731 (The X-Files) - Themes

Themes

Jan Delasara, in her book '"PopLit, PopCult and The X-Files" argues that episodes such "731" and "Nisei", or the earlier third season episode "Paper Clip", show the public's trust in science "eroding". Delasara proposes that "arrogated" scientists who are "rework the fabric of life" are causing the public's faith in the scientific method to fade drastically, "a concern ... that is directly addressed by X-Files episodes". Moreover, she notes that almost all of the scientists portrayed in The X-Files are depicted with a "connection to ancient evil," with the lone exception being Agent Scully. In "731," and earlier in "Nisei," the scientists are former Japanese scientists who worked for Unit 731. In their attempts to create a successful human-alien hybrid, they become the archetypical scientists who " too far," a serious factor that Delasara argues "'alienates further from science and its practitioners".

Critical opinion has also noted that both parts of the story arc offer an alternative explanation for the events of the series so far, a "less romantic" outcome that paints the ongoing plot as an elaborate hoax to defer attention from the government's experiments, both military and medical. Reviewer Todd VanDerWerff feels that such an explanation would "speak more to the sadness at the core of the X-Files to have Mulder find his answers and be forced to accept they weren't what he was looking for", comparing such a realisation to the hero of Don Quixote. This "hoax" plot device would later be revisited in both the fourth season finale "Gethsemane" and the fifth season's opening two-part episodes "Redux and Redux II", although to a much lesser degree of effectiveness.