It's difficult to express how stupid I thought this episode was when I first saw it, knowing how much I've come to love it since. A story about a genie seemed so totally out of character for the show, as if they were desperately trying to find any ideas from the supernatural that they hadn't already done. But in retrospect, it's actually perfectly *in* character.
A lot happens: A guy (Anson Stokes) finds a woman rolled up in a rug in a storage locker. His boss instantly loses his mouth. Anson then gets a boat in his driveway and *then* is found dead, invisible, having been hit by a truck. Cue a wonderful scene of Scully dusting an invisible corpse with lycopodium powder while grinning like an idiot.
And it goes on, in the manner of what I think is called a "romp". And it sounds so profoundly stupid. But it isn't.
Rather than invent some tenuous explanation for the genie (possibly realising that, no matter how seriously they did this episode, it was always going to be *a bit* silly) they instead appear to have gone back to the roots and the whole point of the genie story. Far from simply giving us a parable about being careful what you wish for, by giving the genie to someone we know to be an intelligent, sophisticated person trying to act as selflessly as possible, we get the real message, ultimately, from Scully: these wishes represent not the danger of getting what you want, but of being able to get what you want without trying. Power isn't just dangerous for stupid people; it's even dangerous for people like you.
It seemed a little trite when I was a kid. In fact, it made me downright angry. Because at the time, I guess, I would've been totally convinced that, if I'd had the genie, I would've done things differently. Years later, rewatching it, I'm very aware of how poignant it actually is, in a very devious way, in telling us that basically we'd never be able to deal with all that power, no matter how wise we thought we were, and that the smart thing to do would be to just roll the rug back up. As such, it's a neat little story, deceptively lighthearted but not lightweight.
On another note: Paula Sorge is fantastically beautiful.
A lot happens: A guy (Anson Stokes) finds a woman rolled up in a rug in a storage locker. His boss instantly loses his mouth. Anson then gets a boat in his driveway and *then* is found dead, invisible, having been hit by a truck. Cue a wonderful scene of Scully dusting an invisible corpse with lycopodium powder while grinning like an idiot.
And it goes on, in the manner of what I think is called a "romp". And it sounds so profoundly stupid. But it isn't.
Rather than invent some tenuous explanation for the genie (possibly realising that, no matter how seriously they did this episode, it was always going to be *a bit* silly) they instead appear to have gone back to the roots and the whole point of the genie story. Far from simply giving us a parable about being careful what you wish for, by giving the genie to someone we know to be an intelligent, sophisticated person trying to act as selflessly as possible, we get the real message, ultimately, from Scully: these wishes represent not the danger of getting what you want, but of being able to get what you want without trying. Power isn't just dangerous for stupid people; it's even dangerous for people like you.
It seemed a little trite when I was a kid. In fact, it made me downright angry. Because at the time, I guess, I would've been totally convinced that, if I'd had the genie, I would've done things differently. Years later, rewatching it, I'm very aware of how poignant it actually is, in a very devious way, in telling us that basically we'd never be able to deal with all that power, no matter how wise we thought we were, and that the smart thing to do would be to just roll the rug back up. As such, it's a neat little story, deceptively lighthearted but not lightweight.
On another note: Paula Sorge is fantastically beautiful.