This Monster of the Week episode is an X-Files version of Groundhog Day though it turns out a Twilight Zone episode is the real inspiration. In this episode Mulder finds himself in a bank as it is being robbed. Scully comes looking for him because he is late to a meeting. Mulder ends up shot and dying and ultimately everyone in the bank ends up dying as the bank robber detonates a bomb. Then Mulder wakes up and we start over…
The premise is that time is stuck in a loop because something is happening that is not supposed to (or vice versa). In each iteration of the loop, things happen just a little differently and Mulder starts to remember just a little bit what happened before.
Overall this was a very well done episode. The primary guest actors in the form of the bank robber and his girlfriend did a great job, as did Mulder and Scully as usual. The episode was suitably suspenseful as you wondered just what would be different the next time around and there were even a couple of inside jokes.
However, I do have a couple of huge pet peeves with this episode. First, while I understand that Mulder’s job is to investigate unexplained phenomena in the form of the X-Files, it seems just a bit too contrived to fall into one accidentally. Mulder wasn’t out investigating an X-File, he was just going to the bank and found himself in one. I also don’t really like the fact that this was an episode where the same few scenes were repeated over and over with slight variation. It’s like a 5-10 minute episode told repeatedly with slight variations. As I said, it was well done, it’s just that the contrived and repetitious nature bothered me. Because of that, I would give this episode 3/5 stars but if those pet peeves of mine don’t bother you, then consider it a star higher.