The Truth is Out There

Story: Visitors from Down the Street
Written By: J. Michael Straczynski
Season: Crusade

Straczynski pokes fun at the X-Files in this rather pointless episode of Crusade.  Not that it is a totally bad episode, but it was average, and the major gag has nothing to do with the whole premise of Crusade, which it to cure the folks on Earth.  But they’ve got five years so what is the rush! 

The Excalibur helps out a ship with a couple of nutty conspiracy chasing aliens, clearly modeled after Mulder & Scully.  These Aliens believe humans have tampered with their planet’s development.  It all leads to the Excalibur coming to find out that the government has used info they’ve gotten about Earth from probes to convince their paranoid population that they are being controlled by outsiders…because it stops them constantly starting up civil wars based on their paranoia.  Gideon is a prick so he decides to shed the truth on the planet, for reasons that are only  slightly in Earth’s interest…and seems like he is fucking up a planet with War for no real reason other than he can. 

I think Crusade is such an average series, particularly when compared to it’s big brother Babylon 5.  Straczynski had done his magnum opus and then he milked it for a spin-off that nobody seemed to want.  Straczynski put in half-baked scripts and TNT wanted to kill it because it just didn’t really fit into their business model. 

So, instead of watching a somewhat mildly amusing jab at the X-Files (with a annoying ending), why not just watch the X-Files…it will be loads more fun and creative, and is bound to make you think more than this episode really did.

NEXT TIME: Secret Mission