Spoilers

“Miracle Man”

The X-Files does take some time dealing with religious aspects. This episode looked at a specific faith healer that reportedly saved the life of a burn victim years before and is the main attraction of a sideshow church.

The burned man was there in the most over-the-top outfit. He was dressed in a black coat, black hat and sunglasses.

Things happen in this episode in a rapid progression. It feels a little rushed as Mulder and Scully are involved.

The sheriff of this town was a real jerk too. I know a lot of the local law enforcement agents are usually not as fond of Mulder and Scully (especially Mulder), but this guy is particularly a pain. And I am not even that sure why.

Spoilers

“E.B.E.”

This is a episode with a lot of important things happening.

Deep Throat’s motivations are revealed. Or are they? He was certainly portrayed as a liar and someone that, now, Mulder could not believe. The image of Deep Throat strolling off into the fog at the end of this episode was something else.

It was also an episode that I did not remember so it is another season one episode that falls into my blind spot.

This episode also saw the introduction of three of the most popular recurring characters on The X-Files, The Lone Gunman, conspiracy theorists John Fitzgerald Byers (Bruce Harwood), Richard Langly (Dean Haglund) and Melvin Frohike (Tom Braidwood). The idea with the Lone Gunman was to try and make Mulder a little less coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs by comparison.

This episode was one of the governmental conspiracy/X-Files mythology episodes, as opposed to the monster-of-the-week episodes. The X-Files really went out of its way to set up a shadowy government running everything behind the scenes. Sounds very much like Qanon these days.

I’m not sure how much longer Deep Throat has for this series. I remember being totally shocked by the death of Deep Throat, and, for awhile, I thought this was that episode. Of course, it was not.

Spoilers

“Young at Heart”

I’m starting to believe that I did not see very many season one episodes of The X-Files as episode 16, Young at Heart, is another one that I do not remember ever seeing before.

I also would hate to be a partner, friend, associate, co-worker, mentor of Mulder or Scully because they are always doomed. As soon as FBI agent Reggie Purdue walked on the screen and started talking to Mulder about the old days, I knew immediately that this guy was not long for the world… and damn, if I wasn’t right.

This was a tale about a killer that Mulder had caught early in his career, but not before the killer, John Barnett, had killed a couple of agents. Mulder had a clean shot, but did not take it because of the Bureau’s policy, and he blamed himself for the deaths after.

Barnett was supposed to be dead, having died in prison years ago, but it turned out that he survived and had been taken as a guinea pig for an anti-aging process meant to help cure the disease called progeria, a disease that causes rapid aging in children, by the prison doctor at the time, Dr. Joe Ridley. Ridley was doing human trials with his aging procedure, and they all failed, except for Barnett.

Barnett was also the X-Files version of Dr. Curt Connors of Marvel Comics (aka The Lizard) as he had grown back an amputated hand with use of some salamander DNA. That is never a good idea.

I liked this episode with the back and forth between Mulder and Barnett. It did not have a lot of X-Files-like weirdness, but it made up for that with a very creepy and vicious villain. It was also satisfying to see Mulder shoot and kill Bartlett at the end, making up for his previous non-action.

Spoilers

“Lazarus”

Interestingly enough, this is yet another first season X-Files episode that I do not remember seeing at all. It is also another one that felt somewhat lacking.

It also is horribly dangerous to be a former friend or loved one of either Mulder or Scully as life expectancies seem to plummet.

On the other hand, Scully did shoot someone, and that doesn’t happen often.

With the spirit of the dead bad guy taking over the body of the dead FBI agent/friend of Scully, this had too much of the negative Freaky Friday vibe going on. The doctors worked on reviving the FBI guy for 13 minutes? Do they do that? Scully wanted more. I found that whole situation to be iffy.

Then, as the body of the dead bad guy was being shocked when they shocked FBI guy, this looked funny.

The relationships in the episode were weak. I had no connection with the FBI guy and there was nothing with him and Scully. The two bad guys did not work together well either and the twist that she betrayed him to the FBI did not make sense.

Then, apparently FBI guy had some kind of obsession with main bad guy and we never see any of this. We only hear it mentioned. I did not believe any of that either.

This one was quite disappointing. Second consecutive weak episode after the excellent Beyond the Sea.

Spoilers

“Gender Bender”

The X-Files episode that asks, “What if the Amish were way darker and creepy?”

This was another episode of the X-Files from season one that I do not remember at all. I do believe that I have never seen this episode because I do not think that I would have forgotten this.

I hope Marjorie Taylor Greene never watches this episode.

We start off with a man and a woman enthralled in sexual intercourse. When finished, she stands up, he has a massive coronary and she changes into a man.

Yup. That’s is what I said.

The episode title is Gender Bender and it is about a group of Amish-like people who have pheromone powers. They were called the Kindred. One of their members left their community and has been sexing it up around the east coast, killing his or her sexual partners.

Mulder and Scully wound up inside this Kindred commune and saw some weird things, including some strange ritual where they took a sick man and covered him with some goop and buried him alive, as he gradually turned feminine.

There are so many bizarre images and ideas in this episode that it made it fairly disturbing to watch. I’m sure there is some kind of theme involving sexual identity or sexual proliferation, but that all gets lost among the rest of the weirdness.

Plus, the show implied that the Kindred were aliens and that they escaped in their ship at the end of the episode.

This was anticlimactic and, simply put, a messy episode. Even if some of the ideas are worthwhile exploring, this does not work. Scully is even shown nearly being a victim of these pheromones and is almost raped by one of the Kindred.

Spoilers

“Beyond the Sea”

This was the best episode of The X-Files so far in this re-watch.

“Beyond the Sea” is a Scully-centric episode and it casts our heroine into an uncommon situation… as the believer. And Mulder is the skeptic.

Gillian Anderson gives an extraordinary performance, really able to dive into the character of Dana Scully for the first time as an individual and not just as the opposite of Mulder. The episode kicked off with the death of Dana’s father, played by Twin Peaks vet Don Davis, and Dana sees a vision of her father just prior to being told the unhappy news.

Then, the inclusion of the villainous Luther Lee Boggs, a serial killer that Mulder had helped to catch, as a potential psychic who claimed to have psychic visions of a kidnapping of a pair of teenagers. Mulder refused to believe that Boggs had any kind of psychic power because he knew the kind of manipulator he was. However, Boggs made some remarks, particularly singing the song ‘Beyond the Sea’ (which was Dana’s parents song), that made Dana think that maybe he was real.

The episode became even more about Scully after Mulder gets shot and ends up in the hospital, leaving her to carry the heavy load for the rest of the episode.

This episode had a ‘Silence of the Lambs’ vibe to it and Gillian Anderson and Brad Dourif, who played Boggs, were excellent. As in all X-Files episodes, the questions about what was actually happening are everywhere. It is just as possible that Boggs was working with his accomplice to set up the whole situation as it is that he was a psychic. That dichotomy is one of the reasons the X-Files is as beloved as it is.

The other major theme of this episode is one that the X-Files will focus on heavily over its entire run. The father theme is used regularly and with both major characters.

Great episode.

Spoilers

“Fire”

Pyrokinetic ability is the basis behind this season one episode of the X-Files, an episode that has Agent Mulder facing a childhood fear and an old flame from England.

We find out that Mulder had a childhood fear of fire, stemming from a time when his best friend’s house burned down. And the old flame was an inspector from Scotland Yard who had a habit of playing mind games with Mulder, and picked up doing the same immediately ten years after the relationship ended.

Honestly, this was a weak episode. The villain had little motivation for his actions and the ending was not satisfying. And Phoebe, the inspector, was one of my least favorite characters the show has introduced since. I did not like her manipulations and I did not like how she sort of replaced Scully at Mulder’s side for much of the show.

The relationship between Mulder and Phoebe was not believable and the reigniting of the chemistry (or lack there of) between them did not work and felt tacked into the story. I am sure that Phoebe Green was intended to be a conflict eventually between Mulder and Scully but she just did not fit into the story.

Then, why the villain did the things that he did made no sense. There was a scene of him involving a bar and a woman where he set his arm on fire which seemed to fly in the face of what he was trying to accomplish with the British family he was stalking.

There were some solid scenes involving fire that were well shot and impressive, especially for the time. Sadly, this was an episode that took a step down from some of the other strong episodes in this first season.

Spoilers

“Eve”

Interestingly enough, this was another episode of The X-Files that I do not remember ever seeing before. This rewatch has really been a treat with some of these episodes that, if I have seen, I do not recall because “Eve,” the 11th episode of season one, was a taut, tense episode with some great acting and anxiety-filled moments.

As the “Monster-of-the-week” episode, “Eve” features a great acting performance from Harriet Harris, who has been a great character actor for years including work on Desperate Housewives and Marvel’s Werewolf by Night. She plays several roles as a woman who had been involved in a program where a group of men and women, ‘Adams’ and ‘Eves’ were cloned and given extra chromosomes. Unfortunately, it also created a higher level of homicidal tendencies.

The twin actors, Erika and Sabrina Krievins, played Cindy and Teena respectfully and they did a great job as these somewhat creepy children who were discovered to have been continuation of this cloning program by ‘Eve 7’ under the alias of Dr. Sally Kendrick. The girls were raised on different coasts and both of their fathers had been killed by exsanguination.

I feel that the show really took a huge step in storytelling by making these girls the ones who had killed their fathers, using their advanced intelligence to figure out how to do it. They also “just knew” that the other had existed. They also poisoned Eve 7, who had kidnapped them, as well as attempting to poison Mulder and Scully.

The Krievin twins did a great job being these cold-blooded killers. They certainly worked very well as the trope of creepy kids that we see often in horror films.

“Eve” is an excellent episode of The X-Files and I am so glad that I got a chance to see it either again or for the first time. I wonder how many episodes of season one will be like this?

Spoilers

“Fallen Angel”

“Fallen Angel” is another X-Files episode that I do not remember seeing when it first aired. This is the second of the first season episodes that I do not remember. I had always thought that I had seen all the episodes of the X-Files (at least the ones with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in it. Robert Patrick, not so much). However, this episode did not ring any bells for me.

It did follow a basic concept though. Mulder sneaks into a government something-or-other (in this case, a crash site), gets caught, government conceals whatever it is, Mulder deals with the real issue (usually something with UFOs) and then gets no answer.

This episode featured a man named Max who seemed to be a precursor to the Lone Gunmen. Max was a conspiracy theorist/UFO aficionado with long hair and lots of technical gadgets. Max did have several apparent mental issues which seemed to make him interesting. Sadly, the aliens took him off and we lose Max to the wind (or had his body in a container).

Deep Throat appeared in this episode and saved Mulder from being fired from the FBI. He did the old “Keep your friends close, enemies closer” line in a ominous voice, implying that he may not be the ally that Mulder believes he is.

Oh, and while we had the X-Files meet The Thing a few episodes ago, this one is The X-Files meets Predator. The invisible creature was killing people in the woods and I kept waiting for Mulder to yell out, “Get to the chopper!”

Mulder and Scully vs. the US government is always fun, though they are really lucky that they haven’t been stuck away in a cell somewhere as of yet.

Spoilers

“Space”

This is the second episode among the first nine that I felt was average to sub par.

In fact, I would say that this is my least favorite episode so far.

A former NASA astronaut, who was Mulder’s childhood hero, was possessed by an extraterrestrial spirit of some sort. This spirit was base don the ‘face on Mars’ image that occurred around this time.

I don’t think anything worked with this episode. The story was nonsensical and dull. The acting was far below the series’ typical level. The special effects, especially the look of the spirit on the astronaut, were poor.

They made a connection to the Challenger explosion which felt a little slimy or exploitative.

There were some of the worst scenes, some of the most unintentionally funny scenes in the series history. With this episode following the splendid “Ice,” it really fell down the ladder quickly.

I remember seeing this episode originally and not being a fan then. I disliked this more than I remembered.

Spoilers

“Ice”

The X-Files meets John Carpenter’s The Thing.

This was an excellent episode. It was obviously just like The Thing, a mysterious creature (probably from space) that causes the crew of an Arctic station turn on each other and kill everyone. Mulder and Scully are among the investigative group sent in to the station to find out what happened.

There was an interesting cast in this episode including Felicity Huffman, Jeff Kober, Xander Berkeley, and Steve Hytner joined David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. The interaction of the performances created an awesome paranoia. It was never apparent which of the group had been exposed to the worms that were causing the trouble.

One of the major moments of this episode was how Mulder and Scully had their first moment of conflict between them. Scully held a gun on Mulder when she was not sure if he was exposed to the worm. Mulder refused to be tested because he did not trust any of them, and Scully had pulled a gun. In the end, they were able to get past the paranoia and had each other’s back.

This was an excellent episode and quite the step up from the last one.

Spoilers

“Ghost in the Machine”

Artificial Intelligence as a bad guy is a fairly well known sci-fi trope.

This is the seventh episode of the X-Files and, in my opinion, Ghost in the Machine has been the worst of the X-Files episodes so far.

A machine designed by a genius Brad Wilczek runs a building, and the machine ends up murdering one of the partners.

Mulder is brought into the case by an old partner and friend who had been having some trouble with the Bureau. Mulder’s friend also wound up dead from the machine.

Overall I found this fairly derivative and dull. It is basically a rip off of 2001: A Space Odyssey and, honestly, not a good one. Yes, there are some good scenes between Mulder and Scully, as they are always the highlight of these episodes.

The finale of the episode was unintentionally funny at times and the actual last shot of the show was so obvious that it was almost insulting.

Not a good episode. Every series has them (especially those full season orders of 23 episodes in the old days).

Spoilers

“Shadows”

I do love the X-Files, but re-watching these in 2023 make a few things stand out. There was a scene in this episode that had Mulder and Scully searching through the microfilm for info from a newspaper. That had happened a few episodes before too and I couldn’t help but think about how much easier it is these days to just check Google.

There was also a cell phone call Mulder received where he had to put up his phone’s antenna.

Then, some of the hairstyles were so 1980s it was amazing.

I know it did not matter, it was just an observation.

As for “Shadows,” we get an X-File dealing with a murderous poltergeist, one that was protecting his secretary/friend from dangers.

It is amazing how Dana Scully always just never sees anything that happens. She is in the wrong place every time. The ghost is killing people, floating them off the ground, and Scully just misses out. I think you could consider that a trope of the series.

This is an entertaining episode that doesn’t really jump out. It is just a fine, solid episode.

Spoilers

E4: “Conduit”

E5: “Jersey Devil”

I was able to watch a couple of episodes of The X-Files this morning. The first episode I watched was one that I did not remember at all, which was a treat.

The second episode was one that I did remember, as it was one of the monsters of the week episodes with a variation on the Jersey Devil myth.

“Conduit” was one of the first episodes centering around the memory Mulder had of the night as a child when his sister was abducted/disappeared. This was a part of Mulder’s backstory that got a lot of traction over the years.

However, the story was not directly connected with the abduction of Samantha Mulder. This episode dealt with another sister who had disappeared and her mother had an experience with aliens when she was younger, which drew Mulder’s attention.

The Jersey Devil had another running theme that went throughout the show’s history. That theme was local law enforcement and their lack of help for Mulder and Scully, specifically for some of Mulder’s theories. I know this is a common issue among law enforcement, but I remember the younger me wondering why no one ever cooperated with Mulder.

We also get a look at how caring and kind-hearted old Spooky Mulder actually was, as he gets information out of a homeless person and he treated him with so much respect that it was impressive.

This shows how unsuccessful Mulder and Scully are at solving cases. That is a running joke through the series.

Spoilers

“Squeeze”

A great episode which started off with the first “monster-of-the-week” episode that would become one of the trope of the X-Files. Some of my personal favorite episodes were the the one-shot, one-off monsters of the week episodes.

This one is entitled “Squeeze” and featured Eugene Victor Tooms. Tooms would be back in later episodes, but this one really set up him as a monstrous villain who murdered people for their livers so he could survive while he hibernated. Weird.

We saw more of the disrespect “Spooky” Mulder gets from other FBI agents, including one that was a former classmate of Scully. That guy was a huge jerk. And this was the first point when Scully stood up and picked a side. When she had a chance to leave Mulder, she refused and went to Mulder’s side.

Doug Hutchinson played Tooms and he created one of the most iconic X-Files villains of the entire series. Tooms is creepy as hell and his confrontation with Scully in her apartment was really great.