The X-Files (TV Series) Audrey Pauley (2002) User Reviews

Response to other reviews

[Dog112 · 7/10 · 20 May 2011]

I don't normally write reviews, but felt a need to respond to some of the reviews that have been posted.

Some reviewers thought Monica Reyes should be dressed the same as other patients, possibly because of their preconceptions of what patients should look like in the hospital. But in the subconscious sequences, nothing is as it should be because everything is seen through Audrey's mind's eye. Monica perceives her surroundings only as well as Audrey does. That's why the documents on the clipboard are written in nonsense. But Monica does not see herself through Audrey's eyes. She sees herself as she was when she was conscious. She sees herself through her own mind's eye.

Some reviewers felt that the doctor had no apparent motive for killing patients. I thought the motive was obvious: He went after patients who had living wills (like Monica) so that he could harvest their organs. They died slowly enough that relatives could be notified and paperwork releasing the organs could be signed.

Some reviewers thought Monica and John had not known each other long enough to develop strong feelings for each other. These reviewers seem to feel that Monica's and John's relationship should have taken as much time to develop as Mulder's and Scully's. But:

1. Monica and John are not Mulder and Scully. They are their own people. They have their own brains and their own minds. Why should they be expected to have the same feelings at the same rate as Mulder and Scully?

2. Monica and John have a previous history together. Their relationship did not begin when they started on the X-Files.

3. A viewer should not expect two people to be separate and independent just because he/she has not seen their relationship develop. Otherwise there would be no men and women introduced as married couples.

To Muldernscully

[oni1983 · 8/10 · 27 February 2008]

I just would like to say that I do not think that Doggett and Reyese relationship was rushed. Do not forget that they knew each other before working on the X files because of Dogget's son.

In the Release episode, even Doggett's ex wife says to Scully that the only thing blocking Doggett was the death of his son. This suggests that his ex wife must have noticed their attraction before they were assigned to the X files since in this episode we understand that Doggett has apparently ceased all contacts with his ex wife once they got divorced.

I also agree with someone who mentioned that we are never given a reason why the doctor killed those patients, which seemed kind of ridiculous. also, if this doctor was killing these patients, wasn't the hospital investigating? The doctor was not being too careful since, since Reyes' hospital stay, he killed the nurse, the other patient (Steve if I'm right) and i guess the other patient at the otherworld was his victim too.

"I think the question is - Where did WE go?"

[classicsoncall · 8/10 · 29 August 2017]

In a prior eighth season episode titled '4-D', we had a tease of a Doggett/Reyes romantic relationship, but it took place in a parallel universe. In this story, Reyes's feelings for Doggett are rather transparent, and it appears that Doggett is more than aware, but for a reason left unexplained, he does not respond. My assumption is that it has to do with avoiding a relationship after his own marriage dissolved following the death of his son. Even though that occurred ten years prior, there is obviously something holding him back.

I found myself really fascinated by this episode. It's hard to take one's eyes off of actress Tracey Ellis in the role of Audrey Pauley. I wish there was a better picture of her posted on her bio page here on IMDb; a quick Google search doesn't provide anything much better, and you have to sort through a whole bunch of other Tracey Ellis's. The way she handled her role here was perfect, pulling off the character of an illiterate, and perhaps mentally challenged hospital aide.

Another reviewer for this episode stated he felt this was a more appropriate story for a Twilight Zone treatment, and it's funny, but an immediate comparison that came to mind was a 1963, fourth season episode of the Rod Serling series titled 'Miniature' that had a remarkably similar story as this one. That one took place in a museum, and in it, a lost and lonely man who doesn't quite 'fit in' at work or in a social setting creates a mythical world inside a glass showcase, and imagines a perfect world he shares with the 'prettiest girl in the whole world'. It was a provocative story that took a look at a man on the threshold of losing his grip on reality by creating a fictional world, much like Audrey Pauley did in this story. By the way, the name of the actor in the TZ episode - it was Robert Duvall.

What one had to admire in this story was Doggett's persistence in attempting to find a 'cure' for Agent Reyes, and the way he enlisted Audrey's help by taking an unusual leap of faith by believing that she was in contact somehow with his partner. Personally, I wouldn't have minded if he had roughed up Dr. Preijers (Jack Blessing) a bit more when he figured things out. But oh, what a letdown with the resolution, when three days later, he once again second guesses himself and simply says Good Night to Agent Reyes. After all but declaring his love for Reyes, he let another opportunity slip by.

heart wrenching

[aurrora_australis · 9/10 · 29 October 2006]

It is episodes like this that make me appreciate agents Doggett and Reyes. Much like Scully, I pine for Mulder in this episode (and the entire 9th season, which I am still watching for the first time), and to some extent I miss Scully as well, who we hardly see in 'Audrey Pauley', but Reyes and Doggett come close to making up for the void by the displaying the strength of their bond and loyalty to each other. The blackish-greenish, dark, scary, vast space of the unknown was haunting and I felt sad for Monica when she realized that she had to cast herself into it. I won't give away any more but the performance of Tracey Ellis as Audrey was especially poignant as the illiterate patient aid who didn't realize just how much she was capable of. Seeing her again evoked memories of her portrayal of a half-way house resident in another X-Files episode, 'Oubliette'. This would have been a nice Mulder and Scully story line, one without all that alien conspiracy confusion, in a perfect world, but Reyes and Doggett filled their shoes quite effectively in this one. I have never been able to say "Mulder, who?" but I definitely rate 'Audrey Pauley' as but one of the best Mulder-free and Scully-lite X-Files chapters.

Great season 9 ep

[brian-wiz · 9/10 · 26 May 2019]

So great to see Tracey Ellis back on the show!

The acting in this episode is really superb. In an underrated season this is a standout episode.

Makes me wish Doggett had made his way to season 111.

What happened to Tracey Ellis?

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 29 March 2022]

She was actually a fairly good actress who was originally in Oubliette across from Jewel Staite, who would later become the engineer on firefly.

Tracey would always play characters that were a little bit offkilter, there was always something wrong. This was not really the fault of the character, but the way that Tracey portrayed the characters was what ignited our sympathy with those characters.

And that goes without saying in this episode as well, she is a very sad individual who doesn't really know how to help people with the gifts she has been given.

"I just deliver flowers, that's all I know how to do".

And it is that gift that allows her to interact with Monica, Who is able to actually show her how she can help.

We know that somehow somebody at this hospital is doing something illegitimate, there is just something odd going on, we don't know what it is initially. Eventually they reveal it for us. So it is in between us, who are watching the episode, Tracey Ellis/Audrey, Monica, and of course the person who is causing some problems- and the corpses keep on piling up, but they are not corpses, not quite yet. This gives Monica and Audrey time to do something positive about the situation. But not much time...

There are some pretty good special effects here, that give us a representation of what's happening. It's the image of the hospital floating in the ether that makes us ask what on earth is happening here?

And there is no real explanation of how this is happening, only why it is. Ultimately it is up to John Doggett to figure out when somebody is actually speaking to him from across a kind of chasm.

The last I ever saw Tracey was in an episode of Star Trek Voyager, she was Icheb's mother, the Borg teenager that Seven of Nine adopts. And she played the same kind of offkilter character there as well...

Great episode, so imaginative.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 9/10 · 28 November 2022]

Having dropped Agent Doggett off, Agent Reyes is involved in a serious car accident, landing her in intensive care.

Series 9 has been a little hit and miss, but overall I've rather enjoyed it, I've definitely warmed to the Doggett/Reyes duo, that relationship is further developed here, and reveals to some degree how they feel about one another.

A stand out episode, this one is dark, baffling and wonderfully intriguing, it's one of those that leaves you a little breathless, leaving you wondering how on Earth Reyes will escape her predicament, or if it's the end for her.

It's wonderfully imaginative, that empty hospital made for a really eerie and chilling setting, the visuals throughout were terrific.

Tracey Ellis was pretty awesome here as Audrey I thought, she impressed in a previous episode, but here she gave a powerful, pretty moving performance, I particularly enjoyed her scenes with Agent Doggett.

A classic, 9/10.

Great episode!

[Sophie_89 · 9/10 · 6 June 2019]

This episode had a great concept. I probably would've given it 10/10 if it had been a Mulder and Scully episode, with Scully in 'death's waiting room' and Mulder refusing to accept that she was gone. That would've been a cracking episode! But it was still very good with Reyes & Doggett, however they don't have the same magic as Mulder and Scully.

DOGget is a DOG person? Really...

[Sanpaco13 · 5/10 · 10 July 2007]

The teaser for this episode was pretty interesting. I mean first you have Doggett and Reyes car scene where Reyes may have well have been saying "make out with me please please please" instead of talking about dog people and Doggett is just kind of like "well maybe later." I think he regrets this so much later because if he had just kissed her then she wouldn't have left and gotten hit by that drunk driver which by the way was one of the coolest things I've ever seen on this show. I think they must've done an actual wreck with some superb camera placement in order to do this. Then you have Reyes walking around in the hospital that is floating around in some kind of space bubble. By the way my first thought about escaping the place was that they were gonna have to jump and well what can I say? I don't like to brag but I was right.

The idea for this episode was pretty good I thought but poorly handled. I can see this kind of episode being on The Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits. The main problems for me were the convenient writing inconsistencies such as the other two patients in the Audrey Pauley hospital were in hospital attire but Reyes wasn't. also Reyes appeared to have been untreated for her injuries but Mr. Barreiro's head had obviously been stitched up through surgery and he and Mr. Murdoch were not wearing the clothes they arrived at the hospital in. There may be a reasonable explanation for this but it was not given. Also Tracey Ellis always seems to get the same part in X-Files episodes. She played the mentally disturbed oubliette in the episode titled the same and frankly she didn't do too bad a job in that one but in this episode she doesn't.

Another problem with the writing for me was we never find out what the doctor's motive is for killing these people other than "he gets off on it" which is a pretty lame way of saying "I can't be bothered to explain this in a highly complicated episode already". Maybe it would have been better if they had done the same episode without the doctor at all and all these people were trapped in coma world or something like that. I also don't like how Doggett takes things that could be easily seen as normal such as the moment of brain silence for Reyes as some kind of unexplained event. He even says to Scully that if he can find out what happened at that moment maybe they can reverse it. I actually said out loud that the most obvious explanation of what happened at that moment was death. Despite this I still enjoyed Doggett's acting in this episode. I also have a serious problem with Reyes. I don't know if its her acting or bad writing or a combination of both but she always comes up with these off the wall assumptions based on some coincidental connection and she ends up of course being right because of the writer but not because she's any kind of sleuth. I think Mulder had the same kind of character but Duchovny was so much better at delivering these lines convincingly. The example in this episode of this is how Audrey Pauley says she can't read and Reyes jumps on that and assumes that the floating hospital is in Audrey Pauley's mind because the words on the notepads are jumbled and missing from the soda machine.

So many other things I could say about why I didn't like this episode but I'll leave it by saying 5/10.

Hate it season 9

[daynnahsemail · 3/10 · 25 January 2014]

I hate season 9! Season 8 was difficult to get through, but it picked back up at the end. All of the episodes in this season just seem to be rip offs of ones from another. And what is with the characters ending up in the hospital basically every single episode? I miss the Scully Mulder dynamic. Without Mulder, all of the cases end up being the same. It is just all of them doubting the scenario until the last five minutes. I believe that Reyes was brought in to break up this dynamic of "we have no idea what we are doing", but the only thing she contributes is forced looks of concern that are forever on her face. Even though she is a 'believer' she is as hard to convince as Scully was in the first season. I am just trying to get through this season so I can be done with the series. This episode is too reminiscent of when Scully was in a coma for my taste. I just don't like it at all.

Dog people and cat people

[Muldernscully · 4/10 · 22 November 2007]

Audrey Pauley just doesn't sit right with me. Audrey Pauley is the Doggett/Reyes "relationship" episode. I think what my biggest gripe about this episode is is that it's succumbing to network TV pressure. Mulder and Scully took 143 episodes to kiss for the first time. It's taking a whopping 13 episodes to show Doggett's interest in Reyes. What made the X-Files unique was the ability to keep Mulder and Scully from bed-hopping for so long. With Doggett and Reyes already getting interested in each other romantically just 13 episodes makes it like any other TV drama.

Reyes does the little dog people/cat people bit to set up the line later on in the episode. It's true. Doggett is a dog person. Aren't all cops?

I liked the car wreck scene. Wow! That looked real. It was very well done.

This episode bears a similarity to season 2's 'One Breath'. In it, Scully has a living will, stating she doesn't want to live on life support. Mulder refuses to give up on her. In this episode, the same thing goes for Reyes, and Doggett won't give up on her. Another interesting thing is that Doggett was just in a coma in the previous episode, 'Providence'. So now it's Reyes' turn.

Audrey Pauley(whose last name is never mentioned in the episode) tells Reyes that Doggett loves her. And Doggett has a daydream of him and Reyes smooching. Once again. Too rushed.

Tracy Ellis and her Droopy Dog demeanor bug me. I thought she did well in 'Oubliette', but essentially using the same, depressed character here just doesn't work well and seems repetitive.

Why are Stephen and Mr. Barreiro in hospital garb but Reyes is not? They are all in comas. Seriously, that's an annoying inconsistency. I'm sure the writers just wanted her looking good. If so, Stephen and Mr. Barreiro should have been dressed in street clothes.

I don't like how the evil doctor killing off patients for his own amusement is not fully explained. At least Jack Kevorkian had the patients' permission before he euthanized them. Also, the guy appears to have a poison-filled needle in his pocket at all times in case he needs to 'off' someone, like his nurse.

I did like that Robert Patrick shows some dramatic range in his acting for this episode. It's a nice change and he's convincing.

Is this just 'One Breath' in disguise? I'm wondering now if it is. Audrey Pauley treads upon a classic episode and puts forth numerous inconsistencies that hurts it even more. Rushing Doggett and Reye's relationship is also not good. You may wish for euthanasia from Dr. Preijers after being subjected to Audrey Pauley.

A true Renaissance Man!

[pmicocci-18908 · 1/10 · 28 July 2021]

So, suddenly Dogget can read EKGs?!

Curiouser and curiouser.

Interesting idea but doesn't come off on the details

[RuthAkien · 5/10 · 31 March 2010]

***Spoilers for this and Daemonica and general relationship arc***

Context of episode: On the progression of the D & R relationship, this is the first time I actually saw that D *might* have feelings for her. Before this we're only told but not shown, and we see R throwing herself at him and being all *thanks but no thanks*. For the speed of their relationship (up to this point) to work we should have been SHOWN this much earlier. By this point, i'd also like to know what R has that would make her a good partner for D: we see see Doggett's good qualities (loyal, dependable, honourable, honest, dog-like etc) and that he'd be better off emotionally with someone, but why R? Why is she better or worse than anyone else? Besides, I wasn't set up for a D & R romance because in Daemonicus there was confusing talk of unrequited Scully love (to which D reacted strongly).

The episode: The good: - Doggett was so well acted; he almost sold it to me. If it was someone worse in that role I doubt I'd believe at all. - The model hospital set thing looked great. - The idea of waking up there and thinking you might be in limbo (but i have no idea how this is supposed to have worked). - liked dog-cat exchange at start. More of this earlier in the season would have helped their relationship.

The not great: - no motive for doc and behaviour random. - why didn't the nurse go into the model if everyone was injected with the same stuff? - R doesn't seem *that* scared (or *that* anything). - Scully's out of character lack of care. - Too fast in D & R's relationship. - Wouldn't D at least try to tell Scully what he thinks is happening. She's believed crazier stuff before.

I thought the look Scully gives R when R wakes was hilarious. It's like she was thinking 'Damn! How am I going to explain to you: I've been actively encouraging them to pull the plug.'