Monday (The X-Files)

"Monday"
The X-Files episode
Scully attends to a dying Mulder. The episode features Mulder and Scully being caught in a time-loop wherein they die in a variety of ways before time itself is set straight.
Episode no.	Season 6 Episode 14
Directed by	Kim Manners
Written by	Vince Gilligan John Shiban
Production code	6ABX15
Original air date	February 28, 1999
Guest stars
Mitch Pileggi as Assistant Director Walter Skinner Carrie Hamilton as Pam Darren E. Burrows as Bernard Monique Burrows as Head Teller Suanne Spoke as Woman Customer Arlene Pileggi as Skinner's Secretary Mik Scriba as Lt. Kraskow Wayne Alexander as Agent Arnold David Mcihael Mullins as Tour Guide
Episode chronology
← Previous "Agua Mala" Next → "Arcadia"
List of season 6 episodes List of The X-Files episodes

"Monday" is the fourteenth episode of the sixth season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on February 28, 1999. It was written by Vince Gilligan and John Shiban, directed by Kim Manners, and featured guest appearances by Carrie Hamilton and Darren E. Burrows. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Monday" earned a 10.2 Nielsen household rating and was watched by 16.7 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received positive reviews.

In this episode, the world is trapped in a time loop, and only one woman, named Pam, seems to know. Each day the events that happen differ slightly. A bank robbery is committed over and over again until finally the eventual bombing of the building is prevented. Somehow, FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are trapped in the middle of it all.

"Monday," inspired by The Twilight Zone episode entitled "Shadow Play," required the cast and crew to shoot the same scene several times. Because of this, director Kim Manners attempted to make each camera angle interesting. Actress Carrie Hamilton was cast to play Pam, and Darren Burrows, a former regular on the comedy show Northern Exposure, was cast to play her boyfriend Bernard.

Plot

FBI special agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) wakes to find that his water bed has sprung a leak, his alarm clock is broken, and he needs to pay his landlord for water damage. To do so, he is forced to go to the bank, instead of going to the meeting with his partner Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) and various other FBI officials. When he goes to the bank, a gunman named Bernard arrives and nervously robs the bank, shooting Mulder in the process. The teller sets off the bank's silent alarm and police cars come rushing to the scene. Scully attempts to help her partner as he lies dying, but Bernard pulls back his jacket and reveals that he is wearing a bomb. He triggers it and the blast kills everyone inside the bank, including Mulder and Scully.

Suddenly, the action starts over. Mulder wakes to find that his water bed has sprung a leak, his alarm clock is broken, and he needs to pay his landlord for water damage. To the audience, time itself is stuck in a loop. Everyone is oblivious to this turn of events except for one person: Pam, Bernard's girlfriend. Pam does everything in her power to save the agents, including trying to prevent them from entering the bank, trying to inform them of the time loop, and even begging Skinner not to let the police into the building. But the end result of the day is always the same, as Bernard always detonates the bomb, often after shooting Mulder dead.

The time loop continues ad nauseam until Pam cannot take it any more. She runs in during the hold up and throws herself in front of Mulder just as Bernard once again attempts to shoot him. As she lies dying, she admits, "This never happened before." Subsequently, the time loop ends.

Production

Writing, casting, and filming

Episode co-writer Vince Gilligan was inspired by a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone called "Shadow Play."

The episode was written under "extreme pressure" during the show's brief Christmas hiatus. Many critics have noted similarities between "Monday" and the 1993 comedy film Groundhog Day. Vince Gilligan and John Shiban, the writers of the episode, however, credit a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone titled "Shadow Play." Gilligan later noted that, "the funny thing about 'Monday' is people seemed to really like it a lot, but people always sorta smiled and said you're sort of ripping off Groundhog Day aren't you? [...] And I'd say, we're not ripping off Groundhog Day, we're ripping of The Twilight Zone."

Casting director Rick Millikan was tasked with finding a suitable actress to play Pam, the would-be bank robber's girlfriend. Millikan expressed the difficulty in casting the role, saying, "you had to feel sorry for this woman's terrible, unbelievable plight—basically she's trapped in a living hell—without at any time thinking she's insane." The role eventually went to actress Carrie Hamilton, who Millikan and the producers unanimously agreed was the perfect choice. This was one of Hamilton's last roles, as she passed away from cancer three years later at the age of 38. For the part of Bernard, Millikan cast Darren Burrows, a former regular on the comedy show Northern Exposure. Millikan later said that his acting was, "beautiful."

Director Kim Manners, realizing the monotony of some of the scenes, such as Mulder waking up after each successive explosion, attempted to make each camera angle interesting. He diagrammed every camera angle and move to make the scenes visually appealing and hold the viewers' attention. First assistant director Bruce Carter examined the script and created a complex timeline to make shooting easier. It took him two weeks to break all the episode's elements into their exact timings, but Carter considered it a success. He later said, "It was one of the things I was proudest of all year."

To create the bank needed for the episode, Ilt Jones and the location department staff found a former bank and current animation school and film production house on Fourth and Main Street in downtown Los Angeles. The building was completely renovated, complete with fake ATMs, columns, desks, and double-glazed windows. All of the items inside of the bank were bought from a bank-supply catalogue by set decorator Tim Stepeck. During the hold-up scene outside the bank, a four-block area was sealed off to allow cameras to film. A total of eleven cameras, some at different speeds, were used. Some of the cameras made it onto the film, but they were erased during post-production.

Props and make-up

Much of the episode relied on props. The water bed, which was purchased by Morris Fletcher earlier in the sixth season episode "Dreamland" while in Mulder's body, proved to be the hardest prop to locate. Stepeck searched Los Angeles and was unable to find a suitable bed. He had to order the bed from a specialized furniture store in San Francisco. Mulder's paycheck and envelope were created after several calls to the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. The checks were made to be as realistic as possible without looking too convincing. During the hold-up scene outside the bank, the police cruisers were all turned off, because the combined noise of the cars would drown out dialogue. To ensure their flashing lights, car coordinator Danny Briggs installed battery chargers in the cars.

To give Pam the proper look, the makeup department, headed by Cheri Montesanto-Mecalf, applied mascara under Hamilton's eyes and then smudged it to give her a "haunted" look. Pam's stringy and multi-hued hairstyle was Hamilton's creation. Dena Green, the hair department head, was tasked with creating an exact wig replica to be worn by Hamilton's stunt double.

Broadcast and reception

"Monday" first aired in the United States on February 28, 1999. This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 10.2, meaning that roughly 10.2 percent of all television-equipped households were tuned in to the episode. It was viewed by 16.7 million viewers. The episode aired in the United Kingdom and Ireland on Sky1 on June 13, 1999 and received 0.90 million viewers, making it the second most-watched episode that week, behind Friends.

The episode received mostly positive reviews. Den of Geek writer Juliette Harrisson named the episode the "finest stand-alone episode" of the sixth season and wrote, "Time loops, if dragged on for too long, can become tedious, but in small doses they can be hilariously funny or achingly poignant. This episode is definitely the latter, as the downtrodden girlfriend of a bank robber is forced to witness the deaths of her boyfriend, Mulder, Scully and a large group of innocent people over and over again until finally she breaks the loop by dying herself [...] The onus of saving everyone being largely on the shoulders of an unknown woman effectively brings in a change of pace and a welcome breath of fresh air." Natalie Prado from Just Press Play gave the episode an A– and wrote, "The episode is well-written and tense. As an audience, we become increasingly frustrated that the two people that we know can solve the problem are unaware that it exists, which makes the payoff when they finally find a way out much more satisfying. There are a few leaps in logic, especially towards the end, but overall it’s solid and enjoyable." Jamie Jeffords, writing for the Dallas Morning News, awarded the episode four out of five stars and praised Hamilton's performance, saying, "What makes 'Monday’ is the performance of Hamilton [...] When she is killed in the end, she almost possesses a quiet glee when she realizes her death never happened before, so maybe it is over now. Her performance is haunting. Very powerful." Michigan Daily writer Melissa Runstrom, in a review of the sixth season, said "Monday" was "well made and entertaining." UGO Networks listed the episode as number 95 in a countdown of the "100 Greatest Moments in Time Travel".

Footnotes

References

• Meisler, Andy (2000). The End and the Beginning: The Official Guide to the X-Files Season 6. HarperCollins. ISBN 0061075957. 

External links

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