lady scientist or two.
After every murder, Mulder calls Scully…who always has a completely rational and reasonable explanation. As the bodies pile up, he follows a lead to a secret government research facility, which is run by a breathy-voiced entomologist named Bambi. She wears little shorts. It’s love at first sight for Mulder.
Bambi thinks that UFOs are actually phosphorescing insect swarms. She innocently asks Mulder if he knows anything about UFOs, and he’s so busy trying to prevent his massive boner from shredding his pants that he hangs up on Scully. The nerve of him!
The cockroaches turn out to have metallic exoskeletons and microprocessors. A wacky, wheelchair-bound scientist—who also happens to live in this small town—is working on bug-like AI robots. Mulder asks him to examine one of the metal roaches, and he’s astounded…and maybe a little bit afraid.
Scully finally gets on the scene. She tries and fails to diffuse a panic at a quickie mart, where citizens are looting (one fellow in a sailor suit steals a stack of chocolate bars and pantyhose). She thinks that yet another local scientist has accidentally introduced a new, invasive species of roach. Because he imports shit, literally. He studies methane gas, which means lots and lots of dung.
This scientist isn’t kidding when he said that bugs make him crazy. He’s paranoid, jittery, and waving a gun. Mulder tries to reason with the guy, but then Scully calls him on his cell phone. The scientist thinks the chirping proves that Mulder is, in fact, a giant cockroach. He shoots, and Mulder and Scully run from the warehouse just before it explodes.
Bambi and the AI doc hit off, and they walk/wheel off into the sunset, leaving Scully and a disappointed Mulder behind. She snarks on him so hard that it nearly gives him a nosebleed. At the end of the episode, Mulder types up his notes, in which he states that alien visitors would probably send mechanized AI probes to make first contact, and that those drones might just look like cockroaches. It doesn’t stop him from smashing a giant roach on his desk, though.
So I know that a lot of people love this episode, but…I didn’t enjoy it. I get it, but I thought that it was slow-moving, too tongue-in-cheek, and ultimately disappointing. Darin Morgan wrote some of my favorite episodes, and I just don’t think this one measures up. I think Morgan’s Scully is the best, and he obviously has a lot of fun ribbing David Duchovny. But this time, that didn’t add up to a satisfying story. According to Wikipedia, Morgan himself agrees with me: “The other day, my girlfriend was saying, ‘I never understood that episode,’ and I guess I don’t either. It was an episode that had a lot of what I thought were really good ideas and never quite got it to work. I was really disappointed with that episode. Some people love it.”
Nostalgia Vision 