ORBzine - X-Files TV Review
[Season 1 !Season 2 !Season 3 !Season 4 !Season 5 !Season 6 !Season 7 !Season 8 !Season 9 ]
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 1]
Pilot
Shown 13th November 2000
Rookie FBI Agent Dr Dana Scully [ Gillian Anderson ] is assigned to a little-known FBI unit called the X-Files. Her superiors, Deputy Director Skinner and a mysterious Cigarette-Smoking Man, want her to spy on her new partner, Fox Mulder, and discredit his work.
Mulder is a brilliant Behavioural Scientist but he is obsessed with the idea of Alien intervention. Scully prefers to find a logical explanation for everything.
Their first assignment is to Oregon, where young women are being killed mysteriously in the woods. Veteran TV actor Cliff De Young pops up as the local medical examiner and the main suspect.
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 2]
Deep Throat
Shown
Shown 22nd June 2001 - Friday
Mulder is approached by a stranger [Jerry Hardin] in a mens' room. Jerry is named Deep Throat after the Watergate informant, not the porn film. Lucky Mulder.
Mulder and Scully go to Ellens AFB, an ersatz Area 51, to investigate the disappearance of a test-pilot. They meet Seth Green [ Buffy the Vampire Slayer ], who has shoulder-length red hair and a chin-pube goatee. The other familiar sight to SF fans is the amnesia drug from UFO.
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 3]
Squeeze
Shown 6th July 2001 - Friday
People are brutally murdered inside locked rooms. The only clue is a finger-print, elongated in an inhuman fashion.
Doug Hutchison [ Green Mile ] guest-stars as possibly the coolest of all X-Files characters, Eugene Victor Tooms.
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 4]
Conduit
Shown 13th July 2001 - Friday
Mulder investigates a case that reminds him of his sister Samantha - a suspected alien abduction. A small hint of what the series would become is the NSA interference that Mulder and Scully face. The end scene shows Scully listening to a tape of Mulder's hypnotic regression.
Carrie Snodgrass plays the abducted boy's mother.
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 5]
Jersey Devil
Shown 20th July 2001 - Friday
Mulder and Scully go to Atlantic City to investigate reports of a giant ape-man that has apparently attacked people ... We get to see glimpses of the statuesque Clare Stansfield , but that's about as exciting as it gets.
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 6]
Ghost In The Machine
Shown 3rd August 2001 - Friday
The CEO of a top software corporation is electrocuted by a power surge in his own office. Blu Mankuma has a supporting role.
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 7]
Ice
Shown 10th August 2001 - Friday
Mulder and Scully go to a research station in Alaska to investigate a mass suicide by the entire staff. Shades of The Thing ...
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 8]
Space
Shown 17th August 2001 - Friday
Our dynamic duo take a trip to NASA, where a news blackout and coverup have concealed sabotage by person or persons unknown. The next shuttle launch is successful, but once in orbit things start to go wrong. Can M&S find the saboteur and bring the shuttle safely back to Earth? Luckily Mulder wanted to be an astronaut when he was a kid, so he explains all the terminology [easy enough for a child to work out!] to Scully, and us.
Are aliens somehow involved? Well, in the prologue we see the NASA boss-man [Ed Lauter] have a flashback to some kind of strange encounter
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 9]
Fallen Angel
Shown 24th August 2001 - Friday
Mulder investigates a UFO crash in a forest in the USA. The area has been sealed off by US Army troops commanded by Marshall Bell [ Total Recall ]. However, the UFO's pilot [an invisible alien] is on the loose ...
The other main character is Max, a long-haired hi-tech UFO watcher who seems a precursor of the Lone Gunmen. For long-term fans of the show there are yet more things to note. Mulder's boss isn't Director Skinner, it's some guy called Sector Chief McGrath. We also get a tiny supporting role for Brent Stait, who is now Rev Bem in Gene Roddenbury's Andromeda
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 10]
Eve
Shown 31st August 2001 - Friday
The dynamic duo investigate a murder where the victim's jugular was punctured and 4 litres of blood removed. His daughter, aged about ten but still clutching a fluffy toy, gives Mulder cause to believe that the people from the clouds did it.
The plot deepens as an identical murder is discovered on the other side of the country. Deep Throat fills in the blanks by informing Mulder of a secret US Government experiment.
The story has a number of nice twists in it. At several stages the plot heads off in an unexpected direction, and keeps us guessing until late on what's actually happening. The killers are clever enough to outsmart Mulder. But will they get away with it?
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 11]
Fire
Shown 7th September 2001 - Friday
Mulder's ex-GF, Amanda Pays , comes to town and requests his help on a case. She is a Special Branch Inspector in Scotland Yard, currently assigned to investigate a series of arson murders. The next one on the killer's hit-list has taken his family to Cape Cod, Massachussetts, which is quite convenient because it looks exactly like British Columbia where the show is filmed.
This is pretty much a Mulder-centric episode. We learn a bit about his background, and also that he has a phobia of fire.
This episode was originally shown out of sequence by the BBC, and given a special late-night slot. Not for any political reason, but because of the violent nature of the episode. This reviewer's only objection is the corniness of the show.
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 13]
Beyond The Sea
Shown 14th September 2001 - Friday
Scully's father, Don Davis [ Twin Peaks, Stargate SG-1 ] dies. This alters her judgement, and in this episode SHE is the believer and Mulder is the Sceptic.
Luther Lee Boggs [Brad Dourif - Exorcist 3 ] is a serial killer on Death Row. He claims to have psychic powers that will allow him to help solve a kidnapping case ...
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 14]
Gender Bender
Shown 28th September 2001 - Friday
Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate a suspicious death. A man died after having sex, the cause of death a heart attack brought on by super-human levels of pheremones. The killer ... was female before, but became male afterwards!
Mulder traces the deaths back to a small Amish type community called The Kindred. He and Scully head up to investigate, and uncover strange rituals in the barn.
The ending is neat enough, and just happens to allow the case to be wrapped up in time for the credits. In the climax, Mulder drops his gun - surprise, surprise.
This episode is of note because one of the prospective victims is played by Nicholas Lea, who played a major recurring character in the next Season.
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 15]
Lazarus
Shown 5th October 2001 - Friday
Scully is temporarily off X-Files duty, helping her ex-BF/ex-Instructor [yes, in training she shagged the teacher!] to stake out a bank heist. He has no partner of his own, never mind SWAT team backup, but that doesn't stop him. As a result, he and the armed robber both get shot.
When Scully's ex-Instructor is revived in hospital, he has the memories and personality of the dead robber. The only person who notices is Mulder, who is assisting the follow-up investigation.
Of note, the robber's brother-in-law is played by Callum Keith Rennie [ BSG 2003].
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 16]
Young At Heart
Shown 12th October 2001 - Friday
Mulder is called in by his ex-boss to investigate an armed robbery. The robber murdered the clerk and left a note threatening Mulder, the MO of the criminal in Mulder's first case. However, that criminal was arrested and later died in jail. For some reason, Mulder feels guilty about arresting the criminal instead of shooting him in the back. Now, in typical mediocre thriller fashion, the convict is back for revenge on the man who arrested him.
By strange co-incidence, there is an X-Files element to the case. While in prison, the convict was illegally experimented on by a mad doctor. Deep Throat and Cancer Man make appearances, intent on buying the medical secrets for Uncle Sam.
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 16]
E.B.E.
Shown 19th October 2001 - Friday
Mulder and Scully investigate reports of an EBE - an Extraterrestrial Biological Entity. They get deluged with lies and disinformation, even from Deep Throat. Their only trustworthy help is a trio of nerds who call themselves The Lone Gunmen.
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 18]
Miracle Man
Shown 26th October 2001 - Friday
The dynamic duo are called in to investigate a Christian faith-healer. However, this isn't listed as an X-File - the local sheriff requested an investigator with a medical background, so the FBI assigned Scully to the case! However, by strange co-incidence Mulder finds evidence of supernatural events.
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 19]
Shapes
Shown 2nd November 2001 - Friday
Mulder and Scully go to a Native American Reservation. A strange beast has killed several people, but when it was shot the sheriff only found the body of a naked man.
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 20]
Darkness Falls
Shown 9th November 2001 - Friday
Mulder and Scully go to a forest high in the mountains of the American Northwest. Some loggers have disappeared in mysterious circumstances ...
The storyline of this episode is quite similar to two other episodes, Fire and Ice. Like them, it sticks Mulder and Scully in a remote location [with some cannon-fodder] where they are menaced by an unseen entity.
This episode ends with a preview of the next episode. Eugene Victor Tooms [the best villain of the Season] is up for release, and Cancer Man uses the opportunity to get Skinner to move Mulder from the X-Files. In other words, the best aspects of the first Season are being replaced by the things that made the show slide into a slow decline.
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 21]
Tooms
Shown 16th November 2001 - Friday
Yes, Eugene Victor Tooms [Doug Hutchison - The Green Mile ] is up for release. Yes, okay, so he's a century-old liver-eating mutant, but that's not a crime. And since the only witness against him is Spooky Mulder, what are his chances of getting out?
Minor roles are filled out by Paul Ben Victor [ The Invisible Man ] and Teryl Rothery .
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 22]
Born Again
Shown 23rd November 2001 - Friday
An 8-year-old girl is somehow telepathically causing people to die mysteriously.
This script was written by Morgan & Wong, and has all the hallmarks of their work.
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 23]
Roland
Shown 30th November 2001 - Friday
A scientist is murdered in a wind tunnel at his laboratory. Mulder suspects the retarded Janitor, Roland [Zeljko Ivanek - Hannibal ].
X-Files [Season 1, Episode 24]
The Erhlrmeyer Flask
Shown 7th December 2001 - Friday
Mulder gets a tip-off from Deep Throat. He investigates high-speed car chase, and uncovers a conspiracy. Anne DeSalvo pops up as a helpful scientist.
The ending is notable for a couple of reasons. The scene with Deep Throat seems to many to be the end of an era for the show, though in truth the era ended several episodes previously. His line, Trust no one, sets the tone for the next Season. The scene with CSM, on the other hand, imitates the end of the first episode and thus indicates the underlying conspiracy theory arc that has been present all along.
X-Files [Season 1
, Episode 1
]
Shown th June 2006 [Wednesday]
This is reviewed in a
special supplement
X-Files [Season 4, Episode 2]
Home
Shown 11 Oct 96
M and S investigate inbred hillbillys in Pennsylvania. Sheriff Tucker Smallwood [ Space: Above and Beyond ] and Deputy Sebastian Spence [ First Wave ] help out.
X-Files [Season 4, Episode 13]
Never Again
Shown 2 Feb 97
Mulder is sent on compulsory vacation - he makes a spiritual pilgrimage to Graceland. Scully goes to Pennsylvania, investigating the Russian Mafia. An embittered divorcee [Rodney Rowland - Space: Above and Beyond ] gets tattoo "betty" [v/o by Jody Foster ]. Scully meets him and opens her heart. The result? A damp squib of an episode.
X-Files, The [Season 5, Episode 1]
Unusual Suspects
It's 1989, and a trio of nerds are running stalls at a technology Con in Baltimore. They are asked for help by a paranoid babe who claims her psychotic ex-BF is after her. He turns out to be ... a FBI agent named Mulder!
Yes, this is the story of how the Lone Gunmen met up. Watch out for the interrogation scene, which gives a great cameo to a familiar actor ...
X-Files, The [Season 5, Episode 8]
Kitsunegari
Shown 22nd October 2001 - Monday
This sees the return of Pusher from Season Three. He manages to escape from prison, and the people responsible for his arrest commit suicide one by one in spectacular fashion. Fox Mulder is on his list ...
X-Files, The [Season 5, Episode 9]
Schizogeny
Shown 29th October 2001 - Monday
It was a dark and stormy night, and a teenager's brutish stepfather is sucked into the mud of an orchard. The teenage lad is Scully's suspect, though Mulder thinks he's innocent. Other suspects include his girlfriend [ Katherine Isabelle ] and the babelicious shrink.
X-Files [Season 5, Episode 10]
Chinga
Shown 12th November 2001 - Monday
Typical of the show's horrible tendency to trendiness, it was written by Stephen King and Chris Carter.
A young girl and her dolly are psychically terrorizing a small town in Maine. By strange co-incidence, Scully is on vacation there. We get to see our favourite redhead in a nice white tee-shirt [and in the bath], which more than makes up for the fact that Mulder's only appearances are brief phone-chat scenes. Oddly enough, while Mulder proposes scientific explanations it is Scully who is willing to believe in extreme possibilities.
With regards to the storyline, however ... The Simpsons did it so much better!
X-Files [Season 5, Episode 11]
Kill Switch
Shown 19th November 2001 - Monday
Typical of the show's horrible tendency to trendiness, it was written by William Gibson and Chris Carter. While mildly entertaining it is little more than the standard conspiracy bunkum.
X-Files [Season 6, Episode 10]
S.R. 819
Shown
Skinner is poisoned by persons unknown. He has 24 hours to hunt down the conspiracy and get the antidote.
X-Files [Season 6, Episode 10]
Tithonus
Shown First Week, July 2000
Geoffrey Lewis [Clint Eastwood's sidekick in Any Which Way But Loose] plays a crime-scene photographer who takes photos of murder victims as the crime is being committed.
Mulder and Scully are on Background Check duty when Scully is pulled and transferred to investigate Lewis. Mulder does the backup work for her, and phones her up every time he finds something useful.
X-Files [Season 6, Episode 11-12]
Two Fathers & One Son
Shown Second Week, July 2000
This is a double-episode story that deals with the X-Files Arc, if it can be called one. The first episode is narrated by CSM [the villain, Cigarette-Smoking Man] to an unseen accomplice.
A surgical room in a rail carriage [like the one Scully was abducted and taken to] is attacked by the alien Rebels. The only survivor is Cassandra Spender [ Veronica Cartwright ] who was abducted last season. Agent Spender passes on her request for help from Mulder, who is reluctant to get involved. Rightly so - Spender is still working with his father, CSM.
Towards the end of the second episode the plot is revealed, and most of the loose ends are tied up.
There are still a few [shape-changing aliens, anyone?], but after 6 years and one movie we are so glad to finally get to grips with the damn thing that nobody cares enough to complain!
X-Files [Season 6, Episode 13]
Agua Mala
Shown Fourth Week, July 2000
There's a hurricane in Florida, and a family trapped in their home are menaced by an unseen sea-monster.
Mulder gets a call from their next-door neighbour, an ex-Fed who used to work on the X-Files. Yes, this is Darren McGavin again, playing the character he portrayed last Season.
The dynamic duo end up trapped in a building with a monster and some civilians, including a pregnant woman.
X-Files [Season 6, Episode 14]
Monday
Shown Third Week, July 2000
Mulder and Scully are trapped in a bank by Ed from Northern Exposure, who blows everyone up. After the credits roll, Mulder wakes up in a leaky waterbed. It must be the one he got last Season - he claims no knowledge of how it got there.
The FBI are having trouble with their estimates of future crime statistics. Ed the robber's GF, in comparison, appears to be re-living the day repeatedly.
This concept has been used many times before, most recently in Give My Head Peace. This time, however, although Mulder and Scully remain unaware of their fate there are slight differences in their actions each time.
X-Files [Season 6, Episode 15]
Arcadia
Shown Fourth Week, July 2000
Mulder and Scully are finally taken off the scut-work roster, and go undercover in suburbia to investigate a series of disappearances.
X-Files [Season 6, Episode 16]
Alpha
Shown Fourth Week, July 2000
Crewmen aboard a chinese freighter are found bitten to death. The creature responsible is apparently a chinese dog, of a breed that was supposed to be extinct 150 years ago. The dog was shipped over by Andrew J. Robinson [Garak in Star Trek: Deep Space 9 ].
Mulder's source is a local canine expert he met on-line - she and Mulder supposedly have Chemistry together, and Scully gets jealous.
In an unintentional Scooby-Doo reference, Mulder tells his partner, You get a biscuit, Scully.
X-Files [Season 6, Episode 17]
Trevor
Shown Fourth Week, July 2000
A prison farm is hit by a tornado, after the Guard Captain ordered a prisoner to be locked in the hole. When the storm is over the prisoner is missing believed dead, and the Captain is dead believed from spontaneous human combustion.
Mulder and Scully end up in pursuit of a notoriously violent and dangerous criminal who has the ability to pass through solid objects.
X-Files [Season 6, Episode 18]
Milagro
Shown Third Week, July 2000
The dynamic duo investigate a novelist who predicts things and writes about them before they happen.
X-Files [Season 6, Episode 20]
The Unnatural [aka In the Big Inning]
Shown
Shown First Week, August 2000
1947, Roswell New Mexico a desegregated baseball game [involving a Negro team called the Roswell Greys] is interupted by the KKK. However, the Klan includes a REAL Grey!
Mulder meets with an old man [M. Emmet Walsh], the brother of Darren McGavin's character. While McGavin's character was a Fed [and started the X-Files], his brother was a Roswell cop assigned to protect one of the Negro players.
The negro has a secret; his skill at baseball has an extra-terrestrial origin. Walsh discovers the secret, and the 2 develop a close bond. However, the shape-shifting Alien bounty-hunter [Brian Thompson] is closing in.
Mulder flirts with Scully, somewhat out of character; he teaches her to play baseball by putting his arms around her and whispering into her ear.
X-Files [Season 6, Episode 20]
Three of a Kind
Shown 2 May 99
Shown First Week, August 2000
The episode starts with the narrator saying how he dreamt that John F. Kennedy had never been killed and that US citizens could still trust elected officials, never having been betrayed by them. It is revealed that the narrator is one of the Lone Gunmen.
The Lone Gunmen stake out a poker game of delegates to Defcon, run by the USA's Military-Industrial Complex. Fellow nerd John Billingsly ( Enterprise ) tags along. However, they are being staked out by a DOD black-ops agent.
Byers is still obsessed with Suzanne Modesky, who he met at a Con in Baltimore 10 years previously. Yes, this is a sequel to the flashback episode from the previous Season, which showed how the Lone Gunmen met up.
The Lone Gunmen call in Scully to help investigate - Mulder is nowhere to be seen. However, they have other helpers available. There are a bunch of other Conspiracy-Theorist nerds spying on the Con. It turns out that for R&R they play Dungeons & Dragons ... for money!
The Government Conspiracy involves instruments of oppression such as brainwashing and assassination. Also, as a side note, Mike McKean [the JT Walsh lookalike from last Season's Body-swop episode] turns up and tries to seduce Scully again.
X-Files [Season 6, Episode 21]
Field Trip
Shown
Shown Second Week, August 2000
The dynamic duo investigate a double homicide. For some reason they are working for Assistant Director Skinner again.
Scully's autopsy indicates the killer was a carnivorous plant. Mulder's investigations indicate that the murders were faked by aliens, so they could abduct humans without raising suspicion. Both agents continue their investigations seperately,
There are strong overtones of Phil K. Dick This is one of the few episodes where the pair seem to be in serious jeopardy.
Trivia note - Mulder's apartment is number 42!
X-Files [Season 6, Episode 22]
Biogenesis
Shown
Shown Second Week, August 2000
The episode starts with Scully giving a voice-over on the nature of evolution and extinction, wondering what will preclude the next great extinction. On-screen we are shown the discovery of an ancient artefact on a beach in Ivory Coast, West Africa.
An African professor examines the artefact, and discovers it has a mind of its own. He takes it to the USA to share notes with a colleague there, but he is murdered and the artefact is stolen. Mulder and Scully are assigned to solve the murder and recover the artefact.
Scully reminds Mulder that the conspiracy has been solved, its experiments
uncovered and its members killed.
ScullyWhat more could you want?
MulderMy sister.
Mulder gets a strange ringing in his ears every time he sees a wax rubbing of the artefact. It turns out the writing is Navajo, the words are untranslatable gibberish. They employ the code-talker from Season 2, who is unfortunately dying of cancer. No wonder - the artefact is radioactive [with a form of radiation only found outside Earth's solar system]!
CSM is back in business, with a new gang of conspirators. Krychek pops up, in league with Skinner for some unexplained reason. Mimi Rogers is back as well, untrustworthy as ever, and Scully shoots some bitchy glares at her because Mulder got help from Rogers.
At the end of the episode, Mulder is in psychiatric care and Scully is chasing clues in the Ivory Coast! This story will be concluded in Season 7 of X-Files, to be shown in 2001!!!
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 1]
Shown
Shown 15th November 2000
We finally get the second part of this story - after 6 months of waiting!
Mulder is in a rubber room, with CSM's grimy paws extended ready to crush him. Mimi Rogers is back, as the duplicitous FBI Agent. Luckily Skinner is on hand to save him, with the help of a CIA Remote Viewer from an episode a couple of years ago.
Scully is in Ivory Coast, trying to decode the engravings on the UFO's skin to help save Mulder and solve the mysteries of ... the X-Files. The message includes passages from the Koran and a complete human genome. However, there are problems with the excavation: the site is subject to the Biblical plagues of Egypt. She also has to deal with a psychotic John Lithgow lookalike!
To be continued ...
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 3]
Shown
Shown 26th November 2000
The story is about a brain-eating mutant who works in a burger bar. It's shown from his POV, too - Mulder and Scully are only supporting characters this time.
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 4]
Millennium
Shown
Shown 6th December 2000
A necromancer has raised 4 zombies so he can bring about the end of the world. His deadline is New Year's 1999/2000, although the episode was shown in Autumn 1999 in the USA. Yes, this is the Millenium episode, the long-awaited crossover with a certain other Chris Carter TV show.
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 5]
Shown
Shown 13th December 2000
Smalltown USA, and a sheriff's deputy is murdered by an unknown assailant. The only witness, a local teenager, is also the only suspect. However, Mulder suspects that the sheriff's teenage son has the power to run at an amazingly high speed.
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 6]
The Goldberg Variation
Shown 7th January 2001 - Sunday
This episode makes quite a few homages to the US TV show Strange Luck. It features a character who survived a plane crash, and ever since then had amazingly good luck. However, every time he has good luck, someone else gets some bad luck ...
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 7]
Orison
Shown 14th January 2001 - Sunday
This sees the return of Season 2 [ep 2.13 Irresistable] villain Donnie Pfaster, a living incarnation of evil who wants Scully as his next victim. He busts out of jail with the help of a mysterious pastor, and Mulder has to track them both down before it is too late.
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 8]
The Amazing Maleeni
Shown 21st January 2001 - Sunday
Skullder & Mulley investigate a pair of Magicians. One, played by the ugly fat beardy guy in Tomorrow Never Dies , loses his head in the pre-title sequence. Nice plot, worthy of Mission Impossible.
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 9]
Signs and Wonders
Shown 28th January 2001 - Sunday
In smalltown USA, people are being bitten to death by snakes that appear and disappear as if by magic. Mulder and Scully investigate, and uncover a conflict between a Fundamentalist Christian and a Ned Flanders type ...
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 10]
Sein Unt Zeit [Part 1]
Shown 11th February 2001 - Sunday
A young child disappears, and the parents are in the frame for it. However, Mulder thinks a supernatural force kidnapped the child instead.
Kim Darby [True Grit] gets a cameo as a woman falsely accused of killing her own son.
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 11]
Closure: Sein Unt Zeit [Part 2]
Shown 18th February 2001 - Sunday
Mulder and Scully have arrested the kiddie-fiddler, but Mulder's sister remains missing. Cancer Man pops up, and we finally discover what happened to Samantha Mulder. Kind of.
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 12]
X-Cops
Shown 25th February 2001 - Sunday
The live-action police documentary show, Cops, encounters a mysterious beastie in Los Angeles. They also encounter a couple of FBI agents, Mulder and Scully, in pursuit of a creature that apparently feeds off fear.
This is yet another attempt to bring originality into the show by changing the episode format. It is somewhat refreshing, even in part reminiscent of Blair Witch Project . However, the ending is a bit of a let-down.
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 13]
First Person Shooter
At last, the second William Gibson script. And no, it's not much better than his other one. It starts in a futuristic battleground, where one of the heavily-armed combatants is slain by a babelicious woman [ Krista Allen ] in a stereotypical video-game skimpy bondage dominatrix costume. I am Matreya, she says. This is my game. The battleground is a holographic projection, but the man is really dead.
Just like the other Gibson episode [and a Season One X-File] the story is based around the inadvertent creation of an Artificial Intelligence that proceeds to kill a lot of people. Unlike those episodes, this one involves the Lone Gunmen - but only because of their programming skills, not a conspiracy angle.
Scully cannot believe that an AI can kill a man by wielding a soft-light projection [as opposed to Trek-style force-fields]. And frankly, this reviewer cannot believe it either. X-Files being what it is, this episode gets even worse. Mulder goes head-to-head with the killer babe. Somehow he disappears from the hologram room into the game, and Scully has to rescue him. Lucky for him that, unlike her earlier victims [who are killed on sight] the babe instead of shooting him merely confounds him with back-flips.
The real selling point of the episode is not the story but the babe [duh!]. She is unbelievably good-looking, on par with Charisma Carpenter and Hudson Leick ! In a scene inspired by Basic Instinct, Mulder and Scully even meet the model who was body-scanned for the character. Her name is Jade Blue Cockburn ... hmm.
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 14]
Theef
Shown 12 Mar 00
Billy Drago uses black Magic to hex the family of Dr James Morrison [who does most of the investigation]
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 15]
En Ami
A young boy has cancer, but his fundamentalist parents won't let him have medical attention. However, his cancer is cured by Angels who put a microchip in the back of his neck.
Cancer Man [William B Davis] offers Scully the cure to Cancer - if she helps him. He wants to obtain some priceless medical data ... but can he be trusted? This episode was written by Davis himself, and beautifully fleshes out his character.
The high points of the episode? Scully flashes her cleavage a couple of times [she's beautifully fleshed out as well - hey, I had to say it!]. Otherwise, unless you are a big fan of Cancer Man you'll be pretty bored.
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 16]
Chimera
Last week was Scully-centric, so this week we get to concentrate of Duchovny. Poor Gillian Anderson gets about three lines of dialogue while stuck on a dead-end stakeout.
Mulder, OTOH, is called back to HQ by Skinner and sent on a special mission. The wife of a Federal Judge disappeared in mysterious circumstances - a raven appeared, a mirror in the room smashed, and the woman was gone without a trace.
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 17]
All Things
Shown
Shown 1st April 2001 - Sunday
This is a Scully-centric episode, written and directed by Gillian Anderson .
Scully encounters an old flame - a married man she had an affair with in Medical school.
Stacey Haiduk guest-stars.
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 18]
Brand X
Shown
Shown 15th April 2001 - Sunday
Skinner guards a Federal Witness, but the man is discovered dead with his lips chewed away. Mulder suspects it was done by a swarm of tobacco beetles. Yes, after the terrible movie The Insider we get another anti-smoking, anti-Tobacco Industry effort.
Tobin Bell [ Saw ] guest-stars as the mysterious Patient X.
X-Files [Season 7, Episode 19]
Hollywood A.D.
Shown
Shown 22nd April 2001 - Sunday
This episode was written and directed by David Duchovny. It features his wife, Tea Leoni , and mutual friend Garry Shandling as themselves. Mulder is ordered to let Skinner's pal, a movie screenwriter, tag along on the investigation.
The X-File is an investigation into a bomb explosion in the crypt of a Catholic Cathederal. The suspect in the bombing is also suspected of forging ancient documents such as the Gospel of Mary Magdelene. Harris Yulin [Head of the Wachers' Council in Buffy ] appears as a Cardinal.
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 1]
Within (1)
Shown 3rd March 2002 - Sunday
We start with a flashback to a previous episode this reviewer somehow missed. Scully was declared barren [and pregnant!] while Mulder was declared missing [possibly abducted by aliens].
The X-Files offices are being torn apart by Kersh's men. Yes, Kersh has been promoted and now outranks Skinner. Kersh's man John Doggett [Robert Patrick - Terminator 2, From Dusk Til Dawn 2 ] is now leading the manhunt for Mulder. Scully and Skinner are under suspicion ...
The emotive music is quite irritating, another sign of how self-indulgent the show has become. The element of mystery, even the paranoid conspiracies, have all been replaced by ... bleugh!
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 2]
Without (2)
Shown 8th December 2001 - Saturday
New guy Doggett [Robert Patrick - Terminator 2 ], actually in the title credits, is in pursuit of David Duchovney. Yes, this is the start of Mulder being written out of the show. However, there is a good side to DD forcing the show to move to Los Angeles: they can now shoot on locations which don't look like Canada! The action here is set in the desert, and brings to mind the X-Files movie!
The shapechanging Alien bounty-hunter [Brian Thompson] is after the mind-reading boy, Gibson. Doggett is the sceptic, while Scully [looking great in a white t-shirt] is now the believer!
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 3]
Patience
Shown 15th December 2001 - Saturday
David Duchovny is no longer in the regular cast list. New guy Doggett [Robert Patrick - Terminator 2 ], actually in the title credits, joins Scully in pursuit of a murderous man-bat.
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 4]
Roadrunners
Shown 5th January 2002 - Saturday
Utah, and a hitch-hiker is brutally murdered by a bus full of crazy folks. Scully heads along to investigate, because the victim had an inexplicable medical condition. However, she gets trapped in a small town full of the afforementioned crazy folks.
Doggett is back in the office, checking the files. Conor O'Farrell [ Dark Skies ] plays the local sheriff.
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 5]
Invocation
Shown 12th January 2002 - Saturday
A seven-year-old boy disappears from a packed playground. Ten years later and the mother has aged terribly, but the kid has returned and he hasn't aged a day! The X-Files team investigate - Scully is an MD and Doggett has experience in child-abuse and abduction cases.
The sheriff makes sure it is the same child by checking the fingerprints. Odd that a seven-year-old should have a criminal record. Something is strange about the kid. He won't say a word, and the family dog thinks he is a threat. Even his not-so-kid brother Josh suspects something is up.
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 6]
Redrum
Shown 19th January 2002 - Saturday
Unusually for this show, the episode centres around the Guest Star [Joe Morton [ Terminator 2 ]. He wakes up in jail, with no idea how he got there and a week missing from his life. Every day he wakes up on the previous day. Doggett and Scully are peripheral characters, only involved because Morton and Doggett are old friends.
In jail, Morton falls foul of Danny Trejo [ From Dusk Til Dawn ].
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 7]
Via Negativa
Shown 26th January 2002 - Saturday
Doggett and Skinner investigate the murders of members of a Cult. Scully is away on medical leave or something. Doggett gets to meet the Lone Gunmen.
The victims have axe wounds to the skull, but they are in inaccessible postions - how the killer got to them is unknown. The leader of the Cult, Keith Sjarabaka [Holtz in Angel [Season 3] ], may have the ability to enter peoples' dreams ...
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 8]
Surekill
Shown 2nd February 2002 - Saturday
A man dies in mysterious circumstances while in police custody. Scully and Doggett investigate, because apparently the killer can see through brick walls.
Meanwhile, sinister things are afoot in an Exterminator's office.
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 9]
Salvage
Shown 9th February 2002 - Saturday
A man drives home from the funeral of his friend, who died of Gulf War Syndrome. However, it turns out the deceased is not dead - merely indestructable and on a kill-crazy rampage.
This episode is something of an in-joke. The killer is made out of smart-metal and can reform himself from a damaged state. The investigator is ... Robert Patrick from Terminator 2 !
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 10]
Badlaa
Shown 12th May 2002 - Sunday
An extremely fat man is discovered dead in his hotel room. Something has been forcibly extracted from his body.
This ties in with a mysterious shrivelled midget from the Indian subcontinent.
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 11]
The Gift
Agent Doggett continues his search for Mulder. He discovers that Mulder falsified an investigation report, so he follows up Mulder's investigation with one of his own. Since Scully also signed the false reports, she is excluded from the investigation [and the episode].
However, Skinner and the Lone Gunmen are on-hand to help Agent Dogbert.
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 12]
Medusa
Shown 2nd March 2002 - Saturday
Scully and Doggett investigate a case where doctors are apparently harvesting human babies with alien DNA. For Scully this is a bit close to home - one of the doctors under here suspicion is her gynecologist!
Scully has lots of emotive flashbacks of Mulder.
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 13]
Per Manum
Shown
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 14]
This is not happening
Shown 23rd June 2002 - Sunday
Scully is heavily pregnant. Mulder is in hospital, his condition getting worse. An alien abductee named Billy Miles takes a turn for the worse, becoming an inhuman killing machine. Will Mulder turn out the same way?
Krychek pops up to offer hope - but can he be trusted? Also, Judson Scott [ V ] pops up to fill Doggett in ...
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 15]
DeadAlive [Fight The Future Part II]
Shown 23rd March 2002 - Saturday
Mulder is believed dead, but somehow gets resurrected. Scully's bump is now very noticeable.
Judson Scott [ V ] guest-stars as a healer who wants Doggett's help to uncover the conspiracy. Mulder and the Lone Gunmen are also eager to uncover it.
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 16]
Three Words
Shown
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 17]
Empedocles
Shown
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 18]
Vienen
Shown
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 19]
Alone
Shown 20th April 2002 - Saturday
With Scully on maternity leave and Mulder unemployed, Doggett is left to run the X-Files. He is given a rookie babe to help him.
The case is a murder, and it becomes apparent that the killer was inhuman. Doggett and his partner get attacked, and must kill the beast before it kills them.
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 20]
Essense
Shown 27th April 2002 - Saturday
Shown 17th June 2002 - Monday
An alien hit-man is after Scully, intending to kill her before she can give birth. Mulder and Skinner are around to protect her, along with Doggett and his new partner. An old acquaintance turns up to fill them in on the details ...
Scully is approaching labour. Her mother calls in a midwife [ Frances Fisher ]. Also, there is a helpful maternity doctor [ Denise Crosby ].
Evil scientists are plotting to create clone babies with alien DNA. However, someone is killing them off.
X-Files [Season 8, Episode 21]
Existence
Shown 5th May 2002 - Sunday
Shown 17th June 2002 - Monday
Scully is sent off to give birth, guarded by FBI Agent Monica Reyes [ Annabeth Gish ]. Scully is finally due to give birth. However, a strange group want to steal the baby. Also ... will it look like A.D. Skinner?
Meanwhile, an unkillable metal man is on the loose, trying to find anyone who can lead him to the mother and child. But unlike Terminator 2 , this time Robert Patrick is one of the good guys. And he has Mulder and Skinner to back him up.
This is the last show in the Season, and one of the most irritating episodes ever. A major recurring character is killed off in an incredibly disappointing way, and the final scene is truly atrocious.
X-Files [Season 9, Episode 1-2]
Nothing Important Happened Today
Shown 11 Nov 2001
Shown 20th June 2002 - Thursday
The first episode of the season starts with sexy guest-star Lucy Lawless . We then move onto the opening credits. Duchovny is nowhere in sight, while FBI Agent Monica Reyes [ Annabeth Gish ] and Skinner [Mitch Pileggi - Knight Rider 2000 ] are both there. Yes, we have half the FBI as regular cast members, while the original hero is missing.
Agent Doggett wants to investigate FBI corruption and the conspiracy that Deputy Director Kersh is involved in. He needs Mulder to testify, but Mulder has disappeared!
Eventually Doggett gets on to the X-File investigation - Lucy Lawless is killing people off. By some strange coincidence Doggett himself knows her!
Agent Doggett is under investigation himself by Cary Elwes [ Princess Bride ], who is Agent Reyes' ex.
The Lone Gunmen pop up to help out. This may have relevance to the success of their spin-off TV show.
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