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.
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.