The X-Files (TV Series) Alpha (1999) User Reviews

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Whatsit?

[andyetris · 7/10 · 19 October 2006]

A rare canid escapes while being shipped from China to LA - and leaves two crew members dead in its place. When the semi-mythological creature begins attacking officers of the Fish and Wildlife service, Mulder and Scully look to a cryptozooligist and an animal behaviorist for answers - but more than one person is keeping secrets!

This isn't one of season 6's tooth-grinding 'humor' episodes, but even as an attempt to return to the darkness of the Vancouver seasons it falls a little flat. The actions of the 'canid' don't really make much sense in terms of the range of potential 'alpha's' in the LA area - the season 5 episode "Detour" did a better job with this idea. And why invent a "Wanshang Dhole" when there are REAL crypto-zoological beasties and tricksters? I love Andrew Robinson but he's just wasted in his role, while "Karin Berquist," while an interesting character, behaves totally inexplicably at the end. How exactly is she an alpha? Not one of the best.

He ain't old Yeller.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 6/10 · 17 September 2022]

A rare Asian dog, which was being shipped from China to The U. S. is blamed for a series of grizzly murders, Mulder calls on the help of specialist Karin Berquist.

I've enjoyed many of the wilder X Files storylines, and I've generally enjoyed those that borrowed from popular mythology, it always seemed likely that there'd be some sort of wolf/savage dog story, ultimately I'd hoped for a bit better.

I think it lacks a little originality, there is a predictability to the story, the scenes, even Karin, and I think they have the game away too early, they could have delayed the revelation until the end.

It isn't a bad episode, but it's distinctly average at best, some of Mulder's dialogue is really pretty bad.

The scenes between Scully and Karin were perhaps the best element, definitely a lot of jealousy, definite some venom in their exchanges, Melinda Culea did a pretty good job, despite the character lacking any real depth.

What I will applaud, are the scenes making the dog look genuinely terrifying, it's red eyed and mean looking, how many times do you watch a show, with a supposed wild dog, who turns out to be a soft, old floofer?

6/10.

Not as bad as previous reviewers said.

[m-47826 · 7/10 · 28 June 2021]

It's not one of the best, that's for sure. But I thought it was creepy and a decent filler episode for the series. Which are always superior to others. The part where Detweiler (I guess writers never pretended the werewolf's identity would be so hard to figure out) morphs into a wolf, behind that smoke screen, send chills down my spine. I always expect something more from this episode, and the Karin character is too obscure. But I'm fine with what I get in the end, especially the part where Fox pins the infamous poster, to his desk wall again.

Not everything has to be perfect

[anzaldua · 14 December 2006]

Although season six from the X-Files in one of the finest of the series not everything had to be perfect. I think this episode was one: "what do we do next" and it turned out to be a very mediocre episode in a series filled with excellent writing.

I don't know if the idea of a man turning into a murderer dog was an original one or was taken from one of the Harry Potter books. Maybe with a little more time this episode might have been OK, but just OK. Beside the continuous darkness of the photography, the excellent music from Mark Snow, and the acting of Gillian and David, there is nothing good to write about this one and since my mother told me that if I had nothing good to say about someone, don't say it, that's all I'm going to write, I you are watching the DVD's in order this is an episode that you might want to skip.

"I've always felt more like a wolf than a person."

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 27 July 2017]

Well, when the reviews for an X-Files episode are pretty uniform on the negative side, it's hard to figure otherwise. Season Six seemed to have more than it's share of clunkers with stories like 'Agua Mala' and 'Monday', so it's easy to believe the series was losing steam. This one had some of the atmosphere of a Lon Chaney 'Wolf Man' flick, but to get the full measure it should have been in black and white. It became clear pretty early that Dr. Detweiler (Andrew Robinson) was the guy transforming into the canid creature. The morphs were done professionally and in another vehicle might actually have been scary. In the 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' universe, the Wan-Shang dhole was also a demon species with five claws and native to China but whether or not that's what was in the cargo container brought aboard the Chinese freighter in the teaser, why would any rational person unlock a cage that just finished rattling around with a growling creature inside it? That's like asking for trouble, isn't it? The most credible part about this story was Scully concerned about a trickster invading her territory.

Scully: Better than human...

[bombersflyup · 10/10 · 17 November 2018]

Alpha is about Mulder and Scully investigating the deaths of two men that were mauled and locked inside a cargo container.

An episode I appreciate. While almost all fans would prefer the previous episode "Arcadia," which I like, this my kind of X-File. The initial scene on the cargo ship and then talking with Detweiler essential, in showing that he's not just a killer and that he's unaware of his state of being, some of the reviewers on here seem to think he's walking around lying and pretending to be looking for the dog. It's dark and brutal, but without nastiness. All four characters each with their own interest, with terrific guest appearances from Melinda Culea and Andrew Robinson. Scully gets very defensive when concerning Mulder, she's more interested in what Karin's up to than solving this particular case and Mulder like he has many times before tells the guilty party exactly what they are to their face. Which should put his life more at risk, but tends to have the opposite effect. Excellent cinematography and sound.

You get a biscuit Scully.

[Sanpaco13 · 4/10 · 23 July 2009]

Unfortunately I fell asleep while watching this episode so i had to watch it twice in a row. The story is just boring. I thought the episode was cast pretty well but I just don't see what is so scary about a wolf attacking random people. Hello Cujo. And it didn't really make sense to me that the guy could shape shift into the extinct wolf thing but he could also shape shift into, say a St. Bernard? Huh? And if he was the St. Bernard that got shot then why wasn't he shot after he killed the vet? Confusing. Oh, and why was he naked when he got killed but never the other times he transformed between dog and man? Dumb dumb dumb. 4 out of 10.

Season 6 isn't perfect but it's entertaining. Scary Dog

[ilovefreddiem · 9/10 · 29 April 2024]

This episode wasn't so much about the monster of the week for me. I like season 6 because David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson have perfected the characters of Mulder and Scully. I love their glances, loving touches and how they are protective of each other, how much closer they have grown, more than partners, more than friends. I thought Karin being "enamored" with Mulder tho unhealthy was kind of sweet because she was such a loner. Mulder is always nice to people, even suspects and tries to understand them before rushing into anything rash, unless they are an immediate threat(true monsters). Scully has become more open minded. I don't think this murderous dog was that scary but I enjoy nearly every episode of X-files that connects Mulder and Scully. Mulder was saddened at the end for not truly understanding Karin. He put his "I want to believe" poster back up as it was returned to or sent to him by Karin(she had one). I love Mulder!

Doggone Episode

[Muldernscully · 4/10 · 24 February 2007]

After one of the best episodes of season six, "Arcadia", comes arguably the worst of this season, Alpha. First of all, we are assaulted with lame dog jokes from Mulder. If it were just one lame joke, I'd be okay with it. But he continually makes these bad jokes throughout the episode, which isn't like him. I also really don't care for the characters of Karin Berquist or Dr. Detweiler. Even if the character of Karin is supposed to act wooden like that, it really bugs me. And Dr. Detweiler is just unlikeable too. On top of that, the writers add this crush that she supposedly has on Mulder into the mix and it just makes things weirder. Scully seems to be the only one onto this infatuation of Karin's. I certainly didn't see it. I don't like it that that dog was just killing people at random without having a specific agenda. Also, there is a scene of Karin walking into the hospital, confronting Dr. Detweiler, then leaving. She came to the hospital just to talk to him and then leave? She didn't even know he was there. And finally at the end, Mulder seems to be distraught over Karin's death, when no connection was really established. At least Mulder gets his "I Want To Believe" poster back out this episode. The story had a interesting premise but I think shoddy writing and some irritating acting by the two central guest stars helped to lower my esteem of this episode. Werewolf stories are just not the X-Files strong point. And to honor Mulder's lame canine jokes in this episode, Alpha is a dog of an episode.

Zeta.

[maybe730 · 3/10 · 11 October 2012]

The opening for Alpha finds two Chinese workers on a freight ship teasing an unseen (except for its eyes) large and angry creature in a crate. After provoking it and hearing it ramming against the crate door it falls silent. One of the workers immediately kicks the side of the crate twice to illicit a response and when he hears nothing says to the other man "I think we killed it"(?!). So they decide to open up the crate(?!!). You can probably guess how well that ends for them. This stupid intro was one of three warning signs for me that this wasn't going to be a very good episode. It was actually worse than I thought it'd be.

The other two warning signs were in re-watching the X-Files after their initial airings this was the only episode of season six I couldn't recall. And seeing that this episode would involved a dog/wolf I assumed it'd be a werewolf episode, which seem to be hard to do well in movies, much less in TV. They're too expensive to do convincingly or without a lot of non-werewolf scenes. But the X-Files is used to doing monsters on a budget so I gave it a go.

One good thing about this episode was Melinda Culea's performance as Karin Berquest. I thought she played the social recluse dog-lover well but the romantic angle they tried to squeeze in between her and Mulder felt forced. Also, she's accused of being full of lies by a nothing-better-to-do-this-episode Scully yet she only lied once to Mulder and it didn't have anything to do with him. And her plan to kill the Alpha dog/wolf made little sense unless she has Cirque Du Soleil level acrobatic skills that were never mentioned.

I thought the close-ups of the evil dog/wolf's face were pretty terrifying but by the sixth or seventh time they got pretty old and repetitive (reminded me of the repeated showings of the evil car headlights in the movie Christine). Also the dog/wolf changing into a St. Bernard is never explained. Can it shape-shift into any canine? How? Why? The Dr. Ian Detweiler character was terrible. "You kill that dog and I'll kill you!" He's said to have brought back the dog/wolf though what that means exactly is hard to say given the incredibly obvious reveal of his role in things. Which also lead me to wonder why he keeps showing up investigating. There's nothing for him to investigate and he certainly had no reason to pretend to be doing it. As another reviewer mentioned the werewolf man's clothes are sometimes on and sometimes off after a transformation. And rather importantly why the dog/wolf is uncharacteristically killing is never explained. Claiming his territory is briefly tossed up as a reason but since it's four killings span many miles and some of the victims are non-threats that theory doesn't make much sense.

Overall this was one of the worst X-Files episodes starring Mulder and Scully maybe slightly above the one where they spend the episode staring at TV screens in NASA and the one with those crazy cats in the sewer (though at least that last one made me laugh). It makes me wonder if this helped lead to the X-Files' ratings decline as the episode that preceded Alpha, Aqua Mala, is usually viewed unfavorably and the following two episodes weren't very good either (Trevor and Milagro).

here, let me save you 42 minutes: Mulder makes bad puns...

[DarrenDirt · 1/10 · 18 September 2009]

...and flirts with a Crazy Dog Lady, some dumb cops get killed or almost killed by a revealed-too-early plot twist, and Mulder gets a poster from the CDL instead of getting laid.

Oh, and Scully basically phones it in, for some reason playing the confused-irrational role while trying not to fall asleep. It would have been less embarrassing if the writer had just had her "back home with the family" and occasionally on the phone with Mulder. :sigh: To put it in perspective, within my mind I had previously rated the silly "murdered-Jewish-guy-comes-back-to-life-without-a-soul" episode ("Kaddish", S4E15) as a 1/10... but now it has to be bumped up to a 2/10 because THIS ep deserves a lower rating.

There, for the "completists" out there I just saved you the 42 minutes that I will never get back. And I'm one of the strange folks that actually ENJOYS most of the "one-off" episodes (aka "Monster Of The Week").

...musta been a non-regular writer for this ep? (ah... the mind behind the uneven "Rain King" ep, and a few Season 7 eps, that kinda explains it...)