ZONKS: LEGAL FILES

This week on 'Boston Legal', Jerry Espenson mentioned 'The X-Files' as a TV show, one that aired in a lousy time slot on Friday nights; and that it was a TV show in search of the Truth.

Seems like a pretty damning case for a Zonk, doesn't it?

But 'The X-Files' and 'Boston Legal' can still exist in the same TV dimension. And we have to make sure theydo since both can eventually be officially linked to 'Homicide: Life On The Street' ('The X-Files' more directly so).

In Toobworld, 'The X-Files' was the name given to those FBI cases that dealt with the supernatural, paranormal activities, unexplained phenomena, and the just plain weird. I'm thinking that some enterprising TV production company - perhaps the one that brought 'Wormhole Extreme' to the airwaves - must have used the Freedom of Information Act to get those files declassified.

They they would present docu-dramas based on those files; dramatizations combined with interviews with actual participants. All of this would be hosted by some aging, fading star, perhaps someone like Dennis Dupree.

Here in the Real World, these shows used to be popular - 'Unsolved Mysteries', 'Rescue 911', 'Ripley's Believe It Or Not', 'Beyond Belief', 'In Search Of....'

The Toobworld version of 'The X-Files' is no longer on the air; Jerry spoke of it in the past tense. And it may not have broadcast many episodes before it was cancelled - he asked the jury if they even remembered it at all. But one dramatization may have focused attention on a case from Boston itself, when a deadly biological threat was found in the subway system.

This splainin could be used to support a different theory used to disable 'X-Files' Zonks. Sometimes characters won't mention the show, but they will bring up the two main characters. ("Okay Mulder and Scully, say now that I believe you." - PC Andy, 'Torchwood')

I've dealt with that kind of Zonk before, splainin that those two FBI agents gained notoriety and even fame (infamy) after they went on the run. The Toobworld version of 'The X-Files' might have added to that, since they would have been key players in the cases dramatized for each episode.

Plus there was that big-screen movie based on an "X File", which starred Garry Shandling as a Mulder type and Tea Leoni as an agent based on Scully. (Also there's a roman a clef novel entitled "From Outer Space" by Jose Chung.)

So that Beantown Zonk has been disabled, and can be filed away.

SHOWS CITED:
'Boston Legal'
'The X-Files'
'Homicide: Life On The Street'
'Stargate SG-1'
'Hope & Gloria'
'Rescue 911'
'Unsolved Mysteries'
'Ripley's Believe It Or Not'
'Beyond Belief'
'In Search Of.....'

BCnU!
Tele-Toby