The Zoo-Files

For a show with the tagline "I Want To Believe," watching The X-Files requires a certain suspension of belief.  And I'm not just talking about the aliens, vampires, werewolves, and other monsters that populate the episodes of the beloved series.  I'm talking about plain old logical nonsense.  Seriously, Scully and Mulder work for the government, and are sent by the government to investigate phenomena, only to be constantly thwarted by the government.  I mean, you don't need to plan an elaborate cover up here - just stop approving their travel requests and expense forms, okay?

The silliness of the show was really driven home to me when I watched the Season Two, Episode 18 "Fearful Symmetry," in which Scully and Mulder investigate some paranormal wackiness at a zoo in Idaho.  Animals disappear, then reappear miles away from the zoo, usually on a rampage, apparently the part of some alien artificial insemination project.  It's an interesting plot concept, and I was intrigued.

What made it hard to get into, however, was how ridiculous so much of the plot was, as seen by a zookeeper.

Ok, so for one thing, a major part of the plot revolves around the fact that at this mysterious zoo, there has never, ever been a single birth or hatching of an animal.  Ever.  This is supposed to be part of the mystery.  Meanwhile, the zoo employees (we only ever meet two, presumably there are more) are constantly introducing us to their lone elephant, lone tiger, etc.  Like, no wonder you can't breed anything here, you're literally half of Noah's Ark - one of everything!  And that it never occurred to anyone to send any of the animals out to where they could breed.

The zoo is also supposed to be really old and hard up for cash, which explains why there are no funds to get partners for the animals to breed with.  We are constantly seeing big cats, for example, in what are travel crates, but are presumably their cages.  The elephant enclosure is the size of my bathroom, and about as naturalistic.  Then, we have a scene at the zoo's conference room, which has an entire wall taken up by a view into a tank of beluga whales.  Ok, I can see a few places where maybe we could have started to trim expenses a little...

And, of course, there are the two zoo employees.  Every zoo show or movie has two employees.   One is the hardened old brute who beats animals in submission and is there for the paycheck.  The other is the one who cares and is there to make things better, who has a connection to the animals.  Neither actually seems to know what they are doing.

Though the show does feature some anti-zoo activists, and Scully at one point expresses concern about some of the cages and their suitability for the animals, the episode isn't too inherently anti-zoo.  (It would be ironic if it were, since, with the special effects of the day, it was largely required to use live wild animals, obtained from trainers - so anti-captivity messages would have been a little ironic).  At the end, Mulder even speculates that someday humanity may endanger itself so much that, much as some animals require our help to save their species, we may be reliant on aliens to protect us.

I wonder if other professions find it hard to enjoy TV or movies sometimes because they are too distracted by inaccuracies.  Maybe zookeeping is extra-unique in that sense because how few people there are who actually have direct knowledge of it, compared to have prevalent zoos are in pop culture.  There are lots of lawyers, doctors, and law enforcement agent shows, each with their own consultants.  Maybe it's time I close up shop and head out to LA, set up a zoo-consultant firm for Hollywood?