While chasing a monster in Los Angeles, Mulder and Scully are videotaped for the television show 'Cops.'

Written by Vince Gilligan
Directed by Michael Watkins

"Cops" is filmed on location, a title announces, and we see a fast series of clips of law enforcement personnel running through streets and bursting through doors. Scully and Mulder are among them.

Night. A police car. Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff Keith Wetzel goes to a house to investigate a reported "monster." He sees something rummaging through the alley, and he gives chase. But soon, he is being chased while screaming to the camera person to "Run!"

"X-Cops" is a wearisome episode.

Watching the agents and police repeatedly run through the darkened streets of Los Angeles after an unseen -- and uninteresting -- foe evokes merely a sense of futility. The use of the format of the Fox TV show Cops provides some transient novelty but little drama or humor.

Indeed, viewers may be left with the vaguely sickened feeling of having been experimented upon in a misbegotten attempt at corporate synergy by the Fox network. Might some X-Files creature soon step from behind the curtain in the controversial game show Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?

In any event, it all seems a sad diversion from Scully and Mulder's ongoing work of investigating powerful extraterrestrial and supernatural forces that now loom over the Earth. The agents' sprints through a shabby L.A. neighborhood give every appearance of wasting precious time at a very unfortunate moment.

Mulder is not averse to publicity. Indeed, he's eager to document evidence of the paranormal before a large television audience.

Will the Los Angeles entity continue trying to scare Steve and Edy?

No attempt is made to explain the Los Angeles entity in other than paranormal terms. Moreover, even the paranormal explanation is sketchy at best.