Colony (The X-Files)

"Colony"
The X-Files episode
Clones from the Gregor series
Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 16
Directed by	Nick Marck
Teleplay by	Chris Carter
Story by	David Duchovny Chris Carter
Production code	2X16
Original air date	February 10, 1995
Guest stars
Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner Megan Leitch as Samantha Mulder Brian Thompson as Pilot Peter Donat as William Mulder Rebecca Toolan as Teena Mulder Dana Gladstone as Dr. Landon Prince/Gregor Clones Tom Butler as CIA Agent Ambrose Chapel Andrew Johnston as Agent Barrett Weiss Steven Williams as X David L. Gordon as FBI Agent Michael McDonald as MP Capper McIntyre as Jailer Bonnie Hay as Field Doctor James Leard as Sergeant Al Dixon Linden Banks as Reverend Calvin Sistrunk Kim Restell as Newspaper Clerk Richard Sargent as Captain Kim Roberts as Proprietor Michael Rogers as First Crewman Oliver Becker as Second Doctor
Episode chronology
← Previous "Fresh Bones" Next → "End Game"
List of Season 2 episodes List of The X-Files episodes

"Colony" is the sixteenth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on February 10, 1995. It was directed by Nick Marck, and written by series creator Chris Carter based on a story developed by Carter and lead actor David Duchovny. "Colony" featured guest appearances by Megan Leitch, Peter Donat and Brian Thompson. The episode helped explore the series' overarching mythology. "Colony" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.3, being watched by 9.8 million households in its initial broadcast.

FBI special agents Fox Mulder (Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigate the murders of human clones working in abortion clinics at the hands of a shapeshifting assassin (Thompson). Mulder receives news that his younger sister Samantha (Leitch), who had been abducted as a child, may have returned. "Colony" is a two-part episode, with the plot continuing in the next episode, "End Game".

Plot

The episode opens in medias res with Mulder in a hospital in the Arctic. As Mulder is lowered into a tub of water, Scully bursts in, telling the doctors that the cold is the only thing keeping him alive. Suddenly, Mulder's heart monitor flatlines.

Two weeks earlier in the Beaufort Sea, ship crew members spot a light in the sky that soon crashes into the sea. A body is retrieved from the crash, revealed to be a bounty hunter. Two days later the bounty hunter arrives in an abortion clinic and kills a doctor by stabbing him in the back of the neck with a stiletto, then sets the building on fire and escapes. Mulder receives emails containing the doctor's obituary along with two other identical doctors. After interviewing a pro-life priest who had threatened one of the doctors, they are able to use a newspaper advertisement looking for one of the men to trace another one in Syracuse, New York.

Mulder calls Agent Weiss and has him go to the home of the doctor, Aaron Baker. When Weiss arrives, he sees the bounty hunter kill Baker. Weiss bursts in and shoots him, but the bounty hunter's green blood causes him to collapse. Mulder and Scully arrive and meet Weiss, who tells them no one was home. When they leave it is revealed that Weiss is dead, and the bounty hunter assumed his likeness. Walter Skinner closes the case on hearing of Weiss' death. Mulder and Scully are contacted by another doctor with the same appearance, James Dickens. The agents meet CIA agent Ambrose Chapel, who tells them that the doctors are part of a Russian genetic experiment codenamed Gregor. The doctors, who are clones, are being killed under an arrangement with the US and Russian governments. Mulder, Scully and Chapel head to Dickens' house, but when he sees Chapel he jumps out of his window and runs off. Mulder, Scully and Chapel chase him and Chapel, who is actually the bounty hunter, kills Dickens in an alley. Scully arrives too late to witness the killing, but unknowingly steps in the remains of Dickens—a puddle of corrosive green ooze.

Scully questions Mulder about Chapel, but given his credentials and experience, Mulder believes him. Scully performs an autopsy on Agent Weiss and finds that his blood has coagulated, and his red blood cell count is excessively high. Mulder meanwhile is summoned to his home due to a family emergency. Scully finds an address on a bag recovered from Dickens' home and heads there, finding it to be a lab, where Chapel is destroying everything inside.

Mulder arrives at his father's house, where a woman claims to be his sister Samantha. Samantha claims that she was returned around age 9 with no memory, and remembered her abduction due to regression hypnosis. She tells Mulder that the bounty hunter and the clones are actually aliens, being executed because the aliens consider the clones a dilution of their race. Meanwhile, Scully heads to a hotel to hide from Agent Chapel. Returning to the lab, she finds four more clones, who claim to be the last. She transports them to a safe place, but the bounty hunter finds and kills them all. At her hotel room, Scully finds Mulder at her door and lets him in, only to receive a phone call from Mulder soon after.

Production

Casting

As in all other episodes of The X-Files at that point, the casting process took eight days. Megan Leitch, the woman who portrayed Samantha Mulder, did according to Frank Spotnitz a "phenomenal job". Leitch returned to The X-Files over the years to portray Samantha or one of her many clones. She had a lot of lines, which she felt were "very hard" and "specific." Actor Darren McGavin, star of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, was originally sought to play the role of Bill Mulder, but was unable to due to his work schedule. The role was ultimately played by Peter Donat.

Brian Thompson auditioned for the role in a casting session, where he was competing with another actor. Frank Spotnitz and Carter hadn't much time to cast this character, but they knew this casting would be important since he intended to be a recurring character. Thompson was chosen according to Spotnitz because he had a very "distinctive look" about him, most notably his face and mouth. After casting him, they told Thompson's agent that Thompson needed a hair cut, because at the start the Alien Bounty Hunter was supposed to be a kind of military pilot who'd been shot down. But when the day came that Thompson came to Vancouver, there had been some "misunderstanding" and he hadn't been told of the "crewcut", so the hairstyle seen in this episode was a "compromise" of sorts.

Writing and filming

Carter said that while "Colony" was a "crystallization of the series' mythology", it "came about inadvertently", following David Duchovny's suggestion to face an alien bounty hunter. Thus he sat with the actor and decided to also add Mulder's disappeared sister. The alien weapon, described by the cast and crew as "the ice pick", was done with an air hose that ran through Brian Thompson's arm. To create an unique and otherworldly sound made by the weapon used by the hunter, several sound effects were considered before co-producer Paul Rabwin voiced the noise himself on a microphone.

Carter had initially wanted to set the first season episode "Ice" at the North Pole, but this was too ambitious at the time. "Colony" provided an opportunity to create an episode using such a setting. Some of the interior shots on the icebreaker were filmed on the HMCS Mackenzie, a decommissioned Canadian Forces destroyer, which was also used in the episode's follow-up, "End Game", and the later second season episode "Død Kalm".

Reception

"Colony" premiered on the Fox network on February 10, 1995, and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on December 11, 1995. The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.3 with a 17 share, meaning that roughly 10.3 percent of all television-equipped households, and 17 percent of households watching TV, were tuned in to the episode. A total of 9.8 million households watched this episode during its original airing.

In a retrospective of the second season in Entertainment Weekly, the episode was rated a B+. The review noted that "untangling this web of shifting allegiances and identities requires intense concentration. Hang on, though; the payoff's worth it". Writing for The A.V. Club, Zack Handlen rated the episode an A, noting that it was "X-Files in top form". He praised how the character of Samantha Mulder was presented, saying that "In the seasons to come, we end up with enough Samantha's [sic] to fill a clown-car, but here, the reveal is shocking, effective, and unsettling"; and also felt that the episode's flashforward cold open was particularly well-handled. Michelle Bush, in her book Myth-X, has noted that "Colony" presents a moral dilemma for the characters, noting that "on the surface Mulder's quest appears righteous, however, the results of his quest would suggest otherwise", and adding "generally the ideology that focuses on a single life's (be that human or alien) importance is successful, whereas Mulder's ideology of finding the truth at all costs is not". Duchovny's portrayal of Fox Mulder in this episode has been cited as an example of the character's reversal of traditional gender roles—his openness and vulnerability when confronted with what he believes is his prodigal sister casts him "in a pattern typically engendered as female."

Footnotes

References

• Bush, Michelle (2008). Myth-X. Lulu. ISBN 1435746880. 
• Edwards, Ted (1996). X-Files Confidential. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0316218081. 
• Lavery, David; Hague, Angela; Cartwright, Marla (1996). Deny All Knowledge: Reading The X-Files. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0815627173. 
• Lovece, Frank (1996). The X-Files Declassified. Citadel Press. ISBN 080651745X. 
• Lowry, Brian (1995). The Truth is Out There: The Official Guide to the X-Files. Harper Prism. ISBN 0061053309. 

External links

• "Colony" on The X-Files Wiki, an external wiki
• "Colony" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Colony" at TV.com