Everything about X-files totally explained
The X-Files is an
American Peabody,
Golden Globe and
Emmy Award-winning
science fiction television series created by
Chris Carter, which first aired on
10 September 1993, and ended on
19 May 2002. The show was a major hit for the
American FOX network, and its main characters and slogans (for example, "The Truth Is Out There", "Trust No One", "I Want to Believe") became
pop culture touchstones.
The X-Files is seen as a defining series of the 1990s, coinciding with the era's widespread mistrust of
governments, interest in
conspiracy theories and
spirituality, and the belief in the existence of
extraterrestrial life.
In the series,
FBI agents Fox Mulder (
David Duchovny) and
Dana Scully (
Gillian Anderson) are tasked with investigating the "X-Files": marginalized, unsolved cases involving
paranormal phenomena. 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 were caught up in a larger conflict, termed "the mythology" or "
mytharc" by the show's creators, and developed a close and ambiguous friendship which many saw as romantic rather 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.
The show's popularity peaked in the mid-to-late 1990s,. The show was declared by
TV Guide to be the second greatest
cult television show (being number one) and the 37
th best television show of all time. In 2007,
TIME magazine included the show on its list of the "100 Best TV Shows of All Time".
Idea and pilot
California 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'd been working on, inspired by a report that 3.7 million Americans may have been abducted by aliens, and recalling memories of
Watergate and 1970s horror show, 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" actress for Scully than the 24-year-old
Gillian Anderson, a theater veteran with minor film experience, who Carter felt was the only choice after auditions. 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 9:00 p.m. slot on the American fall TV schedule. Carter started a new company called
Ten Thirteen Productions, named after his
October 13 birthday, to oversee
The X-Files.
Carter's idea was to present
FBI agents investigating
extraterrestrials and
paranormal events, 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."
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 Mulder" 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's the conflict." Carter also felt Scully's role as the more rational partner and Mulder's reliance on guesses and
intuition subverted the
gender roles usually seen on television.
In the
pilot episode, Scully is assigned to the X-Files as Mulder's partner, in order to serve as a scientific check on Mulder's belief in the paranormal. In later episodes, it becomes apparent that she was actually set up in that role so that the government conspirators could contain the implications of Mulder's work, which they viewed as a danger to their devious plans. Notably, the powerful
shadow government official known only as the
Cigarette Smoking Man, or "Cancer Man", appears without any spoken lines in the first and last scenes of the pilot episode—although at that point his ongoing importance to the series hadn't yet been established. The "unresolved
sexual tension" between Mulder and Scully was also a central underlying theme from the beginning, although they were each given other brief romantic interests in future episodes. Carter thought the show should be "
plot-driven", and was quoted as saying, "I didn't want the relationship to come before the cases." For example, throughout the series, Mulder and Scully, with rare exception, refer to each other in a professional manner by using each others' last names, rather than calling each other by their first names, which might seem more personal.
Carter's superior 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. 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", were particularly popular among fans, television critics, the show's actors, and even Carter himself. Morgan and Wong also returned for the first half of the fourth season. Prior to their work on
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. 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, for which he won an
Emmy Award in 1996. Bartley left after the third season and was replaced by
directors of photography Ron Stannett, Jon Joffin, and ultimately Joel Ransom until the end of the fifth season.
The show, which made a big move to Los Angeles in its sixth season, was originally going to be filmed in California in the first place. Carter said, "we originally intended to film the pilot in
Los Angeles. When we couldn't find a good forest, we made a quick decision to come to Vancouver. As it turned out, it was three weeks that turned into five years. The benefits of being in Vancouver were tremendous." The
temperate rainforest climate of Vancouver itself was also seen as crucial to
The X-Files, allowing directors to create a mysterious, foggy aura, seen as somewhat similar to that of then-recent TV hit
Twin Peaks. Responsibility for
casting the show fell to Randy Stone, who had first recommended both leads to Carter, and to Rick Millikan, who predominately used local Canadian actors.
History
Season 1 (1993–1994)
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. (see
below). 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"), which saw Mulder and Scully tracking another crashed UFO, did almost as poorly; it was the fourth least-watched episode of the series overall until its final season.
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 that they considered more commercially promising at the time. The producers still ran into early opposition on some key episodes, among them "Beyond the Sea", 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 wouldn't have forced plot resolutions, but would conclude with some emotional resolution." named after the
Warren Commission's disputed
theory on the
John F. Kennedy assassination.
However, the duo's first episode, "
Squeeze", wasn't a part of the mythology. The episode featured
Eugene Victor Tooms, an elastic, liver-eating mutant serial-killer who emerged from hibernation every 30 years. After the first two episodes, the writing staff wanted to broaden the concept of
The X-Files; executives had initially rejected Carter's idea for a series centered only around alien conspiracies, having already had one at the time,
Sightings. The only guideline provided by Carter was that the show should take place "within the realm of extreme possibility". The show's first season thus featured numerous standalone stories involving monsters, and also diverse alien/government cover-ups, with no apparent connection to each other — such as the
Arctic space worms in "Ice", and the conspiracy of
genetically engineered twins in "
Eve." 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; he later called it one of the worst hours ever produced for the show. 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 and
Australia, where a
remix by Triple X became a number 2 hit in 1996). Snow's music scores for each episode, often dark,
synthesized 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. A soundtrack CD,
The Truth and the Light, came out in 1996.
The show's mix of
genres, the stressful schedule (22 or more episodes per season) and the 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". The first year, budgets were at times as low as $1 million. most of which wasn't the stars' salaries. Mat Beck,
visual effects supervisor (many were created on
computer, unusual in early 1990s TV) for 91 episodes and also wrote the episode "Wetwired"; Emmy-nominated
makeup artist Toby Lindala; and
props master Kenneth Hawryliw, who later co-wrote the episode "Trevor".
Season 2 (1994–1995)
As the series ended its first season, a problem had arisen for the producers: the
pregnancy of Gillian Anderson, who played Dana Scully. Some network executives wanted the role recast, which Carter refused to do. 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, 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 in sleep deprivation). 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 (of the Morgan and Wong writing team). "Sleepless" was the second
X-Files episode directed by
Rob Bowman, who 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.
"Sleepless" introduced Agent
Alex Krycek (
Nicholas Lea) as Mulder's new 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 Scully abducted by
Duane Barry (
Steve Railsback), himself a likely alien abductee, in the episode, "Duane Barry." The episode was both written and directed by Carter (his debut) and received several
Emmy nominations the following year. Scully's abduction provoked an
existential crisis in Mulder. Although the show left it up in the air for years as to who was directly responsible (aliens, the government, or some combination of both), the earlier episode "Sleepless" had
foreshadowed the events with the Cigarette Smoking Man's declaration that "every problem has a solution" (referring to Scully). Scully was now seen to be firmly on Mulder's side in the larger conflict, regardless of her original role as a
debunker and her continued skepticism towards the paranormal.
After Scully's 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 ("
Fresh Bones") to animal abductions ("
Fearful Symmetry") and
exorcism ("
The Calusari"). This period would see the show gain more mainstream appeal, often earning winning scores during its Friday night timeslot. Its Nielsen ratings rose to their highest peaks thus-far with the occult-themed "
Die Hand Die Verletzt" and the epic "
Colony"/"
End Game". A sequel, "Orison", was made in the seventh season.
During its second season,
The X Files finished 64
th out of 141 shows, a marked improvement from the first season. The ratings were not spectacular, but the series had attracted enough fans to be classified as a "cult hit," particularly by Fox standards. Most importantly it made great gains among the 18-to-49 age demographic sought by advertisers.
The last weeks of season two brought more changes, beginning what some saw as
The X-Files' peak creative period. The
Edgar Award-nominated "
Humbug", an unconventional standalone episode about a small town inhabited by circus
sideshow performers, was the first script fully written by Darin Morgan. At the time it was also considered a risky experiment, as it was the first outright
comedy episode. Gillian Anderson famously swallowed a real cricket in one
ad-libbed scene. 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-written by Carter with David Duchovny), which attracted widespread attention with its
cliffhanger ending The show couldn't afford location filming, so a rock quarry in
British Columbia was painted to match the desert hues of the
American Southwest. and suggested that a shadowy international consortium known as the
Syndicate were conspiring with the aliens to colonize Earth. This would be achieved via use of the so-called
black oil, introduced in the two-part "
Piper Maru"/"
Apocrypha." However, the season's other main mythology episodes, "
Nisei" and "
731", continued to call some of these conclusions into question. Chris 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. "Nisei" received
Emmy Awards for its
sound editing and
mixing.
Season three was noted for its wide variety of "monster of the week" episodes. "
Pusher", the second effort by writer Vince Gilligan, depicted the cold blooded
Robert Patrick Modell, a man who could control people telepathically (a sequel, "
Kitsunegari", came two years later in the fifth season). Simultaneously, the show continued to yield darker episodes, such as "
The Walk" (a mysterious deadly force in a veterans hospital), "
Oubliette" (a metaphysical connection between a recently kidnapped girl and another woman) and "
Grotesque" (Mulder's descent into the world of a gargoyle-possessed killer, which received an Emmy for John Bartley's
cinematography).
Behind the scenes,
Darin Morgan continued his involvement with the show, becoming
The X-Files' most critically acclaimed writer. Despite intense perfectionism and having been unsatisfied with his well-received "Humbug", Morgan managed to turn in three
dark comedy episodes which were considered original for the show. The first of these, "
Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose", concerned a
St. Paul insurance salesman (
Peter Boyle) who could predict death. It won Emmys for best writing and guest actor Boyle, and comes in very high in fan polls of favorite episodes. "
War of the Coprophages" was Morgan's parody-tribute to
H.G. Wells/
Orson Welles'
War of the Worlds, this time with an infestation of
cockroaches driving a town to hysteria. It also mocked the sexual tension between Mulder and Scully by introducing the attractive female
entomologist Dr. Bambi Berenbaum. A similar technique was also used in Chris Carter's own "
Syzygy", only one week later, leading to what some viewers felt was a comedy overdose.
Morgan's third effort of the season, and his final episode as an
X-Files script writer, was "
Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'", which presented multiple
perspectives as in
Kurosawa's
Rashomon, and made fun of the X-Files mythology while remaining consistent with it. Graeme Murray and Shirley Inget were nominated for an Emmy for art direction. Morgan would later write a sequel also involving the writer
Jose Chung (
Charles Nelson Reilly), for Chris Carter's other series,
Millennium in 1998.
In the spring of 1996,
The X-Files began to achieve wide recognition. In addition to its eight Emmy nominations in its third season, of which it won five, it was awarded a
George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in television broadcasting. Both David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson were nominated for
Screen Actors Guild Awards for the first time, and Anderson won. Both actors were also nominated for
Golden Globe Awards. Guest stars in season 3 included
Jesse Ventura and
Alex Trebek (both "
men in black" in "Jose Chung's"),
Giovanni Ribisi and
Jack Black (in "
D.P.O.", about a young man who can control
lightning),
Lucy Liu and
B.D. Wong (in "
Hell Money", about mysterious and deadly occurrences in the
Chinese immigrant community),
JT Walsh (in "
The List", about the reincarnation of a
death row prisoner), and
R. Lee Ermey (in "
Revelations", about a
stigmatic boy, played by
Kevin Zegers, the first of several episodes in the series to deal directly with Scully's
Catholic faith). Black, Ribisi and Liu were not widely known at the time they appeared on
The X-Files.
Dave Grohl also had a
cameo in the "Pusher". His
rock band,
Foo Fighters, were fans of the show, and contributed songs to the compilation album,
Songs in the Key of X, released that spring. They also contributed to
The X-Files film two years later (see
below for other pop culture inspirations).
The final part of the season brought the episode "
Avatar" (the first episode centered around
Mitch Pileggi's Assistant Director
Walter Skinner, who was being punished by the Syndicate for his efforts on behalf of Mulder and Scully), "
Quagmire" (about a
lake monster; the famous "conversation on the rock" between Mulder and Scully was added by script editor Darin Morgan as his last contribution to
The X-Files), "
Wetwired" (an episode involving a conspiracy to send
subliminal messages in TV reception), and season finale "
Talitha Cumi", which introduced Jeremiah Smith (
Roy Thinnes), an alien with healing powers. The finale had a complex plot, tying back to Mulder's mother's past with the Cigarette Smoking Man. One scene, produced by writers Chris Carter and David Duchovny, was modeled directly after "
The Grand Inquisitor" chapter from
Dostoevsky's
The Brothers Karamazov.
FOX's
Standards and Practices department granted it a rare
TV-MA "Parental Advisory" rating and refused to ever air it again, though the episode later went into syndication.
Two major changes occurred behind the scenes in the autumn of 1996, during the early part of the fourth season. Chris Carter's new series
Millennium, also produced in Vancouver, debuted on Friday nights. As a result,
The X-Files was moved from Friday night to Sunday, seen as a key to better ratings success, although Carter was initially wary and the decision was controversial with the show's audience. The first episode to air in the new time period was "
Unruhe", written by Vince Gilligan and directed by
Rob Bowman. It was one of the series' darkest episodes, dealing with a man (played by
Pruitt Taylor Vince) who
lobotomizes women and can project his fantasies in "thought photography". Gilligan also wrote "
Paper Hearts", an emotional episode for Mulder, twisting his memories of his
sister's disappearance with a case involving an unrepentant child killer.
Wong and Morgan contributed their own, possibly non-
canon addition to the mythology,
Chris Owens, later to play other roles for the show, first appeared in this episode as the young CSM. The action-oriented "
Tunguska" and "
Terma" were the more traditional mythology episodes for the autumn
sweeps period, sending Mulder and Krycek to a Russian
gulag and involving the black oil and the Syndicate closely.
X-Files ratings by the middle of the fourth season were as high as they'd ever been, The episode was ultimately directed by Rob Bowman, with an homage to
Alfred Hitchcock's
Frenzy. FOX had attained rights to broadcast
Super Bowl XXXI in January 1997 and planned to showcase
The X-Files in the premier post-game slot. As a result, "Never Again" was bumped to the next week, and "
Leonard Betts", a stylish and gory monster-of-the-week episode about an
EMT (played by
Paul McCrane) who was
decapitated and could
regrow his body, received the coveted spot (episodes of
The X-Files were often aired slightly out of production order). "Leonard Betts" became the all time most-watched
X-Files episode, with 17.2 Nielsen rating and 29% audience share. Nevertheless, Anderson's performances during the fourth season "cancer arc" were praised. She won an Emmy for
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1997, as well as her second straight
Screen Actors Guild award and a
Golden Globe. "Memento Mori" relied on extended emotional
voiceovers, a technique that had become increasingly common in the show over the years, as Scully came to grips with her illness while simultaneously investigating its origins, leading back to her own abduction. Mulder, Walter Skinner and the Cigarette Smoking Man all became dramatically involved, which played out in the later episode "
Zero Sum", one of the few episodes of the show not to feature Anderson's involvement, although the events were driven by Scully's worsening condition, as well as the Syndicate's plans for unleashing killer bees.
Once Scully had contracted cancer, she continued to work in her former capacity as Mulder's partner investigating X-Files, apparently debilitated only by occasional
nosebleeds, though the issue of mortality was again addressed in "
Elegy" late in the season. In the intervening time, notable episodes included the two-part "
Tempus Fugit" and "
Max", in which Max Fenig from season one's "Fallen Angel" returned briefly as the agents investigated mysterious "lost time" in a deadly
plane crash, loosely modeled on
TWA Flight 800.
Amidst what was considered the show's darkest year, "
Small Potatoes" provided a lighter tone. The episode was written by Vince Gilligan, and featured departed
X-Files writer and former Flukeman Darin Morgan in the role of Eddie Van Blundht, a shape-shifting self-described "loser" who becomes the focus of Scully and Mulder's investigation of a
West Virginia town where children are being born with tails. The final scenes of the episode provided "
shippers" with the sight of "Mulder" and Scully finally together, the first of many such jokes by the writers in later seasons. Season 4 ended with "
Gethsemane", a resolution which appeared to leave one main character near death and kill off the other one, as well as turning his entire belief system into a house of cards.
Season 5 (1997–1998)
When season 5 opened, to the show's best numbers ever In a very rare move for a show still in production, and it was largely filmed in
California between season four's "Gethsemane" and season five's resumption of the plot with "Redux", pushing back the debut date for the season to November 1997 and resulting in the fifth being (until the ninth) the shortest season, only 20 episodes.
As a result, several episodes in season five featured either Scully or Mulder at the expense of the other, to make time for personal projects or re-shoots on the film throughout the season (both stars were now reportedly receiving the same pay, $100,000 per episode Then an episode aired where both Mulder and Scully's diverging viewpoints on a
vampire case were presented, and humorously contrasted. Vince Gilligan's "Bad Blood", another pairing with "Small Potatoes" director
Cliff Bole, was a fan favorite and featured
Luke Wilson in a guest role as a young
Texas sheriff with or without "buck teeth".
In February, the fifth season continued a tradition of mythology episodes in
sweeps month and aired the dramatic two-part episodes "Patient X" and "The Red and the Black", the latter of which was again directed by Carter. These dealt with the beginning of
colonization, and introduced two new characters,
Cassandra Spender (a chronic alien abductee, played by
Veronica Cartwright, who was nominated for two Emmys in the role) and her estranged son
Jeffrey Spender (a colleague of Mulder and Scully at the FBI, played by
Chris Owens). The episodes also juxtaposed Mulder's ongoing crisis of belief in the existence of aliens, with the machinations of the Syndicate and Scully's own personal experiences. Krycek and Covarrubias were involved, while the
Cigarette Smoking Man continued to be largely out of the picture during the fifth season. Leading up to the end of the year, more monster of the week episodes were aired, including "Mind's Eye" (guest starring
Lili Taylor as a blind woman suspected of murder, and written by season 5 story editor
Tim Minear), "The Pine Bluff Variant" (about Mulder's involvement in a plot to spread deadly
biological terrorism, with tie-ins to the ongoing mythology) and "Folie à deux" (about Mulder and Scully's investigation into a
telemarketing employee who claimed his boss could turn into an insect).
David Duchovny had been unhappy with his geographical separation from his wife
Téa Leoni, although his discontent was popularly attributed to frustration with climatic conditions in
Vancouver. Gillian Anderson also wanted to return home to the United States, and Carter decided to move production to
Los Angeles following the fifth season. The season ended in May 1998 with "The End", the final episode shot in Vancouver and the final episode with the involvement of many of the original crew members who had worked on the show for its previous five years, including director and producer R. W. Goodwin and his wife
Sheila Larken (who played Margaret Scully and would later return briefly). "The End" introduced
Diana Fowley, a new character who had apparently once worked with Mulder on early X-Files, but it focused largely on the efforts of the Syndicate to get control of mind-reading
chess prodigy Gibson Praise.
The X-Files were closed for a second time in this episode (following season 2). This set up the events of the film,
The X-Files, which had just completed post-production and was to open in theatres one month later. The show finished its fifth season with a season Nielsen average of 12.1, its all time peak viewership, and its advertising budget was similar.
In summer 1998 the series produced a feature length motion picture,
The X-Files, also known as
The X Files: Fight the Future. It was intended to be a continuation of the season five finale "The End" (5x20), but was also meant to stand on its own.
The X-Files film was more successful internationally. Anderson and Duchovny received equal pay for the film, unlike their original contracts for the series. For example, Vince Gilligan's "Drive" (about a man subject to an unexplained illness) was a frenetic action episode, unusual for
The X-Files, not least due to its setting on roads in the stark desert of
Nevada. The "Dreamland" two-parter was also set in Nevada, this time in the legendary
Area 51. It marked another
comedy outing for the show, in a season increasingly light in tone, with
guest star Michael McKean playing
man in black Morris Fletcher, who switches bodies with Fox Mulder during the course of the episodes. It is the only non-mythology two part episode of
The X-Files.
The sixth season also explored the ever-deepening bond between Mulder and Scully. The episode "Triangle" was Chris Carter's fifth try at
directing as well as writing
The X-Files. With its ambitious
mise-en-scène featuring
continuous takes and
split screens, and its setting on an
ocean liner on the eve of
World War II (played by anchored in
Long Beach, California), it was widely seen as a bid for an
Emmy Award, which Carter didn't receive, though the episode was up for
sound editing. "Triangle" concerned Mulder's trip to the
Bermuda Triangle to investigate an X-File there, disobeying superiors such as Kersh, in parallel with Scully and
The Lone Gunmen's dogged efforts to locate him, contrasting this with
time warp versions of all the main characters in September 1939, and ending with a pivotal "
shipper" moment while leaving both the preceding events and the agents' relationship ambiguous. Whether they "should" or "should not" consummate their "
platonic" love was a matter of immense debate among the fan community for years, and is still subject to scrutiny, since even after abundant hints Carter refuses to substantiate whether the two characters ever had sex.
Late in the season, David Duchovny — who had a
master's degree in
English and considered a career as a writer before joining the cast The episode was also originally set to feature the involvement of
Darren McGavin, star of early
X-Files inspiration . McGavin had to pull out due to illness, but he does appear as original X-File investigator Agent Arthur Dales in season five's "Travelers" and season six's "Agua Mala" (about Mulder and Scully's discovery of a dangerous water-based
life form during a
hurricane in Florida).
Some longtime fans were alienated by the show in season 6, due to the different tone taken by most stand-alone episodes after the move to Los Angeles Rather than adhering to the previous style of "monsters of the week", they were often romantic or gently humorous or both, such as "Arcadia", where Mulder and Scully pose as a married couple in a
gated community in order to solve a case, or the darker,
campy "Terms of Endearment", starring
Bruce Campbell as a demon. Meanwhile, some felt there was no coherent plan to the mytharc, that Carter was "making it all up as he goes along". (the show would actually reference the concept in its episode "Jump the Shark" three years later). The show's producers acknowledged they'd been trying to do something different from previous years in season six.
The X-Files was nevertheless FOX's highest rated show that year, However, it was the lowest
rated season premiere since 1994's "Little Green Men". The occasion was
New Year's 2000.
Nick Chinlund also reprised his role of
Donnie Pfaster in "Orison", a sequel to season two's "
Irresistible", while
Ricky Jay played a
magician in "The Amazing Maleeni", which contrasted with the generally more emotional tone of season seven. Novelists
Tom Maddox and
William Gibson returned with a second episode, "
First Person Shooter", this time directed by Chris Carter. There were reports of friction between cast and crew, however. David Duchovny, who had filed a
lawsuit with
FOX that also alleged Carter was paid "hush money" to approve an unfair
syndication contract, was reputed to be bored with
The X-Files a year after relocating. The show's production costs since the move from Vancouver — typically over $3 million per episode — were also a matter of concern to the network, as it both financed and distributed the show and couldn't pass off costs to itself without hurting the corporate bottom line.
Breaking the formula of standard stand-alone episodes were several efforts written and directed by the show's stars.
Gillian Anderson directed her own script for the
metaphysical "all things", further exploring Scully's character. It was the first
X-Files to be directed by a woman, which was dismissed). Duchovny followed up his prior episode "The Unnatural" with the over-the-top
satire, "Hollywood A.D." The title referenced both the
Church scandal uncovered therein, and the prospect of
Mitch Pileggi's
Assistant Director Skinner as a
Hollywood player; the
self-reflexive episode concerned Skinner's effort to get a blockbuster film made about Mulder and Scully's X-Files investigations, but the "stars" playing the agents are actress
Téa Leoni, Duchovny's real life wife as Scully, and comedian
Garry Shandling as Mulder. Finally,
William Davis, known for his ongoing role as the
Cigarette Smoking Man, wrote an episode examining his character, called "En Ami". It was one of Davis' final appearances in the show.
"En Ami" was also director Rob Bowman's final episode for the show. Before the seventh season finale, longtime writer Vince Gilligan also got the chance to direct his first episode, "Je Souhaite" (about a reluctant
genie), and Chris Carter turned in the dark
slapstick "Fight Club", a return to Carter's roots in comedy. The episode, guest starring
Kathy Griffin, didn't go over well, particularly so close to what fans expected would be final revelations to the mythology; it holds the record for all time lowest voted episode of the whole series in a survey of viewers.]]
The final three seasons were a time of closure for
The X-Files. Characters within the show were written out, including the Cigarette Smoking Man and
Mulder's mother, and several plot threads were resolved, including the fate of Fox Mulder's sister
Samantha, who had been a long running
plot device within the show, in the episodes "
Sein Und Zeit" and "Closure". After settling his contract dispute, David Duchovny quit full-time participation in the show after the seventh season. This contributed to uncertainties over the likelihood of an eighth season. Season finale "Requiem" was written by Chris Carter as a possible
series finale, but the show was again renewed by FOX, despite lower ratings.
For the next two years, Carter was offered incentives to continue the show, which he did despite reservations, concluding there were "more stories to tell." The two were eventually joined by
Baby William, Scully's child via an implant related to her abduction, while the crew also offered a tribute to an Internet
fan fiction writer who had died from cancer in 2001, creating the character of young FBI Agent
Leyla Harrison (a self-professed admirer of Mulder and Scully) to honor her memory in the season 8 episode "Alone" and Season 9 episode "Scary Monsters."
The X-Files completed its ninth and final season with the two-hour episode "
The Truth", which reunited David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and much of the original cast. It first aired on
May 19,
2002, finishing third in its
timeslot in the
Nielsen ratings, with a slightly lower audience share than the original
X-Files pilot episode.
Season 2: Little Green Men, Duane Barry, Ascension, One Breath, Red Museum, Colony, End Game, Anasazi
Season 4: Herrenvolk, Tunguska, Terma, Memento Mori, Tempus Fugit, Max, Zero Sum, Gethsemane
Season 6: The Beginning, S.R. 819, Two Fathers, One Son, Biogenesis
Season 9: Nothing Important Happened Today, Nothing Important Happened Today II, Trust No 1, Provenance, Providence, William, The Truth
Cast of characters
Recurring guest characters
| Actor |
Character |
Seasons |
| William B. Davis |
C.G.B. Spender, aka Cancer Man |
1–5, film, 6–7, 9 |
| Jerry Hardin |
Deep Throat |
1, 3–4, 7 |
| Steven Williams |
X |
2–5, 9 |
| Nicholas Lea |
Alex Krycek |
2–9 |
| Brian Thompson |
Alien Bounty Hunter |
2–8 |
| John Neville |
Well-Manicured Man |
3–5, film |
| Don S. Williams |
First Elder |
3–5, film, 6 |
| Laurie Holden |
Marita Covarrubias |
4–7, 9 |
| Veronica Cartwright |
Cassandra Spender |
5–6 |
| Chris Owens |
Agent Jeffrey Spender |
5–6, 9 |
| Mimi Rogers |
Agent Diana Fowley |
5–7 |
| James Pickens, Jr. |
Assistant/Deputy Director Alvin Kersh |
6, 8–9 |
| Tom Braidwood |
Melvin Frohike |
1–5, film, 6–9 |
| Bruce Harwood |
John Fitzgerald Byers |
1–5, film, 6–9 |
| Dean Haglund |
Richard Langly |
1–5, film, 6–9 |
| Rebecca Toolan |
Teena Mulder |
2–4, 7 |
| Sheila Larken |
Margaret Scully |
1–5, 8–9 |
| Adam Baldwin |
Knowle Rohrer |
8–9 |
Legacy
Television
The X-Files directly inspired numerous other TV series, including Strange World, Burning Zone, Special Unit 2, Mysterious Ways, Lost, Carnivàle, Dark Skies, The Visitor, describing it as "dark, wild and sexy... The X Files meets This Life." Other shows have been influenced by the tone and mood of The X-Files, for example, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which drew from the mood and coloring of The X-Files, as well as from its occasional blend of horror and humor. Joss Whedon described his show as a cross between The X-Files and My So-Called Life.
"X-Philes"
As The X-Files saw its viewership expand from a "small, but devoted" group of fans to a worldwide mass audience, digital telecommunications were also becoming mainstream. According to The New York Times, "this may have been the first show to find its audience growth tied to the growth of the Internet." Mulder and Scully communicated on cellular phones, e-mail contact with secret informants provided plot points in episodes such as "Colony" and "Anasazi", while The Lone Gunmen were portrayed as Internet aficionados as early as 1994. Many X-Files fans also had online access. Fans of the show became commonly known as "X-Philes," a term coined (from the Greek root "-phil-" meaning love or obsession) on an early Fidonet X-Files message board. In addition to watching the show, X-Philes reviewed episodes themselves on unofficial websites, formed communities with other fans through Usenet newsgroups and listservs,
In Sweden, X-Files fandom correlated with Internet use. Early ISP:s such as Algonet experienced that logins went down to zero as TV4 syndicated X-files at 9 pm.
Unusually for the time, review sites and fan groups were also influential on the producers. Chris Carter claimed to read them: "The show originally [from1993 to 1996] aired at 9 o'clock on Friday night and at 10 o'clock, I could get on the Internet and see what people thought of it." Writer-producer Glen Morgan also described how he "would come in on Monday and find all these comments from the Internet that you could directly apply to the next episode... When I started out in television, your only input was if your family called you afterwards, they liked the show... What we found out on The X-Files is that there's an intelligent audience that's out there who doesn’t want TV to just wash over them. They want to talk about things."
The writing staff were prohibited from reading unsolicited scripts or fan fiction for legal reasons, but an online fan base and their critiques of the show became crucial to its early survival.
[[Image:Pusher2.jpg|thumb|left|Scenefrom "Pusher", an episode from 1996 in which a violent standoff draws Mulder and Scully closer together. Fans discussing it on the Internet may have popularized the term "shipper." Other groups arose to pay tribute to the stars, and even to a small supporting role, Agent Pendrell, while others joined the subculture of "slash" fiction.
The producers didn't endorse some fans' readings, according to a study on the subject: "Not content to allow Shippers to perceive what they wish, Carter has consistently reassured NoRomos [those against the idea of a Mulder/Scully romance] that theirs is the preferred reading. This allows him the plausible deniability to credit the show's success to his original plan even though many watched in anticipation of a romance, thanks, in part, to his strategic polysemy. He can deny that these fans had reason to do so, however, since he's repeatedly stated that a romance wasn't and would never be." One journalist documented possible influence from Nigel Kneale's Quatermass series and its various television and film iterations. Kneale was invited to write for The X-Files, but declined the offer.
The early 1990s cult hit Twin Peaks is seen as a major influence on the show's dark atmosphere and its often surreal blend of drama and irony. David Duchovny had appeared as a cross-dressing DEA agent in Twin Peaks, and the character of Mulder was seen as a parallel to the show's FBI Agent Dale Cooper. The X-Files also won a Peabody Award in 1996, during its third season.
The show earned a total of 16 Emmys; two for acting, one for writing, and 13 for various technical categories. In September 1994, The X-Files won its first award, the Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Graphic Design and Title Sequences.
Peter Boyle later won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his portrayal of the title character in the third-season episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose". In the same year, Darin Morgan won the Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Drama Series for the same episode. "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" was one of four highly-acclaimed episodes Morgan wrote during his short time on the show's writing staff. In 1997, both Duchovny and Anderson won Golden Globe awards for the best male and female actors in a drama series. Later that year, Anderson won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
Throughout its run, The X-Files also won Emmy awards in seven technical categories: Graphic Design and Title Sequences, Cinematography, Sound Editing and Mixing, Art Direction, Single Camera Picture Editing, Makeup, and Special Visual Effects. It was additionally nominated for 15 Saturn Awards, and its wins include 3 for Best Network Television Series, 1 for Best Actress on Television (Gillian Anderson), and 1 for Best Actor on Television (Robert Patrick).
Broadcast history
The first season of The X-Files premiered on September 10, 1993 on FOX. In the United Kingdom it first aired on satellite television channel Sky One January 19, 1994 before being shown to a wider audience on the terrestrial channel BBC2 from September 19, airing at 21:00. Since then, it has expanded into other countries across the world (including Canada, Mexico and throughout Latin America, New Zealand, Ukraine, Australia, Singapore, Pakistan, the Philippines, Portugal, Spain, Croatia, Germany, Poland, South Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, South Africa, France, Malaysia, Italy, China, Taiwan, Brazil, Thailand,Turkey, Switzerland, Serbia, Bulgaria and Japan), either being dubbed or subtitled to accommodate for foreign language viewers.
The show was first syndicated in the U.S. on a Fox-owned cable channel, FX. This arrangement resulted in a 1999 lawsuit from Duchovny, claiming the contract hadn't been open to fair bidding. The suit was settled out of court. The X-Files reruns are currently being shown on TNT and the Sci-Fi Channel, among others. Carter filed his own lawsuit over syndication issues against 20th Century Fox Television on December 30, 2005; this was seen as the main impediment to plans for a second X-Files film. The lawsuit was settled and a second X-Files film was made, entitled .
Merchandise
The X-Files-related merchandise includes:
| Action figures based on the film
Barbie and Ken dolls as Scully and Mulder
Collectible trading cards
|
Comic books (by Topps and Checker)
Episode sets on VHS and DVD
Soundtrack recordings on CD
|
T-shirts
Magazine
Video games
|
The entire series is currently available on DVD by season. Also available are "mythology" sets which were compilations of episodes that related to its "mytharc" storyline. Forty-eight episodes, selected to represent the best of the show's first four seasons, were also made available on VHS. Video game titles include, and, which expand on the show's storyline.
Ten Thirteen Productions
Chris Carter founded Ten Thirteen Productions to produce The X-Files, and later produced other shows under that company name. The shows were often shown to be related to one another, and references from one show to the next were often made:
The X-Files fourth season episode "Never Again": Agent Dana Scully goes to a tattoo parlor at the behest of her new acquaintance Ed Jerse. While there she selects a tattoo called an Ouroboros, a depiction of a serpent, coiled into a circle, eating its own tail. This emblem was the logo for the television series Millennium and the fictional group after which the program is named. The episode was written by Glen Morgan & James Wong, who were frequent contributors to Millennium.
The X-Files seventh season episode "Millennium": Lance Henriksen and Brittany Tiplady make their final appearances as Millennium characters Frank and Jordan Black. Millennium had been canceled earlier that year, after its third season.
Millennium first season episode "Lamentation" (written by Chris Carter): The main character, Frank Black, visits the FBI building and Mulder and Scully are briefly seen descending a stairway. In fact, they're Duchovny and Andersons' stand-ins.
Millennium second season episode "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense": The writer Jose Chung appears, who was first seen in the The X-Files episode, "Jose Chung's From Outer Space". Both episodes were written by Darin Morgan.
Millennium third season episode "The Time Is Now": Character Peter Watts (Terry O'Quinn) picks up a "Morley" cigarette butt, indicating that the nefarious X-Files character, Cigarette Smoking Man, has been lurking in the vicinity recently.
This brief 1999 series was based on a graphic novel. Gillian Anderson provided voiceovers in the pilot episode, and Terry O'Quinn, who costarred in Millennium and guest starred in several X-Files episodes and the feature film, had a large role. Scott Bairstow, who starred in The X-Files episode "Miracle Man", also had a lead role. Unlike Millennium and The Lone Gunmen, however, there's no indication in the produced episodes of this series that it took place in the same universe as The X-Files.
This show was a short-lived spinoff that revolved around The X-Files' "The Lone Gunmen" characters: John Fitzgerald Byers, Richard Langly (aka "Ringo") and Melvin Frohike. The show occasionally featured guest appearances by The X-Files characters, such as Walter Skinner in the episode "The Lying Game"; and Fox Mulder and Morris Fletcher in the finale episode, "All About Yves". With the cancellation of The Lone Gunmen series coming after a cliffhanger finale, The X-Files episode "Jump the Shark" served as its resolution, showing the trio getting killed while attempting to stop the release of a contagion. It also featured other characters from The Lone Gunmen show.
Further Information
Get more info on 'X-files'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://the_x-files.totallyexplained.com">The X-Files Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
