I have a soft spot for "Soft Light." (No pun intended.) It's not a well-written episode, but the scenes of people sucked into nothing from the shadow gets me every time. The old school visual effects are fun to watch in a Tron-ish way.
The concept behind the science is cool--living dark matter after an accident--but the episode is amazingly devoid of any emotion whatsoever. Many bodies drop and yet, no one seems to care. Even when Scully's former student bites the dust, there isn't a second thought other than a funeral in which Scully looks sadly at her name.
Once again, we see X cleaning up the mess, bypassing Mulder for his own ends. The revelation in the end is that the guy with the death shadows may not have been the one in the chamber after all, but another scientist. Mulder, who was forceful with Deep Throat, can't change what X does, but X helps sometimes, putting Mulder in a precarious position.
Score: 8.2/10
