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By Chris Snellgrove
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Have you ever watched a pretty common hour of TV which is only saved by a murderer guest star? Sometimes, even professionals in the television industry will be the first to admit that they had a fairly defective script and that the only thing that holds the story together is the strong performance by a hotel actor that week. For example, the director who worked on the episode “Roland” agreed that the performance of Željko Ivanek had helped save what would otherwise have been a very remarkable episode of The X-Files.
Željko Ivanek with chapter X-Files “Roland”
In case you haven’t seen it or just need to be broken, “Roland” is a chapter where the title character is a man with an intellectual disability treated to murderous actions by his cryogenic frozen twin. Even according to the standards of this horrific show, this story was the 90s Schlock soap opera at its best. Many who worked on this episode believed that Roland Star Željko Ivanek really saved this X-Files Episode, starting with director David Nutter who said “when I knew I had it, I thought it was important to push that as much as possible, to help overweight the frailty in the script.”
One of David Nutter’s biggest criticism of the script of this chapter is that her villain is “a bit abstract.” That’s because the great evil is a guy in cryogenic stasis we don’t even see until near the end of the episode … not a tangible threat just like the cigarette smoking man lurking in the corner. However once he realized which vast acting chops Željko Ivanek were, the X-Files The director put a greater emphasis on Roland’s character, leading to a chapter he believed “a very strong character piece.”
Chris Carter He generally agreed with this assessment, noting that “for me, (Željko Ivanek’s portrait) made the episode” X-Files Fans will never forget. He went on offering specific praise to “David Nutter and to the staff to write about falling in and making the chapter actually work.” In fact, Carter loved Roland so much that he allowed one of the show’s spontaneous musical rules to be completely broken.
Back X-Files Composer Mark Snow, David Nutter, said “a strange little theme on a piano would be great for this character,” but Snow knew full well that Chris Carter “really not into melodic music,” so he knew he had to get this song “absolutely right.” The result is “the simple, very similar, child -like, a bit sad” piece … the kind that stood out immediately in the midst of the horrific and more atmospheric tracks of the show. Fortunately, Carter loved the song, which perfectly summed up the internal battle of the title character.
In retrospect, it’s easy to see how the creative staff behind “Roland” put all their chips on the performance of Željko Ivanek. He had a hungry share of the screen time, a custom song, and an unforgettable final arc. And that made him a standout character in a season that included early fan favorites like the lonely gun men and Walter Skinner.
At the end of the day David Nutter’s instincts were right: powerful acting Željko Ivanek was actually a highlight that was otherwise fairly common X-Files Episode. Fortunately for the cast and crew, this was a show built around large personalities, and the character of Roland Ivanek managed to be equally compelling in his limited time on the screen David Duchovny and FBI agents in the past Gillian Anderson. And that makes this episode worth re -watching a time or two before you put it back on ice (preferably cryogenic freeze).
