For the first season of The X-Files, I had a rough idea what every episode was about solely from the episode titles with the exception of a few. "Conduit" was one of them. I kept trying to think exactly what happens and for the life of me, I had no clue what would happen and had very vague memories of watching the episode previously while watching it again.
After finishing the episode, there was a clear reason why. "Conduit" is slooooow. The plot is shallow--girl disappears, her brother writes "1s" and "0s" that make up random things, girl returns and doesn't talk--and we learn virtually nothing.
On the plus side, this is the first time we see Mulder go overboard in his search for his sister and lose objectivity and Scully resists in her own way. The end of the episode has Scully listening to a tape of Mulder discussing her sister and Mulder in a church (perhaps not fitting with his later admission about religion), and the final line of the episode--a haunting "I want to believe," from Mulder.
Score: 8.4/10
