Comments on: Season 3, Episode 17: Pusher

By: Shaenon

Shaenon — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 17:00:59 +0000

In reply to Amonduul. It may be the all-time best Scully line.

By: Strephon

Strephon — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 23:15:38 +0000

I enjoyed the Black Jack shout-out.

By: CBob

CBob — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 01:28:22 +0000

In reply to commodorejohn.

Haven’t seen that, but I’d guess either:
A) it was faked for comedy
B) it was a simple conversation with few prior knowledge/person specific cues, making responses easy to ad lib without becoming inconsistent
C) the mark didn’t pick up the other side flawlessly: they stumbled along confused as part of the joke
D) it uses “intimate” to mean “sexual”, instead of “predicated on a deep understanding of the other party”

But more to the point it’s an analogy. All analogies are imperfect, otherwise you’d be comparing a thing to itself.

Modell doesn’t just tell people to do things. Each push is implied to be a multi-step, give-and-take process, and uses quasi-subliminal insinuations that’re either context or personality specific instead of direct language. You might be able to record it, but play it back out of context and/or to the wrong person and it would probably just be noise. Even under ideal circumstances, the recording would be unreliable because of the lack of give-and-take adjustment.

By: Animaniac

Animaniac — Sat, 26 Oct 2013 20:27:00 +0000

In reply to Anderson.

Finally found it… I kept expecting her in the courtroom…

By: davidbreslin101

davidbreslin101 — Sat, 26 Oct 2013 18:14:49 +0000

In reply to Anderson. You've got good eyes! It took me your prompt and three scans to spot the distinctive hair....

By: commodorejohn

commodorejohn — Sat, 26 Oct 2013 16:36:51 +0000

In reply to CBob. it’d be like recording one side of an intimate conversation and expecting random people to pick up the other side flawlessly on playback, without prompting. Worked for Bob Newhart...

By: CBob

CBob — Sat, 26 Oct 2013 08:04:00 +0000

In reply to Jacob Haller. It seemed to me like there was a large feedback element involved. Like, he can't just flat out command someone to do something: he has to sort of tease them up to it, feeling them out as he goes. This makes me think it has to be real-time and one-on-one. Even if you could electronically record whatever signal he's giving out, it wouldn't work because it'd be like recording one side of an intimate conversation and expecting random people to pick up the other side flawlessly on playback, without prompting.

By: Amonduul

Amonduul — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 17:06:16 +0000

I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who thought “Please explain to me the scientific nature of the whammy” as being the obvious stand-out line in the episode.

By: David Morgan-Mar

David Morgan-Mar — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 09:32:39 +0000

Wow, Mulder has precognitive powers!

By: Anderson

Anderson — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 09:31:01 +0000

In reply to Jacob Haller. It occurs to me that if they'd *really* wanted to take a dark tone with this episode, they'd have made him descend to the level of being the worlds most effective telemarketer on top of the whole murdering-people-through-mind-control thing. Or a really good yoga instructor, but that's not quite so reprehensible.