Doggett tackles the case of a killer who murders people by entering and manipulating their dreams. Although he gets help from Skinner and the Lone Gunmen, he has to solve the mystery without Scully, who's out of the action thanks to a mysterious ailment.

Written by Frank Spotnitz
Directed by Tony Wharmby

Mitch Pileggi -- Skinner
Keith Szarabajka -- Anthony Tipet
James Pickens, Jr. -- Kersh
Tom Braidwood -- Frohike
Dean Haglund -- Langly
Bruce Harwood -- Byers
Grant Heslov -- Andre Bormanis

"Andre Bormanis" is actually the science advisor for the Star Trek franchise. His "appearance" here is an in-joke.

FBI Agent Leeds is asleep in his car. His partner Agent Stedman knocks on the window and upbraids him for falling asleep on stakeout. He points out that the front door of the house they're supposedly watching is wide open.

They enter the apparently deserted house, quickly noticing a large human eye painted above the front door and a trail of bloody footprints leading to a back room.

The back room is full of cots, each containing a corpse with a gaping hole in its forehead.

"Via Negativa" marks the end of Robert Patrick and John Doggett's X-Files apprenticeship. After tackling several cases with -- and occasionally despite -- Scully, Doggett is finally ready to face the world of alien conspiracies, freaks of nature and psycho/psychic killers all by his lonesome.

Doggett's seen enough to understand that there might be things out there that he can't reconcile with his worldview. However, even though he admits that possibility, he doesn't automatically toe the "I want to believe" line when confronted with facts that don't fit his normal set of conclusions.

That's the fundamental difference between Doggett and Mulder. Mulder always tried to be the first one to gaze into the abyss of impossibility. In contrast, Doggett won't confront the void until he's exhausted all that good police work has to offer.

Indeed, the message Doggett leaves on Scully's answering machine at the end of Act Three is the key here. Though Scully tells him to trust his instincts, this is a territory where the instincts Doggett honed on the streets of New York no longer apply. He recognizes that he needs guidance from someone better versed in the impossible to guide him to the solution to the mystery he faces.

The difference between Doggett and Kersh is that the door to belief in Doggett's mind is slightly ajar; Kersh's is bolted shut. The deputy director derides what he considers "the X-Files explanation" of the Tipet case. Doggett can't be quite so dismissive, but he clearly doesn't want to follow the trail of speculation that Skinner blazes.

Of course, there's always another explanation for Kersh's intransigence: it may be in his best interest to throw Doggett off the trail. Like the Smoking Man before him, Kersh may know -- and be involved in -- more than he cares to admit.

Not since Kyle MacLachlan had one piece of cherry pie too many has an FBI agent suffered such disturbing dreams. At the risk of waxing overly Freudian, Doggett's visions of decapitating and stalking Scully suggest that, despite their recent détente, the tension between the agents remains largely unresolved.

Perhaps Doggett blames Scully for what he is becoming. The realization that the world is a stranger and more complicated place than he imagined can't sit well with him. While he accepts the fact that his mind needs to be more open to successfully tackle the X-Files, that acceptance is surely tinged with a certain amount of resentment.

On this level, the visions of doing violence to Scully are simply the subconscious detritus of this resentment. On the other hand, there is a chance that this subliminal hostility comes not from Doggett, but from some outside agency.

At the risk of stepping out onto a speculative limb that may collapse under the weight of subsequent episodes, it seems possible that "Via Negativa" might just be an X-Files mythology episode masquerading as mundane monster-of-the-week fare.

While hunting for Tipet, Doggett learns about failed CIA experiments to create a psychic assassin. What if Tipet wasn't just a lone nut, but part of a government conspiracy to revive those experiments?

The FBI had Tipet's cult under surveillance, ostensibly on suspicion that the cultists were dealing drugs. While that suspicion creates the necessary probable cause, what if the allegations of drug dealing masked a more sinister intent?

Kersh's eagerness to close the case once Tipet is out of the picture suggests that he knows more about the case than either Skinner or Doggett. What if the entire situation was orchestrated to bring Doggett into contact with Tipet?

Perhaps Tipet learned how to pass on his heightened consciousness without drugs. Perhaps the person behind Tipet -- Kersh or other masters -- wanted Tipet to pass that power on to Doggett, thereby creating a psychic assassin on the FBI's payroll. The end of the episode suggests that traces of Tipet remain in Doggett's subconscious.

Seen in this light, Doggett becomes The X-Files' resident Manchurian Candidate. If that is the case, then perhaps his visions of killing Scully were planted in his mind along with the power to carry out such a murder.

Doggett successfully beat the conditioning this time, but what happens the next time the power resurfaces? Besides, who's to say Scully was the only target they gave him? Taking the long view, suppose Doggett was given the psycho killer whammy as a failsafe against Mulder's eventual return.

Any chain is only as strong as its weakest link. In the case of this supposed chain of conspiracy, the weakest link is insubstantial as smoke. Nothing may come of Doggett's experiences in this episode, but The X-Files has gotten a lot more mileage from even fewer facts in the past.

What's wrong with Scully this time?

Did some part of Tipet survive the death of his body and set up shop in Dogget's subconscious? If so, will Doggett suffer any more nightmares and visions?

Why was Kersh so eager to close the Tipet case?

All this talk of third eyes and murder weapons from Calcutta (where Kali worship is centered) has more to do with the "left-hand" path of Eastern mysticism than the actual "via negativa," which is actually a viable philosophical method for comprehending an undefinable thing -- God, infinity -- by listing all of the traits it does not have. Murder really doesn't have much to do with it.

And you'll be disappointed. Fox takes a break from The X-Files next week. The following week features a rerun. Scully and Doggett return to active duty in three weeks when they face a currently shadowy threat in "Surekill".