Jump the Shark (The X-Files)

"Jump the Shark"
The X-Files episode
Yves Adele Harlow, Jimmy Bond and Dana Scully at the funeral for The Lone Gunmen
Episode no.	Season 9 Episode 15
Directed by	Cliff Bole
Written by	Vince Gilligan John Shiban Frank Spotnitz
Production code	9ABX15
Original air date	April 21, 2002
Guest stars
Bruce Harwood as John Fitzgerald Byers Tom Braidwood as Melvin Frohike Dean Haglund as Richard Langly Stephen Snedden as Jimmy Bond Zuleikha Robinson as Yves Adele Harlow Michael McKean as Morris Fletcher Jim Fyfe as Kimmy Belmont
Episode chronology
← Previous "Scary Monsters" Next → "William"
List of season 9 episodes List of The X-Files episodes

"Jump the Shark" is the fifteenth episode of the ninth season and the 197th episode overall of the science fiction television series The X-Files. The episode first aired in the United States and Canada on April 21, 2002 on Fox, and subsequently aired in the United Kingdom. It was written by executive producers Vince Gilligan, John Shiban and Frank Spotnitz, and directed by Cliff Bole. The episode was created to give closure for The Lone Gunmen television series, which was a spin off of The X-Files.

In this episode, characters of the show who first appeared in the first season episode "E.B.E." were killed. When former Area 51 Man-in-Black Morris Fletcher appears, claiming that a female friend of the Lone Gunmen is actually a super-soldier, FBI agents John Doggett and Monica Reyes attempt to locate her but find the situation graver than they first expected. The episode earned a high Nielsen household and syndication rating when compared to other episodes of the ninth season, although it received a mixed reaction by fans and critics alike.

Plot

When Fletcher approaches agents Reyes and Doggett with information related to the super-soldiers they turn to the Lone Gunmen. He provides an alleged photo of the supersoldier, which the Lone Gunmen recognize as being Yves Adele Harlow, a fellow hacker who went missing a year ago. The Gunmen refuse to believe the evidence, especially when they find that Fletcher provided it, although the agents continue to pursue the trail.

Harlow murders a biology professor, cuts out an organ and disposes of it in a furnace. After the Gunmen capture her, she reveals that he had been experimenting with the immune system of sharks and had been grafting pieces of shark onto his body in order to become a living host to a biological weapon. His research had been funded by Yves' arms dealing father, who had commissioned Fletcher to find her and prevent her from stopping his biological terrorism plot. She further informs them that there is another host, who she is trying to identify and locate before he can unleash his deadly payload.

Once Fletcher realizes that he's been used by Harlow's father, he teams with the Gunmen to help Harlow find the second bioterrorist. After a few false starts and chases, the Lone Gunmen corner the bioterrorist with only a few minutes before his virus is due to be released. They realize that they lack the time to destroy his virus-filled organ and therefore pull a fire alarm, causing large emergency doors to seal shut, simultaneously containing the virus and entrapping them with it. Their sacrifice earns them a final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery, where Fletcher and the FBI agents pay their respects to them.

Production

The episode title is a humorous reference to the phrase "jumping the shark", which is used to describe shows that have reached their peak and started to decline in quality. Executive producer Chris Carter said that the title was tongue-in-cheek, and further stated that it was their "way of lowering the boom on anybody who thought that it did". He further stated that the series was "good" until the end, even after the departure of David Duchovny as Fox Mulder. According to IGN writer KJN, the episode was a homage to the website Jump the Shark, while no official word from the producers or writers have said or commented on this.

Various plotlines leaked before the episode's release, the most notable being the death of the Lone Gunmen. The episode itself was created to give closure for The Lone Gunmen television series, which aired in 2001; various long-term characters from both The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen make cameo appearances.

Reception

Aaron Kinney from Salon magazine said that the episode title showed that the creators at least still had a sense of humor, but that the episode demonstrated some of the flaws that caused the series to jump the shark in the first place: "cheesy melodrama, deathly slow pacing, and a lack of coherence". Critical Myth was also negative about the episode, saying it was "one of the worst episodes of the season", bad even for The Lone Gunmen series, and hoped that it was no indication of what the series finale was going to be like. David Duchovny was not available at the time of the shooting of the episode, leaving many fans disappointed that Mulder didn't make even a cameo appearance on the episode, given his history with the Lone Gunmen.

The episode earned a Nielsen rating of 5.1 with an 8 share. It was viewed by 5,381,000 households.

External links

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