Mulder and Scully decide to take the weekend off and get away for a while and for Scully it means to actually get away, to Maine. I remember really liking this episode when I was younger and thrilled that it was co-written by Stephen King (even though I hadn't read any King yet back then). I watched it now and wasn't as impressed, but it was still a good episode. I read that in earlier drafts, in King's version of the script, Mulder and Scully's characters were way off. I wondered if he even watched the show. I'd love to read the early drafts, but thank goodness for Chris Carter. And while Scully pined for a relaxing vacation throughout the episode, I think she really was on vacation, at least mentally. She took a brief trip into Mulder-land, where the minds are open and the possibility of a doll making people kill themselves could actually be plausible. Mulder called Scully to offer statistics and facts, so very Scully of him. And this episode wasn't even about religion, where this role-reversal kind of phenomena usually takes place. So I guess the real winner of this episode is not so much the doll plot or the fact that it's written by the King of Horror, but our dynamic duo, their vacation from their own self, the beginning of throwing pencils in the ceiling, and their inability to truly be away from each other without some hilarious phone calls.
