The X-Files (TV Series) 4-D (2001) User Reviews

Lots going on here, very good episode.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 2 October 2022]

Agent Reyes is arrested for shooting Doggett, only she claims the pair were enjoying a sandwich in her apartment.

This episode entertained some really interesting and imaginative concepts. If Sliding Doors were given The X Files treatment, this is potentially what it could have looked like.

Quite a lot going on here, it's inventive, it's creative, plus there are a few emotionally charged scenes. It looks great, it's very well produced.

It's interested that the solution is found, when what's called for, is a leap of faith. Doggett by name, very much dogged by nature. We learn the way that Agent Reyes feels for her colleague, personally I hope there's not romance ahead.

Erwin Timothy Lukesh was one creepy guy, and perhaps what makes him even better, is that he just looks like your Man in the street.

A few plot holes, but on the whole it's very good, 8/10.

Ah, the gang's all here.

[Muldernscully · 7/10 · 5 November 2007]

4-D is an entertaining "what if?" episode. It explores the possibility of there being a parallel dimension to ours, where our twins live.

The teaser grabs your attention right off because it ends with both Reyes and Doggett both seriously wounded. It's rare in itself when a teaser has the agents in it.

For some reason, A.D. Follmer is acting like Skinner's superior in this episode, even though they have equal positions. Maybe it's because Follmer is heading the investigation that he is acting this way.

The actor playing Lukesh does so very well. He's got creepy down well.

It's interesting that Doggett comes up with the solution for saving himself. He probably doesn't believe it. He probably figures he'd rather be dead than paralyzed.

Like I said before, 4-D is an interesting concept. But all the inconsistencies that arise with parallel universes just don't work for me. Two Doggetts in one universe? If you kill one, everything returns to normal as if nothing happened? Maybe I'll like it more next time. Until then, 4-D is still very fun to watch.

What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?

[Sanpaco13 · 7/10 · 7 July 2009]

I have mixed feelings about 4-D. First of all I don't like the fact that they threw in the double meaning for the title by making Lukesh's apartment number 4-D. Seemed kind of pointless to do that. While I don't hate Reyes in the episode, she still has a few moments that kind of irk me. Like the completely random changing of her mind when she goes all Million Dollar Baby on Doggett right at the end. The idea for the episode is a sound one and a good one. A serial killer who can travel between alternate universes. I like it. But there were some things that needed more explanation. For example, how did Lukesh appear out of nowhere when he was nowhere near his little portal in the alley? Or was there no little portal, rather Lukesh had the ability to make portals? Or were there just multiple portals at different locations that happened to be where Lukesh needed them, and if so, how did he know where they were? Another problem, the whole if you kill the paralyzed Doggett then the non-paralyzed one comes back. First of all, two Doggetts can't be in the same universe, then how come two Lukeshes could be in the same world? If Lukesh is crossing back and forth then wouldn't his alter self in one dimension be transferred or was the alter Lukesh already dead? And if he was dead then why was he still living with his mother in apartment 4-D in both worlds? Anwyay, as I say I really do enjoy the episode for the most part. I don't like some of the unexplained stuff that doesn't make sense. I do like the final scene when Reyes see Doggett again after just killing him. But I also wonder why it was just her that remembered the whole ordeal. Maybe she was just on an acid trip or something. I give the episode a 7 out of 10.

a damn good episode

[SyndicateFreeorDieHard · 10/10 · 24 September 2007]

We see a softer, more emotional side of Monica Reyes when Doggett mysteriously disappears from her apartment and turns up having been shot in alleyway 14 blocks away from there. It however turns out that the person who is actually responsible for the shooting blames it one Agent Reyes herself, putting her in a dangerous situation in which she may not come out well. Meanwhile, Scully and Skinner attempt to prove her innocence while the ever persistent A.D. Brad Follmer may want a terrible truth, even if it means putting Reyes in prison. And with Doggett still in the hospital, Monica's chances of being proved innocent seem slim as the real killer, Erwin Lukesh, who may possess the ability to walk between parallel universes, runs free.

There is More than One of Everything

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 11 February 2013]

Just like Fringe homages The X-Files in a lot of episodes and particularly in the Episode "Earthling" (The Only Fringe Ep that deals with an "Alien") - The X-Files peeked into the Future and made an episode that deals with "Blue and Red X-Files Universes"

There is an evil X-Files Equivalent of Olivia Dunham here, a man who can cross between universes as easily as walking across his hallway. So he crosses over and shoots Agent Doggett. This causes a lot of Problems for one Monica Reyes. And her solution to this dilemma is one any Walter Bishops would also have trouble doing.

The World, particularly X-Files fans, were not ready for Alternate Universes. But this was the greatness of The X-Files, any unusual scientific theory was thought about and exploited. So for the first and only time in The X-Files, we have Parallel Universes. The idea sounds just as ludicrous in this episode as it does in Fringe, Season 1, Episode 19. But this was The X-Files, were "weird is (also) a matter of degrees."

"There is More then One of Everything" - And even in this X-Files story, the concept that if two universes exist, they interact and one cannot exist without the other- Is deftly Dealt with.

Attempts at explanations

[pat664422 · 3 July 2022]

I think have a partial explanation for Doggett's fix at the end of this episode.

We know Doggett A was following the serial killer in universe A and unknowingly steps through the portal the killer created and enters universe B. At this time the Doggett B who is part of universe B disappears from Reyes' apartment. I believe this is because you can't have two Doggett's in one universe and when he stepped through that portal, the two Doggetts swapped universes.

The "fix" at the however I can't explain. I don't why killing the paralyzed Doggett A brings Doggett B back to universe B. It's kind of a cop out (no pun intended). I think following what they'd established, the only way to swap the Doggett's back would be to have the serial killer open the portal and wheel the paralyzed Doggett through, returning both to their original universes. Monica was dead in that universe A already, so they could have pulled the plug on Doggett and wheeled him through and she wouldn't have been around to miss him in that universe. While that may have been more consistent, I don't think it would have made for a more entertaining episode.

As for why she instantly appears back in her apartment after pulling the plug is because what upset universe B in the first place (Doggett from universe A entering it) has been "corrected", and now it's no longer off on a tangent and back on its original track.

Anyway, even though they sort of took the shortcut to a desirable ending in this episode, I thought it was well done otherwise. Doggett and Reyes displayed some nice chemistry through the episode, especially in her apartment. The serial killer was plenty disturbing and it was nice to see Elwes do something you don't despise.

"Too much Star Trek".

[classicsoncall · 8/10 · 25 August 2017]

This episode has some of the same disorienting qualities of Scully and Mulder's experience in the Sixth Season story 'Monday'. That one featured a time loop anomaly whereas this one posits the idea of parallel universes. Theories like that can be quite interesting, but I don't know how they can ever be proved. My personal favorite has to do with the concept of time, the idea being that all the 'time' that ever occurred exists right now, not as a linear concept, but stacked up without dimension as if on the head of a pin. Think about it for a while.

Things get tricky here right after the teaser in which we see Agent Reyes get her throat slashed, and Agent Doggett shot by her assailant after doing a quick magician act of disappearing and reappearing behind him. Right after the opening credits, Reyes and Doggett appear as if normal and none the worse for wear. If you try to think this one out too much it's liable to make your head hurt, so the best thing is probably to just go with the flow.

One thought that came to mind though was something Josef Kobold stated to Doggett in the prior episode 'Daemonicus', when he told the Agent that he was in love with someone close to him, and I thought he might have been speaking about Scully. But here, the romantic tension exists between Doggett and Reyes, even if that was in the parallel universe. No one else appears to have mentioned it in their reviews, but to me it seemed pretty evident.

So this guy Lukesh (Dylan Haggerty) was a pretty creepy looking guy even if he wasn't a serial killer. I have to wonder if the Mott's Clamato Juice and Texas Pete's Hot Sauce folks took a hit in sales after this episode aired, or maybe just the opposite based on the free commercial exposure. I think Lukesh could have gotten away with a few extra shots of the Texas Pete's instead of cutting his own mother's throat; that just pointed the authorities more in his direction.

The thing is, even though Reyes took Doggett's advice on pulling the plug, and Assistant Director Follmer (Cary Elwes) did the honors of shooting Lukesh, what happens in the parallel universe with Lukesh's double? Wouldn't he still be around causing trouble for a new team of FBI agents?

Wait a minute, I got it. By the year 2016, he takes over the persona of his look-alike Vladimir Putin and causes mass hysteria by hacking into the Democratic National Committee and interfering in the election of Donald Trump as President. Maybe it sounds far fetched, but a lot of folks seem to believe that's what really happened, but then again, it could be they live in an alternate universe.

Huh?

[n-town-smash · 7/10 · 17 June 2008]

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!" is basically what I thought, for at least half of this one. As it turns out, the plot is actually fairly simple and a nice twist on the standard serial killer story: the killer, Lukesh, finds his prey in a parallel universe, avoiding capture in his own. During a stakeout in one universe, Lukesh kills Reyes, and shoots Doggett, paralysing him, after he has followed him into the *other* universe. BUT, and this is where it gets tricky, when Doggett A steps through into universe B, Doggett B disappears from Reyes B's flat after she gets the call about Doggett A's shooting.

Confused? So was I. And, to be honest, I still am.

The great thing about 4-D is that, for once, as the viewer, you don't have that privileged position you often have (and seemed to get more and more throughout the last few series) of knowing much more than the "hero". The teaser and the scenes of Lukesh's home life poses more questions than they answer, although the link between Lukesh's nagging mother and his penchant for cutting out women's tongues is a nice if disturbing touch.

The bad thing, to me at least, is that it really pushes the credibility of Reyes' astute intuition. Do we honestly believe that she just *guesses* this stuff about parallel universes? I really struggle to, and it feels like a bit of a cheat to have people "just knowing" anything, particularly when it's the kind of idea you'd dismiss offhand if you even had it in the first place!

But yeah, the big problem here is: how the hell does this ending work? The whole story happens, and then, for some reason, Reyes B is not only back in her flat, but no time appears to have passed. Why? Who knows?

It doesn't actually matter though. It's good fun while it lasts, and you'll stay tuned in if only to figure out how they're going to finish this. I may be jaded and cynical, but I can hardly have been the only one thinking that a show wouldn't kill off two of its characters in the first five minutes of the fourth episode of a new series. So the teaser is less about me wondering whether they'll survive, but how.