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For other uses, see The X-Files (disambiguation).
The X-Files is a science fiction television series, created by Chris Carter, which first aired on September 10, 1993 and ended on May 19, 2002. The show was one of the FOX network's first major hits, and its main characters and slogans (e.g. "The Truth Is Out There," "Trust No One," "Deny Everything," "I Want to Believe") became pop culture touchstones. The X-Files was seen as a defining series of the 1990s, coinciding with the era's widespread distrust of governments, interest in conspiracy theories and spirituality, and belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life.[1] According to The New York Times, it "made sci-fi accessible to viewers who didn't consider themselves sci-fi fans,"[2] winning awards including Emmys and a Peabody. In the series, FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are tasked with investigating the eponymous "X-Files," marginalized cases often involving paranormal phenomena. In one flashback episode, it is explained that the reason the "X-Files" were used is that there was no more room in the "U" file, for "unsolved case" files. Mulder plays the role of the "believer," having faith in the existence of aliens and the paranormal, while Scully is a skeptic, initially assigned by her departmental superiors to debunk Mulder's unconventional work. As the show progressed both agents became embroiled in the same larger conflicts (termed "the mythology" or "mytharc" by the show's creators) and developed a close and ambiguous friendship—which some fans, known as "shippers,"[3] saw as more than platonic. The X-Files also featured stand-alone episodes ranging in tone from horror to comedy, in which Mulder and Scully investigated uniquely bizarre cases without long-term implications on the storyline. These so-called "monster of the week" episodes made up the bulk of the series.
Cast of charactersImage:Mss151.jpg Anderson and Duchovny as Dana Scully and Fox Mulder
Other important characters throughout most of the show's run included the mysterious Cigarette Smoking Man, or "Cancer Man" (played by William B. Davis); "counterculture patriot" research trio The Lone Gunmen; the loyalty-shifting Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea); the families of Scully and Mulder, including Fox Mulder's disappeared sister Samantha; and the agents' informants, beginning with Deep Throat (Jerry Hardin) and X (Steven Williams). Additionally, the Alien Bounty Hunter (Brian Thompson) appeared frequently beginning in season two; the Well-Manicured Man (John Neville) and the First Elder (Don S. Williams) beginning in season three; Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden) beginning in season four; and Cassandra Spender (Veronica Cartwright), Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens) and Diana Fowley (Mimi Rogers) beginning in season five. Some of these characters were eventually written out of the show. Many other characters were important for more limited periods. Plot and mythologyThe X-Files was considered unique for a popular TV show of the 1990s, in combining continuing, serial drama elements (such as those often found in miniseries and soap operas) with individual stories which did not require a viewer to understand the show's history.[3] Fans and the show's producers commonly divide X-Files stories into two categories: "Mythology" or "Mytharc" episodes, which concerned the ongoing tale of a governmental conspiracy regarding the extraterrestrial, and stand-alone episodes (sometimes called "Monster-of-the-Week" or "Freak-of-the-Week" episodes), which dealt with unusual creatures and situations relating to the paranormal, generally being unrelated to the series mythology. Some fans have even gone so far as to write up the entire storyline of the show, including every important date,[6] while others have examined its internal consistencies and contradictions.[7] Mytharc episodes
Below is a list of episodes that directly concern the mythology of The X-Files in broadcast order.
Other types of episodesImage:Walterskinner.jpg Several episodes were centered on Mulder and Scully's boss at the FBI, Assistant Director Walter Skinner (played by Mitch Pileggi). Several installments explored the relationship between Mulder and Scully, while some episodes focused on supporting characters such as Walter Skinner or the Lone Gunmen. Such episodes sometimes fell in a gray area between "mythology" and stand-alone. Chris Carter said the producers "wanted to avoid the 'monster of the week' syndrome,"[8] so even stand-alone episodes sometimes involved aliens and government conspiracies (particularly during the show's first and sixth seasons), and many "monster" episodes also had important developments for the characters and plot of the show (particularly early episodes in the second and fourth seasons). There is disagreement about whether episodes ranging from season 1's "Beyond the Sea" to season 6's "The Unnatural" may properly be counted as mythology, as the producers did try for a degree of continuity. However, most viewers considered episodes to be mythology only if they involved the specific conspiracy around alien life that was considered central to The X-Files. For example, "Sleepless" and "Wetwired" feature the close involvement of ongoing conspiracy elements and characters in certain scenes. However, these two episodes, along with several other episodes in the above list, were not included on the officially released X-Files "mythology" DVDs. Alternately, the episodes "Soft Light" and "Leonard Betts" have rarely been considered mythology, although the former is an episode about a government conspiracy involving an important side character, and the latter is a monster episode with pivotal character revelations connecting to the larger plot. Likewise, the "Dreamland" two-parter is about a man in black working at Area 51, but the story is more of a parody than a mythology episode that ties in with others. Image:Lonegun.jpg ...while others centered around The Lone Gunmen, a trio of conspiracy theorists who eventually merited their own spinoff. Non-paranormal episodesIn many cases paranormal "X-File" elements were only a backdrop to character-driven plots, but nonetheless, nearly every episode of The X-Files involved supernatural or science fiction themes in some way. However, a small number of episodes were seen to depart from the show's central theme, involving bizarre, horrific or vaguely explained events, without being conventionally implausible. These include the popular episodes "Irresistible"[9] and "Home", although in the first case some have seen supernatural elements in the episode as well. The episode "Hell Money" has also sometimes been included. Some have remarked on the strange fact that out of all the hundreds of cases Mulder and Scully investigate in The X-Files universe, nearly all of them actually turn out to involve the paranormal, possibly vindicating Mulder's desire to "believe" in anything and everything.[10][11] History
Idea and pilotCalifornia native Chris Carter, who had previously met with limited success writing for television, was given the opportunity to produce new shows for the struggling FOX network in the early 1990s. Tired of the comedies he had been working on,[12] inspired by a report that 3.7 million Americans may have been abducted by aliens,[13] and recalling memories of Watergate and '70s horror show Kolchak: The Night Stalker,[14] Carter came up with the idea for The X-Files and wrote the pilot episode himself in 1992. He initially struggled over the untested concept—executives wanted a love interest for Scully—and casting. The network wanted either a more established or a "taller, leggier, blonder and breastier"[15] actress for Scully than the 24-year-old Gillian Anderson, a theatre veteran with minor film experience who Carter felt was the only choice after auditions.[16][17] Nevertheless, the pilot with both Anderson and David Duchovny was successfully shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in early 1993, and the show was picked up for the Friday night 9 pm slot on the American fall TV schedule. Carter started a new company named after his birthday, Ten Thirteen Productions, to oversee The X-Files. The unique idea was to present FBI agents investigating extraterrestrials and paranormal events throughout the United States, but Carter also wanted to deal directly with the characters' beliefs. Carter said, "I think of myself as a non-religious person looking for religious experience, so I think that's what the characters are sort of doing too."[18] Dana Scully, in addition to being the scientific "skeptic" and a trained medical doctor, was open to the Catholic faith in which she was raised; while Fox Mulder, in addition to being an Oxford-educated psychologist and renowned criminal profiler, was the "believer" in space aliens, derisively nicknamed "Spooky" by his colleagues. Carter said, "Scully's point of view is the point of view of the show. And so the show has to be built on a solid foundation of science, in order to have Mulder take a flight from it... If the science is really good, Scully's got a valid point of view... And Mulder has to then convince her that she's got to throw her arguments out, she's got to accept the unacceptable. And there is the conflict."[19] Carter also felt Scully's role as the more rational partner and Mulder's reliance on guesses and intuition subverted usual gender roles on television.[8] Image:The X-Files season 1 episode 0.jpg Scene from the "Pilot," written by show creator Chris Carter. Initial episodes for The X-Files dealt with alien abduction. In the "Pilot," Scully is unwittingly set up to serve as a check on Mulder, in order that the government conspirators can contain the implications of his work on the X-File cases, which they view as a danger to their plans. Notably, the powerful shadow government official played by Canadian playwright and acting teacher William B. Davis and known only as the Cigarette Smoking Man, or "Cancer Man", appears without speaking in the first and last scenes of the pilot episode, though his ongoing importance to the series was not yet established.[20] The "unresolved sexual tension" between Mulder and Scully was also central from the beginning, although the agents were often openly at odds during the first season, and they were each given other brief romantic interests in certain episodes, such as "The Jersey Devil," "Fire," and "Lazarus." Carter thought the show should be "plot-driven," saying, "I didn't want the relationship to come before the cases."[10] Thus, throughout The X-Files, Mulder and Scully call each other by their last names, with rare exceptions. Carter's boss at Fox, Peter Roth, brought on more experienced staff members from the start, many of whom had previously worked with him at Stephen J. Cannell's production company.[21] Two of the most highly-regarded writers were Glen Morgan and James Wong. Their contributions to the first two seasons, such as the episode "Beyond the Sea" (guest starring Brad Dourif as a condemned killer with psychic visions pivotal to Scully and to an X-file Mulder is investigating), were exceptionally popular and influential among fans[22] and television critics[23] as well as the show's actors and Carter himself.[24] Morgan and Wong also returned for the first half of the fourth season. Prior to coming to The X-Files, Wong and Morgan had worked extensively with David Nutter, Rob Bowman, and Kim Manners on cop dramas (such as The Commish and 21 Jump Street) produced for Cannell in the Vancouver area, where Chris Carter had also set up production for the low costs[18] and an array of natural environments. Nutter, Bowman and Manners all became frequent X-Files directors, with Nutter working on many of the darker episodes in the first three seasons. The duo of Wong and Morgan also had an important role in hiring several supporting actors on the show, as well as John Bartley, the cinematographer who gave The X-Files its early dark atmospheric look, and who won an Emmy Award in 1996 for his work[25] (Bartley left after the third season and was replaced by DPs Ron Stannett, Jon Joffin and ultimately Joel Ransom for the remainder of the Vancouver years). The temperate rainforest climate of Vancouver itself was also seen as crucial to The X-Files, allowing directors to create a mysterious, foggy aura,[26] seen as somewhat similar to that of the then-recent TV hit Twin Peaks (which had been set in Washington state, while the X-Files pilot was set in a small town in Oregon). Responsibility for casting the show fell to Randy Stone,[27] who had first recommended both leads to Carter, and to Rick Millikan, who largely used local Canadian actors.[28] Seasons 1 – 2 (1993-1995)Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
In the first two seasons, executive producer Carter and co-executive producers Morgan and Wong, along with other writers, helped to define the show's fledgling story arc.[22] The "mythology," as the producers called it, was initially established as a government plot to cover up anything pertaining to the existence of extraterrestrial life, and Mulder's attempts to discover the fate of his sister, Samantha. She had apparently been abducted years prior when Mulder was a child, profoundly affecting him and igniting his obsession with the paranormal. Carter himself had written the show's second episode after the pilot, the Daniel Sackheim-directed "Deep Throat," introducing the character of the same name (played by Jerry Hardin), the first of several secret government informants who would alternately help and hinder Mulder and Scully. "Conduit," the first of many episodes to deal with Mulder's repressed memories of his sister's abduction, was written by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa. Gordon became another key writer/producer in the show's first four years, also writing "Fallen Angel" and other episodes in the first season with Gansa. That early mythology episode centered on Mulder's futile efforts to discover a crashed UFO which was being covered up by the government. It also introduced UFO enthusiast and abduction victim Max Fenig, one of many idiosyncratic outsiders portrayed on the show, which helped attract an "intensely loyal" cult audience of fans.[29] Fenig, played by Scott Bellis, returned for two episodes in the fourth season. Ironically, "Fallen Angel" also received the lowest Nielsen ratings of the first season. Another early and influential mythology effort, the Wong and Morgan-written episode "E.B.E." (for "extraterrestrial biological entity," with Mulder and Scully tracking another crashed UFO led by Deep Throat), did almost as poorly; it was the fourth least watched episode of the series overall until its final, ninth season.[30] Carter and his writers were mostly left to their own devices because FOX was concentrating on The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. and other shows considered more commercially promising at the time, but the crew ran into early opposition on some key episodes, among them "Beyond the Sea",[22] "E.B.E.", and the popular "Ice".[31] According to Carter, "the issue of closure has been an ongoing dialogue with the network, because we've always resisted wrapping up each episode with a neat little bow at the end. You can't do that... because pretending to explain the unexplainable is ridiculous and our audience is too smart for that." Eventually FOX backed down and it was decided "X-File stories would not have forced plot resolutions, but would conclude with some emotional resolution."[8] Image:Toomsx.jpg Doug Hutchinson as Eugene Victor Tooms in "Squeeze," the first of many "Monster-of-the-week" episodes. Morgan and Wong's early influence on X-Files mythology led to their introduction of popular secondary characters who would continue for years in episodes written by others, such as the Scully family - Dana's father William (Don Davis), mother Margaret (Sheila Larken) and sister Melissa (Melinda McGraw) - as well as conspiracy-buff trio The Lone Gunmen,[32] named after the Warren Commission's disputed theory on the John F. Kennedy assassination. However, the duo's first episode for The X-Files was only the third aired, "Squeeze", and it was not a part of the mythology. The episode instead featured Eugene Victor Tooms, an elastic, liver-eating mutant serial killer who emerged from hibernation every 30 years. After the first two episodes and the show's marketing had dealt explicitly with alien abductions and conspiracy theories, the writing staff wanted to broaden the concept of The X-Files (indeed, executives had initially rejected Carter's idea for a series centered only around aliens, conspiracies and UFOs, as they already had one at the time, Sightings[33]). "Squeeze" became the template for the paranormal "Monster-of-the-Week" episodes that would be a mainstay of the series over the next nine years. Wong and Morgan followed it up with a direct sequel, "Tooms", later in the season, one of the only times a monster returned in a later episode. "Tooms" was also the episode where the writers gave the Cigarette Smoking Man his first lines, and introduced FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner, Mulder and Scully's boss (played by Mitch Pileggi), who was to have a central supporting role in the series until its end. Initially, The X-Files was fighting for its life in the ratings. As a result, there was no long-term plan or "bible" from the start to guide writers,[34] simply a guideline from Chris Carter that each episode should take place "within the realm of extreme possibility".[35] The show's first season thus featured numerous stand-alone stories involving monsters, and also aliens and government cover-ups of diverse types, with no apparent consistency—such as the Arctic space worms in "Ice", based on The Thing, and the conspiracy of genetically engineered twins in "Eve," both among Carter's favorite episodes.[8] Carter himself wrote "Space", a low-budget affair about the manifestation of an alien "ghost" in the NASA space shuttle program, which was subject to cost overruns and became the most expensive of the first season;[36] he later disavowed as one of the worst hours ever produced for the show.[26] According to Glen Morgan, the writers were inspired by a glowing New Yorker review noting the show's exploration of "suburban paranoia", and planned for more thematic unity in the second season: "the whole year was to be about the little green men that you and I create for ourselves... because there’s not nuclear missiles pointed at our heads, you can’t consolidate your fears there anymore."[31] However, the plan fell through quickly due to the "controlled chaos" and pressure of the network TV schedule. Image:Deep T008.JPG Deep Throat, played by Jerry Hardin, was Fox Mulder's informant, an important character in the first season of The X-Files. But by the end of the first season, Carter and his staff had come up with many of the general concepts of the mythology that would last throughout all nine seasons, whose outlines first appeared in Carter's Edgar Award-nominated season finale "The Erlenmeyer Flask", written in early 1994 before he knew whether the show was going to be canceled.[citation needed] The X-Files are closed in the episode, and it ends with a shot mirroring the end of the pilot. The finale was the first episode directed by R. W. Goodwin, a senior producer (as well as husband of Sheila Larken, who played Scully's mother on the show) who went on to direct every season opening and closing episode for the next four years in Vancouver. To much relief from fans, The X-Files was picked up for a second year, despite finishing 102 out of 118 shows in the U.S. Nielsen ratings.[37] It also received its first Emmy nod, for best title sequence. The electronic theme song in the sequence, featuring eerie whistling sounds, was by Mark Snow and became very well known. Club versions of the theme song have reached the pop charts in France, the UK[38] and Australia, where a remix by Triple X became a number 2 hit in 1996.[39] Snow's music scores for each episode, often dark, synthesized[40] and ambient, were another distinctive aspect of The X-Files from its earliest years, as the show used more background music than typical of an hour long drama.[41] A soundtrack CD, The Truth and the Light, came out in 1996. The show's mix of genres, stressful schedule—24 or 25 episodes per season to begin with—and its format of shooting in different settings each week required a large and experienced technical crew. At least 300 in Vancouver were under the supervision of producer Goodwin, who called The X-Files "the most difficult show on television" and "the equivalent of making a feature film every eight days".[42] The first year, budgets were sometimes as low as $1 million.[28] By 1998, the final year in Vancouver, the show cost $2.5 million per episode to produce,[43] most of which was not the stars' salaries.[44] The longtime crew included producers Joseph Patrick Finn and Paul Rabwin, in charge of post-production; production designer and art director Graeme Murray, who won two Emmys for his work on the show; film editor Heather MacDougall, who worked on 51 episodes with multiple nominations and won an Emmy for "Kill Switch", and Emmy-nominated editor Stephen Mark, who also edited the 1998 film; sound designer Thierry Couturier, who won two Emmys and whose son speaks the "I made this" over the Ten Thirteen company logo[45]; Mat Beck, visual effects supervisor (many were created on computer, unusual in early '90s TV) for 91 episodes[46] and also writer of third season episode "Wetwired"; Emmy-nominated makeup artist Toby Lindala[47]; and props master Kenneth Hawryliw, who eventually co-wrote an episode ("Trevor") in the sixth season. Carter often talked about the show's "cinematic look",[25] while directors themselves also said they were granted more freedom to express their own personal styles in The X-Files than on much other TV work.[43] However, as the series ended its first season, a problem had arisen for the producers: the impending pregnancy of Gillian Anderson, who played Dana Scully. Some network executives wanted the role recast, which Chris Carter refused to do.[48] Another problem arose for Carter, who was unable to finish his planned season opening extravaganza. Morgan and Wong were asked to come up with a lower-key replacement,[22] and their "Little Green Men" was nevertheless the first episode to actually show an alien (Mulder travels to SETI's Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico to try to find evidence for his beliefs) and got the show's best ratings so far with a 19% audience share.[30] The early part of the second season solidified Mulder and Scully's close relationship, even as the two had been separated on drudgery assignments in different departments when the X-Files had been closed at the end of season one. Due to her pregnancy, Anderson was largely demobilized from active scenes with Duchovny, which matched her character's confinement to teaching medical students at Quantico. During early episodes of season two, Scully is typically pictured only in closeup, at a desk, or conducting autopsies (one of her usual roles on The X-Files, due to her training). Image:Flukeman.jpg Flukeman in "The Host," played by future writer Darin Morgan under prosthetics. The episode, like several others, was inspired by classic science fiction B-movies. Mulder was increasingly hopeless, having had his prior informant taken away, and replaced by the far more reluctant Mr. X, played by Steven Williams, who never revealed his true allegiances. Mulder is frequently seen conducting tedious wiretaps and chewing his favorite snack of sunflower seeds during this period. Carter's script "The Host" tried to symbolize Mulder's frustration and loss of hope. In the episode, he is given what he thinks is a dead end assignment in Newark, New Jersey, literally sifting through sewage, which actually turns out to be a legitimate X-file—a giant mutant Flukeman who breeds in post-nuclear waste. Critics felt The X-Files of this period often consciously resembled classic B-movies in containing environmental and political morals,[49] as in Carter's earlier "Darkness Falls" (about ancient forest bugs who exact revenge on Pacific Northwest loggers), Morgan and Wong's "Blood" (dealing with mind control from electronic devices and pesticide spraying), and Howard Gordon's script for "Sleepless" (about Vietnam veterans who had been guinea pigs in a cruel government experiment). Notably, "Blood" was the first episode whose story credit went to Darin Morgan, the actor who had portrayed Flukeman and the brother of writer/producer Glen Morgan. "Sleepless", on the other hand, was the second X-Files episode directed by Rob Bowman after "Gender Bender" the previous season. Bowman would become one of the most prolific X-Files staff members behind the scenes, directing dozens of episodes as well as the 1998 feature film. Image:One Breath 2x08.jpg Dana Scully in "One Breath." The episode was the conclusion of a story arc in the second season devised to deal with star Gillian Anderson's pregnancy. On screen, "Sleepless" introduced Agent Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea, a bit player in "GenderBender") as Mulder's new FBI partner. Their partnership would last only into the next two episodes, "Duane Barry" and "Ascension," which proved crucial to the fate of the series. Searching for a solution to the now acute problem of Anderson's pregnancy, Carter and his writers decided to have her abducted by Duane Barry (Steve Railsback), himself a likely alien abductee, in the episode of the same title. The October 1994 episode was both written and directed by Carter (his debut) and received several Emmy nominations the following year.[50] Anderson would not appear at all in the episode "3", and then mysteriously returned in Morgan and Wong's "One Breath" (directed by R. W. Goodwin), an episode which consistently scores among the highest in fan ratings.[51] Scully's abduction provoked an existential crisis in Mulder. Although the show left it up in the air for years who was directly responsible, aliens or the government or some combination of both, the earlier episode "Sleepless" had foreshadowed the events with the Cigarette Smoking Man's declaration, of Scully, that "every problem has a solution". Scully was now seen to be firmly on Mulder's side in the larger conflicts, regardless of her original role as a debunker and her continued skepticism about Mulder's beliefs. After Scully's health recovery (and the birth of Anderson's daughter Piper), Mulder and Scully returned to work on the re-opened X-Files, investigating cases ranging from Haitian zombies at an exploitative U.S. military internment camp ("Fresh Bones") to animal abductions ("Fearful Symmetry") and Christian exorcism ("The Calusari"). This period would see the show begin to appeal to a larger audience on Friday nights, often winning its timeslot[52] as its Nielsen ratings rose to their highest peaks so far with the tongue-in-cheek, occult-themed "Die Hand Die Verletzt" and the epic "Colony"/"End Game".[30] The latter was a two-part, sweeps episode introducing the Alien Bounty Hunter, the idea of "colonization", and Mulder's father (Bill, played by Peter Donat), mother (Teena, played by Rebecca Toolan; note, the show used alternate spellings of her name) and grown-up "sister". Image:Die Hand Die Verletzt 2x14.jpg The occult-themed "Die Hand Die Verletzt" was the final script for the show by popular writers James Wong and Glen Morgan, until their return in The X-Files' fourth season. "Die Hand Die Verletzt" was Morgan and Wong's final X-Files script until the fourth season, as they departed to start their own series Space: Above and Beyond, but at the same time there was new involvement behind the scenes. The episode also marked the X-Files directorial debut of Kim Manners, who would stay with the show until its end and direct the largest number of episodes of the series. On "Colony", star David Duchovny collaborated with Chris Carter on the story, the first of Duchovny's involvements in writing for the show. Frank Spotnitz, a new story editor brought on by Chris Carter, wrote "End Game", the second of the two-part episode; Spotnitz would be a producer and writer on The X-Files and other Ten Thirteen projects for years and had a key role in shaping the mythology. The middle of the second season also saw "Irresistible", an episode directed by David Nutter and written by Chris Carter, which Carter later credited as a blueprint for his even darker show Millennium.[32] The episode was the first non-"paranormal" episode of The X-Files, dealing with the trauma of investigating Donnie Pfaster, a "death fetishist", so named to get past the FOX censors[53] (a sequel, "Orison", was made in the seventh season). During its second season, The X Files finished 64th out of 141 shows, a marked improvement from season one. Despite the less than spectacular ratings, the series had attracted enough fans to be classed as a "cult hit," particularly by Fox standards, making great gains among the 18-to-49 demographic sought by advertisers.[52][29] The show was chosen as Best Television Show of 1994 by Entertainment Weekly and named best drama by the Television Critics Association, and it received seven Emmy nominations—mostly in technical categories, but also its first nomination for best drama series.[37] In 1995, The X-Files won a Golden Globe Award for best television drama over more established series such as ER, Picket Fences and NYPD Blue, a surprise given that this was its only nomination.[54] The last weeks of season two brought more changes, beginning what some saw as The X-Files' peak period.[55] The Edgar Award-nominated episode, "Humbug", an unconventional stand-alone outing about sideshow performers or "circus freaks" in a Florida town, was the first full script by Darin Morgan. At the time it was also considered a risky experiment, the first outright comedy episode of the show. Gillian Anderson famously swallowed a real cricket in one ad-libbed scene.[56] Eventual senior writer Vince Gilligan also offered his first episode, the darker sci-fi "Soft Light", guest starring Tony Shalhoub as a remorseful physicist whose shadow kills people. Season two ended in May 1995 with "Anasazi" (co-scripted by Carter with David Duchovny) which attracted widespread attention with its cliffhanger ending[52] putting the future of the series up in the air. In the episode, Mulder and Scully were contacted by a computer hacker, apparently the erstwhile fourth member of The Lone Gunmen, ultimately drawing them and their families further into the targets of the conspiracy. Now-free agent Alex Krycek also made his first reappearance since "Ascension". The episode began a three-part arc, the show's most ambitious mythology episodes so far, extending into the third season, and centering around Navajo former code talkers such as the character of Albert Hosteen (played by Floyd Red Crow Westerman), who says "nothing disappears without a trace", a line repeated by the Cigarette Smoking Man in another context.[57] The show could not afford location filming, so a rock quarry in British Columbia was painted to match the hues of the American Southwest.[12] Outside the U.S., The X-Files was by now one of the most popular shows around the world,[58] and was already being seen in 60 countries.[18] Image:Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man 4x07.jpg The Syndicate and its mysterious member the Cigarette Smoking Man, played by William B. Davis, became increasingly important to X-Files "mythology" as the show progressed. Seasons 3 – 5 (1995-1998)Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Continuing from "Anasazi", the episodes "The Blessing Way" and "Paper Clip" opened the third season, bringing in the involvement of former Nazi scientists, formally introducing leading conspiracy member the Well-Manicured Man (played by British actor John Neville), and containing revelations and events involving both Mulder and Scully's families. "The Blessing Way" was the most successful X-Files episode thus far in the Nielsen TV ratings, which were increasing steadily.[30] The third season confirmed the existence of extraterrestrial life within the show[59] and suggested that a shadowy, international sub-governmental consortium known as the Syndicate—one of the members being the Cigarette Smoking Man—were in co-operation with these aliens, in order to allow them to colonize Earth. This would be achieved via use of the so-called black oil, introduced late in the season in the two-part "Piper Maru"/"Apocrypha", along with another reappearance by homme fatale Alex Krycek, played by Nicholas Lea. However, the season's other main mythology episodes "Nisei" and "731", in which Scully confronted her own abduction experience while Mulder investigated the role of WWII-era Japanese scientists from Unit 731, continued to call some of these conclusions into question. Series creator Carter began to receive criticism for posing as many questions as answers in the mythology, while the mythology episodes were also praised for their increasingly Hollywood-like production values.[60] "Nisei" received two Emmy Awards for its sound editing and mixing. Image:Nisei 3x09.jpg Season three's "Nisei" began a story arc with Mulder investigating an alien autopsy tape, and Scully confronting the possible effects of her abduction, which would play out in the following two seasons. Season three was noted for its wide variety of "monster of the week" episodes. " | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
