As evident by its windfall at the recent Golden Globes award where it captured best actress, best actor and best series, The X Files (Pearl, 8.30pm) is easily the best United States drama programme on television.
Granted, the new episodes are not as good as some of the early shows and the air of superiority of star David Duchovny is often hard to take, but the programme leaves tripe like Central Park West and American Gothic in the dust.
In tonight's episode, FBI assistant director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), the bald-headed guy who seems to thwart Agents Mulder and Scully's every move, is finalising his divorce.
While relaxing in a hotel bar, he meets a woman and the pair soon retire to an upstairs room. During their love making, Skinner sees the attractive woman change into an old woman. When he wakes up she is dead.
Skinner becomes the prime suspect for the murder as the woman has been identified as a prostitute. He reveals to Mulder that he had seen the old woman before, the first time in Vietnam during a near-death experience.
Mulder suspects someone in the government is trying to destroy Skinner because, in the previous episode, there was an attempt to kill him. David Carradine has built a solid career playing the soft-spoken solitary drifter.
