SR 819 presents us with the great difference between the XF-Lite of early Season 6 and the more substantial, multi-layered show that you can, if you so choose, dig into for meaning.

Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and even Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn would never have become the classics they are if it weren't for the fact that they are multi-layered. They tell an interesting story on the surface, but beyond that lie layers of other, more weighty issues and themes. Those who only see the obvious narrative enjoy a well-told story, but the more adventurous reader is rewarded with the richer material that lies below the surface. SR 819 yields a good return on the digger's investment.

THE STORY AND THE TELLING

• The plot is particularly gripping here, both because it involves the possible/apparent death of AD Skinner, Mulder and Scully's only real ally at the Bureau, and because you spend the whole hour trying to piece together the evidence to figure out just who is behind this poisoning. Many tantalizing hints are given--though not too soon (remember, we are quite a good distance into the story when Skinner remembers seeing the long-haired, bearded man.)
• Mark Snow's score was particularly well-suited to this episode; he has a talent for weaving in music that enhances the story almost without our being conscious of it. He understands how to undergird suspense with music--not overwhelm it--and he also knows when to forego the music entirely.
• The lighting, as has been mentioned, was also very effective, particularly the bluish tones in the parking garage. Krycek's head coming out of the shadows of the back seat only to be bathed in that nearly colorless glow gave him the shock value of a villain you might meet in a comic book's deepest horror  (Unfortunately, this is also reflective of the increasing tendency on the part of the writing staff to reduce the more fully-developed and nuanced character Nick Lea created during Seasons 2-5 to a stereotypical caricatured villain, but that's another story--see more below.) 
• I especially liked the cadence of the first part of Skinner's opening monologue (the - / - / - / - / - / pattern of unaccented/accented syllables that, gathered into groups of ten, make up the iambic pentameter Shakespeare used to such advantage in his plays. This pattern has the ability to make words flow like water over rocks; go back and check that first part--up to "...what should be..." if you missed this.)

QUESTIONS: LOTS AND LOTS OF QUESTIONS
We were thrown many puzzle pieces here:

• Senator Matheson's involvement
• The nanotechnology (exactly what is it and where did it come from?  Does it derive from alien technology, given Krycek's involvement?)
• The Tunisian connection (we all remember where the movie ended)
• How was the poison delivered?  Was it the scientist Argell, or did Krycek do it himself when he brushed the boxer who later fought with Skinner in the gym?
• Who is Krycek working with or for this time?
• And what about Skinner himself? What role will he play now that Krycek has him under such total control? (Did anyone else notice the similarity between the box Krycek was using to control the poison inside Skinner and the controls to a remote-control toy? Effective image, I thought.)
• And where will Mulder and Scully be left without Skinner's access? 

As usual, we are given more puzzle pieces than are needed to complete the picture, but this, too, works to the story's advantage, because we are left not in a state of easy satisfaction but rather needing, like Mulder, to press ahead and find the truth. We are hooked, waiting to see what may unfold next, how the matter will resolve. I don't think this element of audience investment can be underestimated as a key factor of an effectively told story. If you've never seen the most recent movie version of A Secret Garden (it came out in 1993, I believe) rent it and check it out; you'll get a great lesson in the value of audience involvement. So many things in the movie are suggested rather than spelled out or laid in the audience's lap, from the inintial scene of Sarah standing in her bedroom in India, arms outstretched, waiting impatiently for the ayah to dress her. What a wealth of character is presented to us in that one, brief scene. We know Sarah in the stiffness of her posture, the petulant look on her face, her utter disregard for any but her own needs. But we have to do something to get this information: we have to observe, extrapolate, reason. Realizing that we see something here--something that has not been completely spelled out--is what involves us in the movie; we are drawn in as Sherlock Holmes to a mystery, eager for more. At which point we are hooked! I actually sat in a theater watching this movie and heard repeated oohs! of recognition from people in the audience who realized they were on to something. This, I remember thinking, is the way to tell a story. And this is what CC and company have done so much of over the course of six years. This is what makes the XF interactive; the total effect is a combination of investment on the part of the staff and crew combined with that of the audience.

TRUST AND PURPOSE
Outward action alone is never enough to make a story memorable. For a story to stay with us, we need something that ties the story to us, to our lives or to the situations we must face in the course of living. Skinner's opening monologue brings us the theme of purpose, and the often-conflicting elements of the smaller purpose we seem to need to survive (play the game to keep our job/pay the bills) set against the larger purpose of committing our lives to something ultimately meaningful. While this monologue goes a long way toward opening up the character of Walter Skinner, it also presents us with something we face ourselves:

"Who we are, who we forgive, who we defend and protect...To choose a side or to walk the line, to play the middle...To straddle the fence between what is and what should be: this is the course I chose, trying to find the delicate balance of interests that can never exist, choosing by not choosing, defending a center which cannot hold. So death chose for me."  Which of us is unaffected by the need to make these decisions? 

We have spent the better part of six years watching Walter Skinner and wondering--along with Mulder and Scully--exactly where he stands. At the beginning he seemed to be no more than a rubber stamp for the agenda of CSM, yet we gradually see a rebellion on Skinner's part from doing something he knows to be wrong in the deepest sense, starting with his placement of the No Smoking sign on his desk. In the Anasazi-Blessing Way-Paper Clip trilogy we are made to wonder again about his loyalties, but he comes through for Mulder and Scully in the end, and they return safely to their positions at the Bureau. As late as *Redux II, Scully is still questioning Skinner's loyalty and alliances, though Mulder has realized by this point that Skinner's outward loyalty to the powers-that-be within the Bureau (or to the shadow powers) is precisely what grants him the access to be able to help our agents behind the scenes, as we see demonstrated in *The Beginning, when Skinner tips Mulder to the case file on Jeffrey Spender's desk. In *SR 819 we see this issue of purpose from Skinner's perspective. He feels--with the clarity of near-certain death hanging over him--that he has never truly committed himself, that he has not been the kind of ally to Mulder and Scully that he should have or could have been, and that the path they have chosen in committing themselves to a larger quest is the one he should have followed himself. He also offers the viewpoint that those who live without a larger purpose ultimately die in vain. (He says all this to Scully, too, and how might this affect or possibly reinforce her own commitment to the quest she and Mulder are on? As a former play-by-the-book herself, Skinner's words have the potential to impact her deeply.)

A MUTATION OF ROLES
There are a number of subtle role mutations that add interest to this episode. I was struck immediately by the change from professional to personal in Mulder's initial approach to Skinner. With Skinner no longer his superior, Mulder feels free to just drop in and say hi. Yet as soon as he sees that Skinner seems unwell, Mulder takes up the protective cloak with which Skinner has sheltered them in the past, and he quickly enlists Scully to help him. Like experienced parents encountering the injured friend of a teenage son, they gently but firmly take control, checking him for injury, pressing him gently (Mulder uses that effective quiet voice again) to remember the sequence of events and how he might have come in contact with the man who poisoned him. Then Scully goes off to dig into the medical end of the mystery while Mulder accompanies Skinner to find the scientist Argell. Even at Argell's door, after the man has shut the door in their faces, we see this new relationship dynamic in Mulder's taking the lead and directing Skinner around to the back door. They are friends here, or more accurately, I think, they are both soldiers: Mulder, because his buddy is hurt, shoulders the load--takes the lead and directs Skinner to the secondary position.

I was struck both by the unflagging loyalty Mulder and Scully show toward Skinner throughout this episode, certainly going above and beyond the obligations of any sense of duty, and the careful way in which Mulder maintains Skinner's position throughout (demonstrating his own admiration for the man) by never stepping over the line of male protocol in his efforts to help. In the office, although Mulder is very concerned for Skinner, he doesn't push him to return to the hospital. He instead enlists Scully's help, which Skinner can accept more easily. He doesn't confront Skinner and insist that he remember what happened; he takes the lead (recounting the beginning of Skinner's day) and then gently continues to encourage. When Skinner wants to go off looking for Argell, Mulder doesn't tell him he's in no shape to do so (though this does appear to be the case); he goes with him. He supports, he fills in the gaps, much the same way he does for Scully in *Emily. Mulder's willingness and ability to play this in-the-wings role says something very positive about him as a human being, as well as speaking to the degree to which he has matured over the course of the show.

We also see a role shift between Mulder and Senator Matheson. Previously, Mulder has regarded the senator not only as an ally and a patron, but shows him the deference he would show to a father. In this episode, however, it becomes clear to him that the Senator is siding with the wrong parties. Mulder must surely experience a certain degree of disillusionment here, much as he did with Deep Throat in *E.B.E. when he discovers his investigation has been purposely detoured by the fake photograph. Originally, Mulder in his earlier (more innocent) incarnation accepted both these men as if they were fathers he could respect (in contrast to his own, who had failed him on many levels. Perhaps he has always been searching for a father-figure he could respect...) Senator Matheson, apparently, has counted on Mulder's naivete (how else could he stand in the power plant and claim, "You must be surprised to see me here" and "I'm a victim [in this]".) But Mulder is no longer the transparent young man he first met so many years ago, and the Senator shows that he has severely underestimated him. 

At the beginning of the series, Mulder wants so desperately to believe that he often swallows whatever is presented to him without appropriate caution. If you look back at his first contacts with Deep Throat, he is almost reverential toward the man. This may speak to his emotional need for an honorable father-figure as well as his need to find the information that will lead him to his sister. But it definitely leaves him vulnerable to manipulation. At a certain point Mulder becomes aware of his vulnerability--in FTF he is acutely aware of it--note how quickly he turns (on himself as well as Kurtzweil) when he decides Kurtzweil has been using him, and that his story about being a friend of his father's was a lie designed solely to gain his cooperation. We have seen this disenchantment happen at other times, too (the astronaut who was his boyhood hero in *Space). His reaction to these betrayals of his trust used to be almost a child's reaction--deep sadness and/or anger. But Mulder takes this latest betrayal in stride; I believe this is an indicator of emotional growth rather than just the cynicism that comes with greater exposure to the world.

There was another shift in the scene in Skinner's office. When Mulder suggests that Skinner may have been poisoned "to see who you'd turn to", Skinner immediately accuses Mulder of thinking this whole episode is about him. Mulder's susceptibility to guilt is well-known, yet I didn't get the sense that Mulder felt guilty over what had happened here, and this, too, represents significant growth for him. He has spent most of his life being all too willing to accept responsibility for whatever happened to those around him, and yet here I had the sense that his remark was simply a point of tactical analysis: Skinner having been more or less supportive of Mulder and Scully, this could have been a test to see if he was still allied to them--a probing for a weak link in the chain of power, a test of loyalty.

The most striking distinction in roles, though, is the subtle connection between Scully and Skinner. At the very beginning of the show the doctor announces that "there's an Agent Scully who should be notified", and this could be for the practical reason that Scully is a doctor. However, the connection itself is there, and what is more, we've seen it before. There is much speculation on exactly what this connection is, or how far it would go. My own take on this is that there is a mutual admiration between Skinner and Scully that comes from shared circumstances. Skinner has been a Marine; Scully grew up in a military family. Both are people who have taken to heart the military way of keeping the stiff upper lip, the sense of duty, and closing their own inner pain deep inside themselves where no one will see it. Both of them admire Mulder's talents and have had to work with him--or around him--in one way or another. Both have tried to make their way in life by doing something honorable within the system. This is a lot of common ground. I believe Skinner also cares deeply for both Mulder and Scully because of their devotion to their work, and because they have chosen, as he states, to follow a larger quest in a way that he has found himself incapable of doing. 

Beyond this, I believe Skinner is very much aware of how Scully deals with her partner--the way she can sense his emotional needs, the way she provides a tether to reality when his ideas threaten to take him up into the clouds, the way she stands up for him when other people would ridicule him. As with many other Vietnam vets, Skinner seems to be unwilling or unable to open up to others about his experiences (and for very good reasons, generally. Many vets who 'shared' their experiences found themselves scourged for doing so.) Remember that Skinner's wife described him as a very closed person. In this case, seeing in Mulder and Scully a partnership that works so well, and seeing a woman who seems so instinctively to understand this driven, intense man she works with, must be overwhelming to Skinner. In much the same way that we as the audience are often so impressed by the partnership--the unspoken, subconscious union between Mulder and Scully--I think Skinner must be similarly awed by seeing that there IS a woman who might understand a man such as himself. I don't believe he has any intention of acting on any of this; I believe he has too much respect for Mulder and Scully's partnership to attempt to break it up for any reason, but I think he looks at her and is reassured. 

CONCLUSION/RESOLUTION... OR NOT
The discovery that Skinner has not actually 'recovered', that he is not in fact free but, quite to the contrary, could find himself in mortal danger at the slightest whim of Alex Krycek, unties all the loose ends that seemed to be coming together. Mulder and Scully are surprised at his refusal to let them investigate further, though it's not the type of thing likely to hold back their curiosity for long. Skinner said what he had to say to stay alive, but he didn't sound convinced of the position he was espousing. True to form, CC answered one question (who was behind the poisoning) but left us with several new and pressing ones. But this is what happens in real life. Do we ever get to 'the end' of an experience with all the stray ends neatly tied up?

Besides the obvious merits this episode had on its own, its position within the season gave it even more impact, coming as it did after an extended (or very much overextended, depending on how you see it) series of fantasy/comedy episodes. What a relief to see Mulder, not on the outskirts of some strange town with heart-shaped hail falling around him, but sitting, late at night, in the darkened bullpen in the FBI building, apparently with nothing more pressing to do, waiting and hoping for something interesting to come along. Does this guy not have a life? (Of course not, but that's the way we like it.) And then to see Scully come through the door to join him--I wanted to stand up and cheer. Finally, it seemed, we were home again: angst, meaning, partnership (the smooth, seamless coordination that flows unconsciously between them shined through again), and the strength of Mulder's, "I WILL stop this!"

FOOTNOTES
My two big reservations about this episode proved larger as time passed and the show moved on and finally ended.  One was the increasing lack of continuity within the mytharc and the second was the use (and by that I mean both employment and manipulation) of the character of Alex Krycek.  *S.R. 819 gave the viewer no clear idea of what Krycek was up to, why he infected Skinner, what his tie to Senator Matheson was, whether he was operating on his own or what his ultimate goal was.  It follows the unfortunate pattern set in Season 6's *Biogenesis, where the complex, nuanced villain Nick Lea had so carefully created over the four preceding seasons was jettisoned in favor of a one-dimensional Snidely Whiplash replacement who only appeared on-screen in order to throw plot complications into the path of the show's protagonists.  It was a sad misuse of a fascinating character, a situation that only became more pronounced as the show went into its later seasons, and which led Nick Lea to ultimately admit that "it's no fun playing a villain with no reasoning behind it." 

My concerns about continuity by the end of the episode--so much was left hanging, and there was so much potential for Krycek to wreak more havoc-- were later confirmed when the nanotechnology plotline conveniently dropped out of view, never to affect the characters again except when it reappears briefly in Existence as a way of justifying Skinner--that emblem of working within the system--shooting a man three times.  To give us a throwaway plot element like this, to conjure up a mytharc-related plotline that hovers over the characters with such deadly potential, and then jettison it at hour's end, produces the same sort of let-down among regular viewers of the show as the old elementary school story some students inevitably write that ends its suspenseful and/or animated run with 'And then I woke up."  And indeed, in retrospect this subtle indicator of disrespect/disregard for the integrity of the mytharc eventually led to the complexities and inconsistencies that made so many fans turn away from the show during its later seasons.  However, taken only as an episode unto itself, S.R. 819 provides plenty of suspense and character insight, an hour that passes quickly as we race, with the characters, to find out what will happen.