Comments: plaidder@mindspring.com
10. Spender has been given some of the lamest-ass dialogue ever written. Even the voiceovers, while cheesy, are fine cheese. This stuff he's spouting is Kraft orange plastic American cheese. "You're the one whose days are numbered, Agent Mulder!" C'mon. If you're gonna say that, at least add a "MOOHOOHAHAHA!"
9. The guy who plays him is neither a good actor nor pleasant to look at.
8. Spender's whole sibling-rivalry thing with Mulder appears to mean that the two of them will spend the entire show engaged in a battle for dominance that so far could have come straight out of *Wild Kingdom.* "Here we see ze huge bull elephant seal fighting his rival for control of the herd..." This kind of classic masculine chest-thumping ("I'm gonna bring you down!" "No--I'm gonna bring *you* down!") is unlikely to add much nuance to the show or to Mulder's character.
7. Having Spender there as Cancer Man's son dilutes the power of the "Luke, I Am Your Father" story line we had going with Mulder. I suppose the idea is that now that CC has pretty much made it obvious that there's a pretty good chance CM fathered Mulder, he has to keep making it suspenseful by making us doubt whether that really happened, and introducing another son is one way to do that (CM can't have impregnated *everyone*...or can he?). But emotionally, having Mulder struggle with his paternity packs a much bigger wallop than watching CM tell some guy we just met two weeks ago that he's his father. Now, at what should be the hieght of the show's powers, CC has to abandon a storyline that is an emotional goldmine to develop this distraction. Bad idea.
6. Related to #7, introducing Spender meant revealing early on that Cancer Man was still alive. This was another mistake in terms of viewer response. Think about it. He seemed pretty dead after being shot. If we hadn't found out from "The Red and the Black" that he was alive and well and living in Canada, imagine the yelps of astonishment and delight that would have risen up from living rooms all over this great nation when CM was revealed running across the snow in his bloody sneakers. *That's* season finale material. As it was, they had to make do with revealing Krychek, which is just not the same.
5. Spender is either so dumb, or playing so dumb, that it is at times painful to watch. That whole scene in the garage was nuts. Spender claims to have no idea who this man is, and yet stands there listening to him spout metaphorical cheez whiz about games and strategy. Then he runs into him in the hallway and all he can think of to say is "May I help you?" Oy.
4. Spender walks around permanently looking, to quote a manager who fired a friend of ours from El Paso's Comic Strip comedy club, "like he has a mouthful of shit." I suppose this is as far as he's gotten with his character's motivation--"OK, remember, your character is uptight and pissed off." "Uptight and pissed off. Got it." Like there aren't enough uptight, pissed off people in that organization for us to watch.
3. Time spent developing Spender's character means less face time for Mulder and Scully.
2. The whole "patronage from someone very powerful" thing that got Spender where he is doesn't make any sense now that Cancer Man has been relegated to the margins. How exactly was he exerting this influence while hiding out in Quebec as his former colleagues were combing the District of Columbia looking to finish him off?
1. He just bugs me.
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