This episode, the first season finale, has everything. It opens with a well staged car chase, includes major revelations about alien/human hybrids, and ends with the death of an important character. Unfortunately, along with all of the virtues of the best X-Files, it also has all of the flaws of the worst.

Mulder wants to investigate a mysterious high speed car chase. Scully is dragged along. One of the cars involved has been replaced by another car, a clear indication that someone is covering something up. They interview a scientist who owned the missing car, and he is too busy to hear the news that his car is missing and has apparently been used in a crime. As they leave the laboratory, we have a Mulder/Scully moment. Mulder is dogged, Scully skeptical. What is wrong with this picture?

What's wrong is that nobody, nobody human, is too busy to react to the news that his car has been stolen. The scientist is acting guilty as hell. The substitution of evidence is also a clear sign that dirty work is afoot. But Chris Carter wanted a scene between Mulder the believer and Scully the unbeliever, so he stuck one in, despite the fact that the events we had just witnessed were evidence that a hard-nosed investigator would never ignore. This happens a lot on The X-Files. Yes, Scully is a scientist. But scientists don't ignore evidence. They demand evidence.

Same song, second verse. Mulder locates a warehouse where alien/human hybrids are being stockpiled. As he is leaving the warehouse, he is chased by Men in Black. (Wouldn't a cameo by Will Smith in the next X-Files movie just make your day? Maybe a ten second bit, where he flashes the little memory eraser thing-a-ma-bob at Scully and walks away, leaving Mulder speechless.) Anyway, back to the story. Mulder escapes from the Men in Black, and the next day brings Scully and Deep Throat back to the warehouse. And he's surprised when there is nothing there! Come on! Mulder is a believer, but he's not stupid. The Men in Black knew he had discovered the warehouse. He knew they knew. And he expects the evidence to still be there when he gets back?

Third time's the charm. Scully and another scientist are discussing the alien/human DNA. And the other scientist explains to Scully what DNA is. Please! We're supposed to believe that Dr. Dana Scully doesn't know what DNA is? Or that anyone would think for a minute that she needed to have DNA explained? It is clear what Chris Carter wanted to do here. He wanted to convey information to the viewer, who may never listen to National Public Radio, and so might conceivably be ignorant of DNA. And so he had one character explain DNA to another character. This is a standard writer's ploy. But he could have found a way to do it that didn't shout its implausibility to the world. Did Spock ever say to Kirk, "The galaxy is big, Jim. Really big."

Now, after all this, I must say that I enjoyed "The Erlenmeyer Flask" a lot. But I would have enjoyed it more if it had avoided some of the clichés that lie at the heart of bad science fiction.