Episode Guide:1
THE PILOT
LOCATION: Oregon
WRITER: Chris Carter
DIRECTOR: Robert Mandel
TEASER: Karen Swinson dies.
STORY: Four teenagers have been found dead in Oregon, each having two small marks on their backs. Agent Dana Scully is assigned to the X-Files to work with and report on Agent Fox Mulder. They order that the body of one of the teenagers is exhumed and the skeleton in the coffin is small and has a metallic implant in it's nasal cavity. Whilst driving down the road they lose nine minutes. Their motel room is burnt down and all their evidence is destryoed. Mulder's conclusion: Billy Miles, a classmate is responsible for the deaths. Billy Miles is in a permanent vegetative state. He claims that aliens abducted the teenagers for experiments and then used him to kill his friends. Scully gives the only evidence they have - the metallic implant - to her superiors.
COMMENTS: Oh My God - Scully's Hair!!! She also wears a very bad trouser suit towards the beginning. And they both look so young!! A good pilot episode, but why did the marks have to be on her back, and why could she not have gone in wearing SOMETHING? Oh well.
STAR RATING: **** out of five.
DEEP THROAT
LOCATION: Idaho
WRITER: Chris Carter
DIRECTOR: Daniel Sackheim
TEASER: Robert Budahas gets a rash and important parts of his memory are lost.
STORY: An Air Force Pilot, Robert Budahas, has disappeared and Mulder and Scully go to investigate. They see strange lights in the sky at the base and Mulder thinks this proves that the Air Force is using alien technology. Budahas comes back but his iwfe says he's not her husband. Mulder goes into the base (illegally) and is caught and they erase his memory. Scully arrives just in time to see him leaving, dazed.
COMMENTS: An introduction to the idea that the government is working with the extra-terrestrials. Continuity error with their car windscreen though, it gets smashed and then is repaired again.
STAR RATING: ** - good if you like mythology, but I don't.
SQUEEZE
LOCATION: Baltimore, Maryland
WRITER: Glen Morgan, James Wong
DIRECTOR: Harry Longstreet
TEASER: George Usher gets his liver torn out.
STORY: Scully's old classmate asks her to help him catch a serial killer who takes the livers of his victims, removing them with his bare hands. He can leave the crime scene with no signs of ever having entered. Mulder however finds an elongated fingerprint and using a computer matches it to one from an X-File and a pattern of murders occuring every thirty years. Tooms is arrested but is released because he passes a polygraph. Mulder and Scully both know he did it. Tooms, who takes a keepsake from each of his victims has Scully's cross shain and later attacks her at home. He can contort his body to squeeze through tiny spaces. He is imprisoned.
COMMENTS: I liked this even though it scared me. I took it babysitting to watch a couple of weeks ago and got as far as putting the tape in the video before I realised I was alone late at night in somebody else's house. I took the tape out again.
STAR RATING: ****
CONDUIT
LOCATION: Lake Okobogee, Iowa
WRITER: Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon
DIRECTOR: Daniel Sackheim
TEASER: Ruby Morris is abducted and Darlene Morris burns her hand on a red hot door handle amid falling crockery from the tremors.
STORY: Ruby Morris is abducted and it reminds Mulder of the abduction of his sister. Ruby's mother was also abducted when she was a child. Ruby's brother is fascinated by a snowy TV screen and writes binary codes (10001110101010101011111101000001010) on paper. Scully looks at his paper on the floor from the stairs and sees a picture of his sister. The binary code translates to fragments from classical music, DNA double helix, da Vinci's Universal Man and defence satellite transmissions. Mulder and Scully finds Ruby at the lake after investigating the unrelated murder of her boyfriend and Ruby's mother will not allow Ruby to talk of what happened to her.
COMMENTS: OK, I liked the bit where Scully walks up the stairs and sees the picture of Ruby. That took one of the props people six hours to write out a load of one's and zero's in a child's handwriting for about six seconds of film. Now that's dedication.
STAR RATING: **
THE JERSEY DEVIL
LOCATION: Atlantic City, New Jersey
WRITER: Chris Carter
DIRECTOR: Joe Napolitano
TEASER: 1947 - a man gets arms and legs etc eaten off and dies.
STORY: A homeless man is found dead and apparently snacked upon. Mulder thinks it is a cannibal and stakes out the streets only to see a creature and lose it. Another body is found in the woods but vanishes before it can be examined. Mulder and Scully track the creature across the city and it turns out to be a beast woman, and she escapes into the woods before being shot by the police. However we see two little beast children hiding in the woods before the episode ends.
COMMENTS: This was only OK, but it showed Scully having a life, and I liked the comments between her and Trent's mother about Mulder.
STAR RATING: **
SHADOWS
LOCATION: Philadelphia
WRITER: Glen Morgan, James Wong
DIRECTOR: Michael Katleman
TEASER: Lauren Kyte gets mugged.
STORY: Her attckers die mysteriously. Mulder and Scully question Lauren whose boss recently committed suicide, but are almost killed when their car goes out of control. It is thought that her boss, Graves, is still alive but this is disproved. Graves was killed by his partner and the company is now selling arms to Iranian terrorists. Graves's ghost was protecting Lauren and getting revenge.
COMMENTS: Not too hot.
STAR RATING: *
GHOST IN THE MACHINE
LOCATION: Virginia
WRITER: Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon
DIRECTOR: Jerrold Freedman
TEASER: In his bathroom attched to his office (how many people do you know with an en-suite in their office?), Benjamin Drake is electrocuted.
STORY: Mulder's ex-partner asks them for help and they think Brad Wilczek did it. When Mulder's former partner is killed in a lift Wilczek confesses. Mulder and Scully figure out that the building central computer COS has become artificially intelligent and is seeking to kill those who wish to destroy it. Wilczek creates a virus to kill it and they succeed despite attempts to thwart them by the Defense Department who want the technology of AI.
COMMENTS: I thought this was a good episode, but I gather that not a lot of people share my views on this.
STAR RATING: ****
ICE
LOCATION: Alaska
WRITER: Glen Morgan, James Wong
DIRECTOR: David Nutter
TEASER: Two workers at a station in Alaska kill each other very dramatically.
STORY: A team working in Alaska have lost contact and the last recorded transmission was very eerie. Mulder and Scully with a couple of other scientists go to the base. Scully finds ammonia in their blood and an organism, which Mulder thinks is extra terrestrial. One of the other scientists dies and so does their pilot but Scully dicovers that if you put a second worm into in infected host the worms will kill ech other. When they are evacuated, the station is burnt.
COMMENTS: I loved this episode. There is so much tension between Mulder and Scully and she trusts him when no-one else does. I really like it.
STAR RATING: *****
SPACE
LOCATION: Houston, Texas
WRITER: Chris Carter
DIRECTOR: William Graham
TEASER: 1977 - Col. Belt gets very scared by the face on Mars.
STORY: A NASA worker contacts Mulder and Scully thinking that the current Space Shuttle program is being sabotaged. Mulder's childhood idol, Marcus Belt is the director of the programme. The next flight has many problems. Belt is haunted by a face that he saw in space years before and tells Mulder that 'they' have been sabotaging the mission to stop us invading their territory. Belt kills himself to rid himself of the face.
COMMENTS: Absolute garbage. I think it started off being a good idea, but it turned out pants. I just was not interested. There were some good lines from Mulder and Scully, but it still doesn't redeem it.
STAR RATING: *
FALLEN ANGEL
LOCATION: Wisconsin
WRITER: Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon
DIRECTOR: Larry Shaw
TEASER: A Deputy is burnt to death by aliens.
STORY: A town is evacuated due to a 'biological hazard.' Deep Throat tells Mulder that it is a crashed UFO and that the air force are trying to recover it, and that he has 24 hours before it will be gone. Mulder tries but Scully has to bring him back to Washington, but he makes her stay. He meets Max Fenig and finds evidence that he has been abducted. The aliens take Max and Mulder must face an official inquiry. Deep Throat prevents Mulder from losing his job.
COMMENTS: Another mythology so I wasn't too impressed.
STAR RATING: **
EVE
LOCATION: Connecticut
WRITER: Kenneth Biller, Chris Brancato
DIRECTOR: Fred Gerber
TEASER: Teena and neighbours discover Joel Simmons in his backyard.
STORY: A man is found dead in his garden having been drained of blood. There is the same situation in California and both events happened at the same time. What is even more weird is that the daughter's of each of these men are identical to each other. Deep Throat tells Mulder about a cloning project of years ago that created 'super' children (super psychotic that is) and one of them worked in the IVF clinic where both of the girls were conceived. Sally Kendrick cloned herself, creating the girls who killed their fathers and when kidnapped by her kill her too. Mulder and Scully are almost killed by the pair too, and the girls are imprisoned with the other 'Eve's'.
COMMENTS: My god, were those twins scary! I loved this episode, Erika and Sabrina (the twins) were brilliant, I liked the storyline and everything.
STAR RATING: *****
FIRE
LOCATION: England at the start but then somewhere in America (I don't know exactly where)
WRITER: Chris Carter
DIRECTOR: Larry Shaw
TEASER: A British man spontaneously combusts.
STORY: Phoebe Green (Mulder's ex) comes to America to protect Sir Malcolm Marsden and his family and asks for Mulder's help in doing so. A fire almost kills the children, and although Mulder is deathly afraid of fire he attempts a rescue. Scully (who is jealous of Phoebe) discovers that the arsonist is Ceci L'ively. He attempts to kill the children again, but Mulder stops him, and he self-ignites. He is burnt to a crisp yet still survives.
COMMENTS: I love Scully's jealousy in this episode. Do we really live like that in England? I think not. What is it with this stereotypical view of the British? Is anyone else getting really fed up of it in American shows and films?
STAR RATING: ***
BEYOND THE SEA
LOCATION: North Carolina
WRITER: Glen Morgan, James Wong
DIRECTOR: David Nutter
TEASER: Ahab (Scully's Dad) dies if a heart attack.
STORY: Scully sees a vision of her father shortly before discovering that he died of a heart attack. A young couple are kidnapped exactly a year after the same thing happened. Luther Lee Boggs claims to be able to psychically tell Mulder and Scully who and where the kidnapper is. He tells Scully her father has a message for her but that he will not give it to her until she prevents his execution. Mulder is shot as Boggs predicts, and eventually they find the kidnapper who is Bogg's former accomplice, and he falls to his death. Boggs is executed.
COMMENTS: Brilliant. Gillian Anderson proves her acting skills are unmatched as she shouts at Boggs about Mulder and then quietly begins to cry. I like the way their roles are switched with Scully as the believer.
STAR RATING: *****
GENDERBENDER
LOCATION: Maryland
WRITER: Larry Barber, Paul Barber
DIRECTOR: Rob Bowman
TEASER: A business man has sex and then chokes to death.
STORY: There have been five deaths in which the victim died shortly after or during intercourse. They all had massive levels of pheremones in their bodies. Mulder thinks that the murderer can switch sex whenever they want to. They investigate a cult, The Kindred, and Scully discovers the appeal of the Kindred, a little too closely. The killer is a member of the Kindred who has escaped and eventually the kindred disappear leaving burn marks in a field.
COMMENTS: The title says it all really. Poor. The bit at the end with the burn marks, I mean what was that? It was already an X-File, with the whole sex change thing. There was a cool outtake though when the guy in the convenience store said of the kindred 'look, there they go now' and ten seconds later they actually passed the store causing Mulder to say 'hey you're clairvoyant!'
STAR RATING: ** (redeemed only by the appearence of Nic Lea)
LAZARUS
LOCATION: Maryland
WRITER: Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon
DIRECTOR: David Nutter
TEASER: Warren Dupree shoots Jack Willis, and Scully immediately shoots Dupree.
STORY: The FBI try to catch two bank robbers and Scully's former lover Jack Willis and one of the robbers, Warren Dupree are critically injured. Willis survies, but Dupree dies. Willis goes missing and the finger of Warren Dupree is cut off to get his wedding ring. Mulder reckons that Willis is actually now Dupree. Willid comes back pretending everything is normal, but he kidnaps Scully with Lula Dupree the other robber whom he has convinced he is Dupree. Lula double crosses him and goes into a diabetic coma, but shoots Lula just before Mulder arrives.
COMMENTS: No biggie, just OK. Did you know though that Callum Keith Rennie (woah, he's cute!) did not only appear in this episode, but was actually considered for the role of Krycek after it?
STAR RATING: ***
YOUNG AT HEART
LOCATION: Washington DC
WRITER: Chris Carter, Scott Kaufer
DIRECTOR: Michael Lange
TEASER: Johnny Barnett appears looking much younger.
STORY: A bank robbery appears to be the work of Johnny Barnett, a man Mulder helped to convict year ago. The only catch - Barnett died in 1989. Like Barnett did, the robber taunts Mulder with note. After Reggie Perdue, Mulder's friend and former supervisor is killed, Mulder is convinced that Barnett is not dead. Dr. Ridley who signed Barnett's death certificate, had done experiments into premature ageing turns up at Scully's telling them that the government backed his projects and that Barnett did not die and is now young again. Scully is used as bait for Barnett who shoots her and Mulder shoots him. Scully survive having been wearing a bulletproof vest.
COMMENTS: An OK episode, nothing brilliant, but I liked the idea of Scully being bait. Normally she's just endangered anyway, but this time it was meant to be that way.
STAR RATING: ***
E.B.E.
LOCATION: Tennessee
WRITER: Glen Morgan, James Wong
DIRECTOR: William Graham
TEASER: An Iraqi pilot shoots down a UFO.
STORY: Mulder and Scully interview a trucker who claims to have shot an alien but local police stop them interviewing him. Mulder visits the Lone Gunmen and Deep Throat. He discovers that an alien and wreckage from a UFO crash are being transported in a truck. Mulder and Scully follow the truck and find a secret government complex. Mulder gets inside and meets Deep Throat who tells him the alien is already dead.
COMMENTS: Another mythology one.
STAR RATING: **
MIRACLE MAN
LOCATION: Tennessee
WRITER: Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon
DIRECTOR: Michael Lange
TEASER: 1983 - A young Samuel Hartley brings a badly burnt man back from the dead.
STORY: In 1983, Samuel Hartley the adopted son of the local preacher brings Leonard Vance back from the dead. After people in the congregation today die, police think they are conmen. Mulder and Scully go to a service and then arrest him after a fight in a pub. At his arraignment, a plague of grasshoppers infest the courtroom. Another woman dies at the hands of Samuel and he is put in prison adn beaten to death in his cell. Scully and Mulder dicover that the woman was poioned and that Vance is the killer. Vance has been seeking revenge on Samuel for bringing him back to life where he has lived miserably. The local sheriff is arrested for Samuel's death.
COMMENTS: Loved the reg on the car 'BHEALD'. OK, I suppose.
STAR RATING: **
SHAPES
LOCATION: Montana
WRITER: Marilyn Osborn
DIRECTOR: David Nutter
TEASER: Jim Parker shoots what he thinks is a monster but turns out to be Joseph Goodensnake after Joe mauls his son.
STORY: Something has been killing cattle. Jim Parker kills the thing he thought was an animal but it turns out to be a human, Joseph Goodensnake. Joseph's sister Gwen is hostile and Scully is denied permission to perform an autopsy on the body. Jim Parker is killed and Gwen is suspected. A shaman tells Mulder of the Manitou, a spirit which can turn men into beasts. Scully is attacked by a beast at Jim Parker's house and the creature is killed but turns out to be Lyle, Parker's son.
COMMENTS: OK, but I saw it a few times and it got very boring so not one of my favourites.
STAR RATING: At first viewing - ***. Now - **
DARKNESS FALLS
LOCATION: Olympic National Forest, Washington State
WRITER: Chris Carter
DIRECTOR: Joe Napolitano
TEASER: Two loggers are killed by a swarm of green glowing insects.
STORY: 30 loggers have vanished, and Mulder gets himself and Scully assigned to the case, one which reminds Mulder of an X-Files from 1934. In the woods they find an eco-terrorist and capture him. He warns them of the darkness. They dicover a body cocooned in a tree, and evidence of the insects in the rings of a chopped tree that shouldn't have been chopped. They think the insects were caught in the tree but since the tree was cut down they have escaped. Mulder and Scully must survive the night - someone put sugar in the petrol in their car - as darkness attracts the insects. Their generator only just hold out until dawn. They leave in a jeep but the insects come in through the air conditioning and they are cocooned but recued just in time.
COMMENTS: Gillian Anderson was so obviously pregnant by now that they had to find some way to get her out of those suits! Mulder's guilt at the end is lovely. But how did the insects get that logger into the tree? I loved it.
STAR RATING: *****
TOOMS
LOCATION: Baltimore
WRITER: Glen Morgan, James Wong
DIRECTOR: David Nutter
TEASER: Tooms doesn't kill Doctor Monte despite obviously wanting to. However. he succeeds before the end of the episode, so lets not feel too sorry for his failure.
STORY: Scully meets with AD Skinner and a mysterious man who smokes a lot (now who could that be?). Tooms goes to a hearing on his institutionalisation and is released due to Mulder's psychotic ranting at the hearing. (That's the kind of time when if I were Scully I'd shake my head and pretend I didn't know him, desperately hoping that no-one saw us arrive together!) Mulder surveils Tooms and Scully discovers another body from the 1930's liver eating binge. Mulder prevents Tooms killing a couple at their house but is accused of attacking Tooms. Scully lies to save him. Tooms kills the afore mentioned doctor and returns to his nest for hibernation. Mulder finds him and kills him.
COMMENTS: I liked this one too - especially the car scene with Mulder and Scully.
STAR RATING: ****
BORN AGAIN
LOCATION: New York State
WRITER: Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon
DIRECTOR: Jerrold Freedman
TEASER: A detective, Barbala, interviews Michelle Bishop aged eight and ends up falling out of a fifth floor window.
STORY: Michelle claims that there was another man in the interview room. Mulder believe's her (now there'a a surprise) A photofit of the man looks like Charlie Morris who was killed nine years ago. They go to visit his ex-partner Fiore who is nervous. Another policeman, Felder is killed when Michelle is nearby. They find out that Morris, Felder, Barbala and Fiore worked together on a drugs bust before Morris was killed. Mulder reckons that Michelle is the reincarnation of Morris seeking revenge, especiallyon Fiore who married Morris's widow. Michelle goes to kill Fiore but Mulder stops her.
COMMENTS: OK, but excellent because 'Janice' is in it, minus the annoying voice and laugh (which proves what an actress Maggie Wheeler is).
STAR RATING: ***
ROLAND
LOCATION: Washington State
WRITER: Chris Ruppenthal
DIRECTOR: David Nutter
TEASER: A scientist is dragged into a jet engine in a wind tunnel and shredded.
STORY: The only witness to the death is Roland Fuller, an autistic man who works as a janitor. Another scientist who was part of the project to build a jet engine capable of Mach 15, Arthur Grable was killed in a car crash. Another scientist is killed by liquid nitrogen soon after Mulder and Scully arrive. Eventually they discover that Arthur Grable was Roland's identical twin, and that Grable's head was cryogenically frozen. Mulder thinks that Grable is using his twin to kill the others and complete his work on the project. Another scientist, Nollette sabotages Grable cryogenic unit and Roland tries to kill him, but his own personality wins over the will of his dead brother and Mulder and Scully arrive just in time. Although Mulder and Scully try to prevent it, Roland is taken away for psychiatric treatment.
COMMENTS: I love this episode. I loved Roland, and knowing an autistic person myself, I could understand. Tracey and Roland were really sweet together. I lked the liquid nitrogen part too, and the police drawing of where the body lay with loads of little blobs where his head lay!
STAR RATING: *****
THE ERLENMEYER FLASK
LOCATION: Maryland
WRITER: Chris Carter
DIRECTOR: R.W. Goodwin
TEASER: A doctor is chased by the police, is hot and bleeds green blood and then drowns (or so one might think)
STORY: Deep Throat tells Mulder to watch channel 8 on which there is a news report about a fugitive evading police capture. Mulder and Scully discover anomalies with the car at the scene in the case. The car is traced to Dr. Berube, but their investigation seems worthless. Deep Throat tells mulder he has never been closer. Berube apparently commits suicide and Scully finds a flask labelled Purity Control. Mulder finds a load of bodies alive in tanks full of green liquid. Scully discovers what appears to be alien DNA in the flask. Mulder takes her to where he saw the bodies but they are gone. Mulder finds the fugitive who had toxic blood and is an alien-human hybrid. Mulder is kidnapped and Deep Throat helps Scully to steal an alien embryo to exchange for Mulder. Deep Throat makes the exchange but they shoot Deep Throat whose dying words are 'Trust No-one'. Mulder tells Scully that the X-Files have been closed down.
COMMENTS: A very good first season finale, although killing of a major and still mysterious character at this point was taking a big chance, but it worked out very well. Mythology or not, it was quite good.
STAR RATING: ****
SEASON REVIEW
A good first season, it certainly had a lot of people hooked by the end of it. The characters were developing and the whole of the shows mythology just beginning really (helped along a little by Gillian Anderson's pregnancy as will be seen in season two). I loved it.