Gender Bender (The X-Files)

"Gender Bender"
The X-Files episode
Marty's seductive touch
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 14
Directed by	Rob Bowman
Written by	Larry Barber Paul Barber
Production code	1X13
Original air date	January 21, 1994
Running time	43 minutes
Guest stars
Brent Hinkley as Brother Andrew Michele Goodger as Sister Abigail Peter Stebbings as Marty (male) Kate Twa as Marty (female) Nicholas Lea as Michael Mitchell Kosterman as Detective Horton Paul Batten as Brother Wilson Doug Abrahams as Agent # 1 Aundrea MacDonald as Pretty Woman John R. Taylor as Husband Grai Carrington as Tall Man Tony Morelli as Cop Lesley Ewen as Agent # 2 David Thomson as Brother Oakley
Episode chronology
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List of season 1 episodes List of The X-Files episodes

"Gender Bender" is the fourteenth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on January 21, 1994. It was written by Larry and Paul Barber, directed by Rob Bowman, and featured guest appearances by Brent Hinkley and Nicholas Lea. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology.

When investigating a series of sexually-oriented murders, FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) discover that a member of a religious sect living in Massachusetts may be responsible—and may not be human.

Plot

In a dance club a young man is taken by a young woman for an anonymous sexual encounter. The young man retches and dies in a post-coital fit, and the woman leaves the room as a man. Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are called to the scene; Mulder believes that the young man's death is related to a dose of pheromones so strong that it kills. There is also ambiguity in similar murders as to the sex of the killer. Evidence from the crime scene, including a unique type of white clay, leads the duo to an Amish-type community in Massachusetts which Mulder calls the Kindred.

Mulder approaches some of the Kindred as they shop near a local store only to be shunned. Scully has better luck befriending a shy member, Brother Andrew, who is left tending to the family horse. He tells her they are not meant to talk outside. Whilst shaking hands she appears entranced, not coming to until Mulder catches her attention. The agents head up to the remote community and, whilst lost in the woods, are surrounded by the Kindred, who demand they give up their weapons before they will be allowed to enter the village. Mulder and Scully are invited to dinner. When Brother Wilton, a sick participant at the table, is denied medical attention from Scully, Brother Andrew ominously states that the Kindred take care of their own. Meanwhile, in another club a man convinces a reluctant young girl to dance with her by touching her hand.

When the Kindred escort the agents out of the village, Mulder mentions to Scully the lack of children in the Kindred community and states that he recognises some of the same faces from photographs taken in the 1930s. Curious, he returns to the village under the cover of night. A chanting drone can be heard across the village as a lamp-lit procession of the Kindred moves to a barn. Scully is led off by Brother Andrew, who claims to be able to give her information about the murderer, whom he calls Brother Martin. Downstairs in the barn, the group can be seen bathing Brother Wilton's body in watery clay. Mulder becomes trapped and hides in a crevice in the labyrinth, where he discovers that the sick man has been buried alive and has begun to take on feminine features. Meanwhile, Brother Andrew uses his power to seduce Scully. Unable to resist, she is eventually rescued by Mulder. The agents are again escorted out of the village.

Another man by the name of Michael is having relations with 'Brother Martin' in his female form in a parked car before a patrol officer breaks them up. As Michael suddenly starts retching, the officer gets distracted and is knocked out by Brother Martin, who changes into a man and escapes. In the hospital Michael reluctantly reveals to Mulder and Scully that when he looked out of the window, the girl he was with “looked like a man”. A female police officer approaches Mulder and Scully reporting activity on a victim's credit card. The agents chase Brother Martin into an alley, only to have the Kindred appear and take him away.

The agents return to the village which is now deserted. The underground tunnels are blocked entirely with the white clay. Mulder and Scully walk into the nearby field where they find a large crop circle, suggesting that the Kindred are aliens.

Production

In discussing the episode's origins, producer Glen Morgan said that he "wanted an episode with more of a sexy edge, but it was difficult to find a story that shows sex as scary. As a result, it kind of veered off to, What if there are people like the Amish who are from another planet?" This episode went through various rewrites during the development process, including the removal of a scene where someone's crotch rots away to address concerns with the content of the episode. This episode marked Rob Bowman's directorial debut on the series; he would become one of the series' most prolific directors, including directing the series' first film adaptation, The X-Files: Fight the Future.

The exterior shots of the village inhabited by the Kindred were filmed at a historic farm preserved from the 1890s in Langley, British Columbia; whilst interior sets were simply built on a sound stage. The small town visited by the agents was filmed on location in Steveston, British Columbia—a location which would be revisited in filming the later first season episode "Miracle Man". The music used in the episode's nightclub scenes was recycled from composer Mark Snow's earlier work on the television film In the Line of Duty: Street War. Nicholas Lea, who played a would-be victim in the episode, would later return in the series in a recurring role as Alex Krycek.

Broadcast and reception

"Gender Bender" premiered on the Fox network on January 21, 1994, and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on December 22, 1994. The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 7.2, with a 12 share and was viewed by 6.8 million households, meaning that roughly 7.2 percent of all television-equipped households, and 12 percent of households watching TV, were tuned in to the episode.

"Gender Bender" has been interpreted as representing contemporary sexual anxieties in a figurative manner, conflating seduction with alien abduction. M. Keith Booker has described the Kindred's shapeshifting as being representative of "anxieties arising from both the uncertainty of gender roles in the 1990s and a basic fear of sexual contact"; whilst Antonio Ballesteros González states that "in the logic of the series, seduction in contrasted with abduction, but both are seen as part of sexual aggression", further describing the episode's villain as representing "the fear of sex and reproduction".

The episode faced criticism over its ending using a deus ex machina to indicate that the Kindred may have been aliens. Producer James Wong felt that "there were problems with the ending of the show in that we pretty much wrapped it up relatively quickly and just threw in some thing. Those things always seem like a little trick. It's like we tried to play a trick on the audience to make them say 'Ooh, what the heck was that?' But when it's not integral to the story, it lessens the impact. You don't get a sense of a cathartic moment, because we kind of blew it." Glen Morgan said that the episode "went too far. At what point do we become unbelievable?" In a retrospective of the first season in Entertainment Weekly, "Gender Bender" was rated a B-, being described as a "clever idea" that was "undermined by a bushel of burning questions". Zack Handlen, writing for The A.V. Club, praised the episode, rating it an A. He felt that the plot was "a perfect mixture of scientific theory, unsubstantiated rumor, and memorable visuals". Matt Haigh, writing for Den of Geek, reviewed the episode positively, feeling that it was "a nicely refreshing and original idea", with "strikingly atmospheric" sets and "impressively spooky" villains.

Footnotes

References

• Booker, M. Keith (2002). Strange TV: Innovative Television Series from The Twilight Zone to The X-Files. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0313323739. 
• Edwards, Ted (1996). X-Files Confidential. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0316218081. 
• González, Antonio Ballesteros (2001). Popular Texts in English: New Perspectives. Univ de Castilla La Mancha. ISBN 8484271269. 
• Gradnitzer, Louisa; Pittson, Todd (1999). X Marks the Spot: On Location with The X-Files. Arsenal Pulp Press. ISBN 1551520664. 
• 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

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