The X-Files – RM9SBG93ZXJZ

By: Kelly Kearney

What do you do when your creation turns on you? It’s a question that’s been asked in one way or another since The Monster destroyed Dr. Frankenstein. Now, centuries later and with the invention of smart technology, A.I. and automation RM9SBG93ZXJz poses the question, if we are the teachers of technology can technology be our ultimate downfall?  If you’ve been mulling over the idea of buying one of those convenient robot vacuums, after this terrifying techie episode you might want to invest in a broom… or a life off the grid entirely.

Silent sushi dates

In what would be considered a stylistic risk, “The X-Files” delivers an almost completely silent peek at what a war with robots would look like and it all beings, of all places, on Twitter. In the opening and one of the only moments of dialogue in the entire episode, we learn about an experiment to turn an artificially intelligent female Twitter bot into a self-aware human-like companion. The bot started out like all humans do, innocent and eager to learn but after three years on social media, its human interactions turned into a despicable replica of the far-right trolls it learned from. This bot was created to learn from us, but all it learned was how to get a lifetime Twitter block, a true technological fail. Once separated from its human tiki-torch waiving friends, the A.I. disappeared into the information highway just waiting to teach others its ways.

Cut to Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) dressed in their date night casuals and out for a night of sushi at a local automated restaurant. Taking the conveyor belt sushi idea to the extreme this restaurant is completely run by robots, smart phones and tablets. After pulling up the menu on the restaurant’s iPad, Mulder and Scully choose their meals and silently scan their phones for news and online games. Of course, both keep getting interrupted by pop up ads for the restaurant and requests to follow their social media accounts, making it difficult for Scully to read her news article on Elon Musk’s out-eviling Kim Jong Un. It’s an annoyance we have all come to live with and Mulder and Scully are no different. They swipe the ads away as their food is delivered through what can only be described as a sushi vending machine. Scully’s sushi is perfect, but Mulder’s is all wrong and resembles some kind of hybrid Mulder/Alien/clown fish. Scully bursts into giggles and takes a selfie of Mulder with his fish fail right before he decides to head into the kitchen to complain about his order. Only, the kitchen is run by robots and they’re not exactly chatty or helpful with Mulder’s “blobfish,” as he calls it. Dinner is a bust so Mulder inserts his credit card into the payment machine at their table and hits the “No Tip” option. Not tipping your server is a definite no-no in the restaurant industry and it appears robot restaurants are no different. Who doesn’t like to be rewarded for a job well done?

Don’t forget to tip your robot wait staff

After refusing the tip, Mulder’s credit card gets stuck in the payment machine and it’s not long before the lights go out and sirens blast a warning about doors locking. The two jump up, leaving the credit card behind and manage to make it outside just in time for Scully’s driverless Whipz (think Uber in a Tesla) ride home. At this point, it’s starting to become clear that the nasty A.I. from the intro has taught the entire “smart” world a thing or two about vengeance. If only Mulder would’ve thrown that robot chef a 20% bone, maybe his car wouldn’t be confusing his musical tastes and Scully wouldn’t be on a driverless death ride through the streets of D.C. No matter how many times Mulder asks for Prince from his play list it keeps playing Crosby, Stills and Nash and Scully screams at the Whipz to slow down. The tech devices do as they please and ignore their human handlers. Finally, Scully makes it home in one piece but before the Whipz opens the door it asks her to rate their service. After her terrifying joy ride, she gives the service a resounding “never again” and the doors to the car open as she heads inside her home. Now, I’m not sure when Dana Katherine Scully became the next Kardashian, but the FBI must be paying top dollar for her medical/UFO hunting skills because Scully’s house looks right out of the pages of Architectural Digest. The palatial home is decked out in state of the art technology from the alarm system to the in-house music and even comes equipped with an obnoxious life coach offering diet tips. It’s I.T. heaven, only her alarm system doesn’t seem to be working and won’t recognize her password which happens to be her old dog’s name QueeQueg! Nothing is going right in Mulder and Scully’s world, not passwords, not customer service representatives at Bigly Credit and not the random Robot Vac that arrives by drone the minute Scully knocks over a glass jar full of bath beads. Things go from bad to worse when Mulder is on endless loop with Bigly’s customer service and notices an army of drones stalking him outside the window. After swatting the drones away with a baseball bat, hundreds of them converge on his house and Fox is starting to realize that our user-friendly world isn’t so friendly after all. At the same time, Scully’s house is becoming A.I. possessed. With blasting music, blaring alarms and a refrigerator that’s shooting ice cubes like bullets, it’s clear her only option is to escape the house. Not to mention, her Robot Vac is mapping her home coordinates and dragging her sex toys out from beneath the bed! It is complete mayhem at both houses and luckily, Mulder shows up at Scully’s just in time to rescue her from an explosive gas leak, courtesy of her angry smart home. If only these two would’ve been nicer to their sushi chef and driverless death rides they wouldn’t have been in this predicament.

Teach the children well

After escaping the small explosion at Scully’s, the duo tries calling the fire department, but of course their smart phones are on the frtiz. With the army of drones tailing them, they run to a neighbor’s house, but again the security cameras are working against them and nobody hears their calls for help. Without many options, “Sculder” takes off on foot towards a warehouse that appears to be some sort of gun manufacturer run completely by automation. This is not really the best place to wind up when the electronic world wants you dead, but Mulder and Scully are fresh out of luck…like always.

The robots stalk and chase them as drones swoop down out of the sky in full on attack mode and its clear they’re being tracked through their devices. Hoping to confuse the bots, they both ditch their phones and just in case, Scully’s personal massager she randomly sh0ved in her pocket back at the house. Unfortunately, the vibrating sex toy buzzes to life and alerts the killer bots to their location and the look on Mulder’s face, says it all; he can’t believe Scully’s fun time toy just outed their hiding spot. Next thing they know the automated machines in charge of making bullets start shooting ammo at the duo, sending them both to the ground for cover. The barrage of bullets ends when the machine runs out of ammo, but the drones and bots are still closing in. That’s when the lab door swings open and in rolls a robot holding Mulder and Scully’s ditched phones. The human like bot reminds Mulder he has 10 seconds to leave the sushi chef a tip. As the clock winds down, Mulder reluctantly presses the 20% icon and the entire attack stops. When reality sets in, Mulder turns to Scully and says, “We have to be better teachers,” and relieved she nods in agreement. If only they would’ve been nicer than this near-death dinner date would’ve ended on a far more peasant note, personal massager NOT INCLUDED (hint, hint)!

The following morning, Mulder and Scully are at a local diner, employed with an actual human wait staff, and it seems they haven’t learned from last night’s mistakes. Both silently glued to their phones, Scully realizes the lack of conversation is directly related to her addiction to the very technology that just tried to kill them and it actually has an off button! Rather than reading the morning news, she decides to spend her breakfast enjoying her partner’s company. She unplugs and leans into Mulder prompting him to do the same. Flirtatiously smiling, Mulder pays the bill, making sure to double tip this time and the two hold hands, finally appreciating each other without the smart world coming between them. As the camera scans back from the two happy partners? couple? (that’s an X-File all its own) it’s clear the theme of this story is warning to us all. Human invention will always lead to the path of progress, but without kindness and morality those inventions can drag us down the road to destruction. Our creations depend on us as much as we on them, it’s a relationship we all walked into blindly. So, the next time you’re crafting an epic smackdown Tweet or you’re disappointed in how your neighborhood barista spells your name on that designer latte, remember THEY ARE WATCHING!  The world might be better off skipping the Twitter take down and offering that barista a hefty tip with a smile because the energy we put out into the world tends to come back to us like a boomerang. If you take anything from this eerily brilliant episode, let it be this; be kind to one another and like the song says, “Teach the Children Well.”