In a week when some poor deprived sibliren <snerk> were still suffering
from vagina envy, there came an episode brought to you by the makers
of Penis Envy Incorporated. So timely was this coincidence that the
members of the list promptly engineered a full-scale Battle of the Sexes
involving Xena, Donna Martin and not Roseanne. Many tickets were sold,
and many files were lost. It has come to be known as the Tragedy of the
Power (of Womanhood) Button. Long may the deceased live on in our
hearts.

Aderyn: What on earth are you on about now?
Skull: I was drawing a subtle parallel between the events of the episode
and the situation on the list. What, that didn't come across?
Aderyn: It sounded like you'd overdosed on an illegal substance.
Skull: You mean testosterone?

The X-File in the Gibson spectacular "First Person Shooter" involved a
really, really bad computer game. So dull was this action-adventure
platform entertainment that our beloved agents were called in to spice it
up a little. Helping them out were our favourite geeks, The Lone Gunmen
(now with real guns) and a few chicks, none of whom was named
Roseanne. This seemingly innocent premise soon turned into a wild
hormonal battle between the testosterone camp, the estrogen brigade
and Frohike. Personally, I rooted for Frohike.

Aderyn: I'll bet you did.
Skull: Hey, watch it wench. Don't forget that the beautiful Rania sent me a
tape this week. I have now seen "Millennium" through "Closure", and am
in a decidedly neenerish mood. Don't make me get ugly.
Aderyn: You don't need any help with... uh, I, I, I mean, yes Skull, sure
Skull, you're the greatest Skull...
Skull: That's better. Here, pick the lint off this sweater wouldja?

The aforementioned estrogen brigade consisted of Phoebe, whose
weapons arsenal consisted of odorous felines; Jade Blue Afterglow, the
evil twin of Lara Croft; Xena, the evil twin of Jade Blue Afterglow;
Maitreya, the evil twin of Xena; Scully, the little redhead who can kick her
own ass thanks very much; and not Roseanne.

Aderyn: What is with the name Jade Blue Afterglow? I mean, I won't even
touch Afterglow, but *Jade Blue*? Somebody needs to get the girl's
parents a colour wheel, pronto.
Skull: I know. But what's *really* disturbing is if you think about the
connotations of someone being jade blue during afterglow. I mean, it
must have been pretty good if they...
Aderyn: Stop riiiight there. You are NOT proceeding with that train of
thought. We had enough gross death stuff to deal with in Orison.
Skull: Death stuff? I didn't say anything about death stuff. I only meant
that if they turned a vibrant colour, it must have been a fairly impressive
experience - what did you think I meant?
Aderyn: Never mind.
Skull: ...oh. You're twisted.
Aderyn: Thanks.

This episode was a tough ordeal for our man's-man-with-a-side-order-of-
hair-gel Mulder. Not only did he get his butt kicked by all the poor
defenseless maidens, but the side-effects of a retina scan sentenced him
to wear sunglasses at all times, which consequently caused him to be
pursued by the Geek Patrol, and his attempts at blowing up all the little
pixilated aliens produced only a couple of puddles of green goo.
Counterbalancing this, however, was his codpiece. Drool buckets were
thoughtfully provided by the establishment.

Aderyn: What's a codpiece? Is that some new pun for a trout?
Skull: I uh, think it's an um...protective piece of equipment for his, erm,
proboscis.
Aderyn: Oh. What ever happened to the teacup?
Skull: I think he may have outgrown it.
Apparently he was using the codpiece as a backpack, so...
Aderyn: <giggle>
Skull: What?
Aderyn: Did he pull his badge out of it and <giggle> *flash* it?
Skull: <giggle> Oh no. That would be *so* not tasteful.

On a high note, the episode contained not only KickAss!Scully, but also
Basic Instinct!Scully, NinjaTurtle!Scully,
BeatingTheCrapOutOfMulder!Scully, and TankRiding!Scully.

Aderyn: Now now, Skull, let's not get into NC-17 territory here.
Skull: You've got a dirty mind.
Aderyn: As opposed to you, who gets it vacuumed regularly.

Happily for the members of the OBSSE, Scully was finally established as
a goddess during this episode. Her immortal powers included an
automatic floof setting on her blow dryer (just add water), the ability to
transform herself into Lara Croft when faced with a block of wood and a
too-tight shirt, and an amazing talent for scratching corpses in all the
itchy places.

Short of funds due to some lawsuit or other, the boys at 1013 have
recently found it necessary to cultivate another sponsor - Victoria's No
Longer Kept Secret. This company's fine products were for the most part
beautifully showcased during the episode, mainly by the lovely Maitreya -
but in the case of the thong, it was nowhere to be seen.

Aderyn: Hey, check this out. Say "I'd like my meat rare" in a Texan accent.
Skull: Ah'd lahk mayuh mait reya...oh!
Aderyn: Cool, ain't it? But it might be misunderstood.
Skull: Yeah. People in Texas should be very careful to label their
restaurants and brothels accordingly.
Aderyn: Oh, definitely. Otherwise the meat might get spoiled.

As a reviewer, I found the most pleasing aspect of the episode to be the
sharp contrasts drawn between the male characters. In addition to
Mulder and his musketeers, there was the pumped-up Arnold
Schwartzenegger, the hubbies and boyfies of the 90210 girls, and of
course Peter Pan, the little boy who never grew up.

Aderyn: Wendy could have helped him out with that.
Skull: That's sick. But while we're on the subject, can you imagine Peter
Pan wearing a codpiece?
Aderyn: As a hat?

A disappointing conjuncture, from a shipper's point of view, was the lack
of tenderness between Mulder and Scully. The fact that they were
shooting the crap out of bad guys on an almost constant basis is
irrelevant - we don't need to *see* them doing the naked pretzel, we just
need to know that they *are*. A simple scene involving Mulder carrying
Scully up the stairs after opening a spaceship door for her would have
been sufficient.

Aderyn: Ack, don't torture me this way. Now if you'd said that Scully
carried Mulder up the stairs, threw him in the spaceship and locked the
freakin' door, that would have made me happy. Besides, that whole "man
carrying his babe over the threshold into a spaceship" thing is *so*
continuing the promotion of a patriarchal agenda.
Skull: Oh, like the subtext of the episode!

The hormonal antics that underpinned the episode somewhat predictably
ignited strong feelings amongst viewers. Allegations of sexism could
quite easily be brought against an episode where stereotypes were
perpetuated in such a brutal way. Gender identified characters
hobnobbed with loaded phallic symbols, but in an unexpected twist this
actually gave forth some interesting insight into the technogeared duo.
While Mulder played with and frequently dropped his rather pathetic
sword, Scully zipped around on a throbbing tank and blasted away any
mofo that came within firing distance.

Aderyn: Now that's what I call progress.
Skull: <sigh> Women's lib forever.
Aderyn: Actually, I don't quite understand the problem people are having
with this episode. I believe someone said that Scully should have
conquered the blokes using brain power. But wouldn't *that* be
perpetuating the stereotype? Seems to me that the whole basis of
women's lib is for guys and dolls to be treated equally. In this episode,
*both* genders got to senselessly shoot the living piss out of everyone in
sight. I'm a little confused - where exactly is the sexism here?
Skull: I think you'll find it somewhere up Maitreya's rectum.
Aderyn: Oh, gross! That is *disgusting*, even for you.
Skull: ...oh no no NO. I *so* didn't mean that. I was talking about the
thong. Really. Oh, God, that really *would* have been gross...and yet,
rather a clever double meaning, now that I think about it... damn! What
an opportunity lost.

All up, "First Person Shooter" was a dream. Not, I should stress, a good
dream, but a dream nonetheless. It was the ultimate wet dream for both
teenage boys and noromos. It was a horrific nightmare for anyone who
has played a computer game since the era of "Dungeons and Dragons".
And apparently, it was a disturbing insight into the head of our dear
Paula. So for her sake, it might be easiest to just pretend that this
episode never happened. Capiche?

Don't look for a review next week unless you want to be disappointed.
There's no new episode being shown, so we get a week off. Neener.


-end