User Reviews

Say, did you catch Scully roll her eyes when her former student Kelly Ryan (Kate Twa) unwittingly referenced the 'Squeeze' episode? I get a kick out of a series that casually mentions prior events that took place in a manner that maintains continuity like that. It's like an acknowledgment for fans who are in on a secret that mere bystanders don't have a clue about. That was a neat touch.

I had forgotten about Tony Shaloub in this episode, the guy is a genius inventing these kinds of neurotic, quirky characters who you can't help but be drawn to. It's no wonder he got the lead in a TV series like 'Monk' as a germ challenged detective solving impossible cases by thinking way outside the box. His character here is a bit darker given the story line, but he's still got that nervous edge that Scully and Mulder have to deal with, in a bizarre story that takes the term 'Me and My Shadow' into unknown territory.

Once again, the character of Mr. X proves that he's not to be trifled with when it comes to protecting the secrecy that exists at the top of the FBI hierarchy. He sets up the kidnapping of Dr. Banton (Shaloub) by eliminating Banton's associate Christopher Davey (Kevin McNulty) in the particle accelerator. If the closing scene doesn't inspire terror at the idea that the government would stop at nothing to gain an edge, I don't know what else would.

Soft Light the Limerick:

An experiment goes awry

And effects the shadow of this poor guy

He stays out of the light

And only goes out at night

Because his shadow to people will fry

Soft Light is one of the most memorable episodes from when I first started watching the series back when they were running through syndication every night at 9 on FX. Those were awesome times. I didn't miss an episode. I would work until about 8:30 or so, get home at almost exactly 9 and watch an episode while I ate my dinner, then at about 10 my friends were calling wanting to go tear up the summer night. What an awesome summer. Anyway enough nostalgia. I like the episode for that reason, and for the wonderful classic Mark Snow score, and for the classic feel of it. It almost feels more like season 1 than season 2. Not that there was much difference. And Tony Shalhoub is in it. My only problem is whenever he is confronted by someone and is trying to avoid killing them with his shadow, instead of explaining to them what will happen he just tells them to stay away and acts like a lunatic. I mean granted they probably aren't going to believe him when he says, "My shadow will kill you" but at least after the first one did he could say, "See what I mean! I warned you! I'll come with you but only if there is no light so I don't hurt anyone else." And its entirely possible that the exact same outcome would have occurred but at least he would have tried to stop it in some way. But instead of trying to explain he just waits until someone like Mulder can come up with a crazy theory that happens to be right. But in any case the episode is an enjoyable classic. I give it a 9 out of 10.

"Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get you." - Fox Mulder.

Episode 23, 'Soft Light', original air date May 5th, 1995. Written by Vince Gilligan, directed by James A. Contner. Monster of the week episode count, 33. In 1995, Vince Gilligan was a relatively inexperienced screenwriter with only a single credit to his name. He was also a fan of The X-Files and, at Carter's request, submitted a script as a freelancer writer. Carter and Howard Gordon then edited the script that would become 'Soft Light', leading to the hiring of Gilligan as a permanent member of the writing staff. As the years progressed he would continue to pen some highly acclaimed screenplays for the series and take on the additional roles of producer and director, not only for The X-Files but also Carter's side projects, Harsh Realm and The Lone Gunmen. He is of course now well known as the creator of the groundbreaking AMC produced television series Breaking Bad and it's surprisingly successful spin-off Better Call Saul, he also wrote the screenplay for the film Hancock. He became an integral component of the shows success, a key figure behind the scenes alongside Carter and Spotnitz. His first script is one that I can vividly recall watching back when it aired on television and it has stuck with me ever since. I would cite 'Soft Light' among my favorite episodes. This isn't as universally praised as other Gilligan episodes like season 5's 'Bad Blood' or season 6's 'Dreamland' (Parts I & II) but it had a significant impact on me and like 'Darkness Falls' is one of the early episodes that for one reason or another struck a chord and has been permanently etched in to my mind.

Dr. Chester Ray Banton is terrified of his shadow, spending his days and nights in a train station, staring at the floor. We learn early on that his shadow has the ability to devour people, leaving behind only a small burn stain on the ground. This monstrous 'appendage' is the result of an experiment in dark matter gone wrong. The science is never fully explained but it appears that his shadow is not his own anymore, it is a sentient being that is tethered to Banton's body. Mulder and Scully are asked to help with the case as a favour by an up and coming detective friend of Scully's working her first case and fearing a dead end. A trail of unexplained deaths lead them to Chester and, once subdued, he explains the situation. He fears the government is searching for him so that they can experiment on the dark matter shadow he has created. This sounds a lot like delusion and paranoia until X, whom Mulder calls on for help, ends up kidnapping Chester and placing him in an unidentified government facility where he is seen being subjected to torturous light experiments. The ending is wonderfully depressing as we see a single tear fall down Chester's anguished expression.

The screenplay runs like a procedural detective story with supernatural elements. We spend a lot of time with Mulder and Scully investigating crime scenes, examining clues and posing hypotheses. Their thorough investigatory techniques lead them to find Chester, not by coincidence or happenstance but through a logical progression of fact finding and evidence examination. This is less common that it sounds for the series. We don't often follow the agents from one crime scene to another and witness them playing the role of detective in such a traditional sense. There's nothing mysterious or inexplicable about how they find Chester. Mulder and Scully spend a lot of time together and this was always smart move since they have such great chemistry, whenever they are split up in other episodes there seems to be less dramatic congruence. This makes the episode feel very grounded in reality, despite the premise of a man-eating shadow, which admittedly sounds a little silly when you say it out loud. However, Shalhoub's acting is very naturalistic and we really believe the fear that he's expressing. It's an interesting idea that the monster, and the person most afraid of that monster are one and the same. On one hand you have an unstoppable, indiscriminate killer, Banton's dark matter shadow, and on the other a mild mannered scientist who's terrified of hurting anyone, it's a little like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Combine these two elements together and you have a character who's wrestling with the physical manifestation of his inner demons.

The effects of the shadow consuming people is left nice and simple, this is lucky since they could have overdone it and caused the CGI to age much more rapidly. As it stands it's still highly effective decades later. The idea of someone being sucked into a dark matter black whole is a scary thought. I've often wondered whether they are in fact dead or perhaps they are still existing in another dimensional space and time. The character of X makes some interesting choices in this episode. It had been a while since his character had any significant headway and here we see him seemingly cross the line between friend and foe. Having X deceive Mulder and capture Chester for the government makes us question his motives. We're left to decide whether he's simply an antagonist working alongside people like the Cancer Man or whether he has to answer to superiors and is forced to take action.

Perhaps the secret to the episode's success is the casting of Tony Shalhoub as Dr. Chester Ray Banton, the emotionally torn physicist who's literally afraid of his own shadow. Or maybe there is simply an indefinable, subjective quality that makes an episode stand out from the pack. Every fan has their personal favorites and often no manner of intellectual justification or objective analysis can fully explain the emotional response one receives from the experience of watching it. This is 'Soft Light' for me.

Soft Light is about three mysterious deaths in which black scorch marks of unknown origin are left behind.

A good premise here, but the execution could be better. We are shown a bit too much to begin with, that we have little to ponder. Chester could have said to avoid his shadow, he may have been laughed at, but would of probably saved a life or two. The ending's sort of the easy way out, Chester putting himself in that position and subsequently captured and isolated like a lab rat. Mr. X highlights the episode for me, showing his ruthlessness, yet still a measured individual.

We are familiar particle accelerator from series like the flash. It accelerates electrons or protons to high energies.

In this episode, we saw a scientist. Who was willing to die rather than government had such a power which he built after years of hard-working.

But in the end, because of mulder , goverment (maybe not but probably the guy is working for government) captured him. That man who is helping mulder is not like deep throat. He protects mulder but also he protects and helps the goverment and secret operations. So he can not care about lifes.

In the final scene, the tear that came from doctor's eye was very tragic. They will get what they want at last and they will kill him and they will use this technology to destroy more people.

The main theme of this episode is a fatal shadow being cast from an individual which kills the unfortunate person to be in the way of the shadow.Though this not an intentional act and the person concerned Dr Chester Banton does whatever he can to avoid anyone being killed.

For ordinary x-files fans this episode may be a little fetched and they may not comprehend the scientific overtones.

Mulder and Scully manage to capture Banton and accept his apparent innocence in proceedings.He is detained at a hospital.The sinister Mr X shows up and attempts to remove Banton for his own gain.However a couple of his hencemen lose their lives courtesy of the shadow and Banton escapes.Banton desperate to rid himself of his killer shadow returns to laboratory where upon meeting his colleague(Dr Davey) set about doing this.His colleague reneges and locks Banton in the chamber until Mr X appears and captures Banton.At the end we see Banton being forced to endure tests by the government while Mr X looks on.

There is a high inexplicable nature to Soft Light.Mulder and Scully don't actually solve the case or is the fact why Dr Davey is killed presumably by Mr X Hardcore fans of the x-files will enjoy this though it might not be to everyone's taste

While I remember this episode being more compelling, it really is a good episode that is a little too slow with the build-up but has an excellent delivery.

It's basically about a guy whose shadow kills everyone who steps on it. I used to think it was cheesy, but I changed my mind. It's actually well done and an original way to die. Especially when what's-her-face got killed for not listening.

This episode also features X, a guy who's not really a good guy or a bad guy. He's the most gray character on the show, he basically only really cares about himself and his job.

Tony Shalhoub did a really great job is and the highlight of the episode for me. The final scene that shows him being experimented on was a really sad moment. He made me like this character in a very short amount of time.

I'm gonna give it *** stars, interesting episode but a little slow at times.

"Soft Light" was one of my favourite episodes when I was a kid, and as such, I can't quite bring myself to hate it now. But it's not good.

"Soft Light" is science-fiction, rather than being about the supernatural, but the science behind it is just mental. A theoretical physicist is zapped by a particle accelerator, and is, as a result, lumbered with a shadow that eats people. Without being an expert in particle physics, I can promise you that this has absolutely zero basis in fact or even speculation about the nature of reality, nor do I think there would have been any doubt about this in the early 90s.

Once you get past the disappointingly silly pay-off to one of the second series' better teasers, there's the plot. X is in this one, trying to... I don't know. Kidnap the physicist's shadow? Possibly. It's never really clear, and seems like taking the show's early conceit that every paranoid lunatic is absolutely right to be paranoid a little too far. Tony Shalhoub is brilliant fidgety and convincingly jittery as the physicist, and it seems almost a waste to have him be a genuinely wanted man, given how well he portrays someone on the edge of insanity.

The upsetting thing about this is that it *could've* been so much better. A people-eating shadow is a good enough idea to back up with something more supernatural or whimsical. As it is, the episode becomes severely bogged down by the conspiracy gubbins, and the science is a rather boring explanation for something that looked rather cool.

If you want to see a similar idea done MUCH better, check out the Doctor Who "Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead" two-parter. I'd be surprised if the writers hadn't seen this episode and thought "hey, there's a good idea in there somewhere".

An okay episode that goes into some interesting sci fi concepts with dark matter. Not sure how you can scientifically explain a shadow that creates a black hole and engulfs people. But they managed to make it somewhat believable.

Scully was genuinely sad at the death of her student. I think she really wanted her to succeed but knew she was just a fresh cog in the wheel and was going to do what she was told by those in the boys club.

The dynamic between Mr X and mulder is constantly changing. It's seems tensions are high since Mr X told mulder to go a execution spree when scully was abducted. It doesn't seem like he's been helpful post that episode. We'll see what the future lies for them both.

"Soft Light" was Vince Gilligan's first script for The X-Files, and on the basis of this effort it's hard to believe he went on to write some of the best episodes of the series. As if the absurdly silly premise (A killer shadow!... Really?) wasn't bad enough here, the story is also sloppily executed, replete with scientific faux pas (a shadow that goes under a door and comes out on the other side? A black hole that's selective about what it destroys?), random unexplained story threads (What was Dr. Banton doing at Margaret Wysnecki's house? If not X, who was Dr. Davey planning on delivering Banton to?), shoddy detective work (Why did no one ever try to speak to Dr. Morris West, who was right across the hall from Neuwirth in the hotel and could have immediately established a possible connection to Polarity Magnetics?), and nonsensical plotting (the discovery that Banton is at the train station is made to seem like the logical outcome of following one of Mulder's "brilliant" hunches, but it's actually not: the fact that two of the victims happened to take the train has no bearing at all on the case, despite Molder's theory, and Banton's presence at the station is nothing more than a contrived - and extremely lucky - coincidence).

Guest actors Tony Shalhoub and Kate Twa give respectable performances, and it's refreshing to see Scully portrayed as a mentor of sorts, but "Soft Light" is nonetheless disappointing. What's most annoying is that the writing problems could have been easily avoided or solved with a little thought and imagination. As it turns out, the only noteworthy positive point here is Mark Snow's music, which gives us a lovely and very distinctive episode theme, heard first in the teaser, and then periodically throughout the story. Too bad the story isn't worthy of it. Grade: F.