Season One DVD Two – Ghost In The Machine

Season One Disc Two

Ghost in the Machine

The teaser starts with two men in the company offices of Eurisko software.

One, a well dressed executive, the other a t-shirt clad programmer.

 They argue about the decision being made to lower research. The executive tells the programmer that it is no longer the programmer’s company. The programmer leaves telling the executive he will regret his choice.

 We next see the executive through the eyes of a security camera in the company’s main computer room.

The executive finds that the automatic faucet in his personal rest room has overflowed the sink. As he checks it out a phone rings(I wonder how many executive bathrooms have a phone in them-not to type of business I would want to do there). As he answers the bathroom door locks in him. His electronic key does not work.

 He uses a metal key in a keyhole. As he puts the key in, he is thrown across the room by and electric shock. He is dead.

 In the computer room, we hear the computer (C.O.S. for Central Operating System) announce “File deleted.”

After the credits we are introduced to an old agency friend of Mulder’s, Jerry, who is assigned to find the murderer.

He asks Mulder and Scully to help him. He is trying to rebuild his agency reputation.

 Is the murderer the programmer of someone else?

He is the only one with any real access the C.O.S. which controls nearly everything in the building.

 It turns out the C.O.S. is a new form of artificial intelligence.

Our friend, the programmer, Brad Wilzcek, claims the C.O.S. is trying to protect itself. He says the military wants it also, but he refused to work with them.

 Jerry uses Mulder’s profile of the killer without asking Mulder first. Mulder is a little upset but still wants to help his friend.

 The C.O.S. has a lot of resemblance to Hal 2000 in 2001 A Space Odyssey.

The episode has a lot more resemblance to that movie than the popular anime, Ghost in the Machine, that shares the title.

 I enjoyed the Brad Wilzcek, programmer character. He hates to wear shoes (his big complaint about jail) and is very rich from his share of the company. He has a bit of self-righteous hypocrisy similar to Bryce in Max Headroom.

 “I only build the bomb, I don’t drop it!”  - Bryce