The Sixth Extinction

"The Sixth Extinction"
The X-Files episode
The Primitive African Man as seen by Dana Scully. The episode continued to introduce new aspects to the series' mythology, elements executive producer Frank Spotnitz described as "completely different."
Episode no.	Season 7 Episode 1
Directed by	Kim Manners
Written by	Chris Carter
Production code	7ABX03
Original air date	November 7, 1999
Guest stars
Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner Mimi Rogers as Diana Fowley John Finn as Michael Kritschgau Michael Ensign as Dr. Barnes Jonelle Kennedy as Dr. Amina Ngebe Anthony Okunbowa as Dr. Barnes' Driver Warren Sweeney as Dr. Geoff Harriman Abdoulaye N'Gom as Driver Conrad Roberts as Primitive African Man Mari Weiss as ICU Nurse
Episode chronology
← Previous "Biogenesis" Next → "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati"
List of season 7 episodes List of The X-Files episodes

"The Sixth Extinction" is the first episode of the seventh season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on November 7, 1999 in the United States. The episode was written by Chris Carter, and directed by Kim Manners. "The Sixth Extinction" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.6, being watched by 17.82 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received largely positive reviews from critics.

In this episode, Assistant Director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) and Michael Kritschgau (John Finn) work desperately to attempt to discover what is wrong with Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), who is imprisoned by his own frenetic brain activity, but they are unaware of Agent Diana Fowley’s (Mimi Rogers) duplicity. In the meanwhile, Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is hunting for an ancient artifact in Africa.

"The Sixth Extinction" helped to explore new aspects of the series' overarching mythology and was the second episode in a trilogy of episodes featuring Mulder's severe reaction to the appearance of an alien artifact. The episode was written due to series creator Chris Carter's fascination with the possibility that extraterrestrials were involved in the great extinctions that had happened millions of years ago.

Plot

Scully sits in a tent on the African coast looking at satellite photographs of the spacecraft half-buried in the coast. A man appears in her tent but immediately vanishes after which her entire tent is swarmed by insects. Back in the U.S., Skinner visits Mulder at Georgetown Memorial Hospital, where he is kept in a padded cell. When he goes in the cell, Mulder attacks him, giving him a torn shred of his hospital gown that says "Help Me" in blood. Scully is visited by Dr. Amina Ngebe, a colleague of Dr. Merkmallen's. She warns Scully to not tell any of the locals about the swarm or the mysterious figure. Soon afterwards, one of the locals working on excavating the ship is burned by the water in the ocean, which has turned to boiling. Dr. Barnes arrives soon after, and the ocean turns blood red. Skinner visits a heavily drugged Mulder, who writes down "Kritschgau".

Skinner goes to visit Kritschgau, now unemployed and living in a lowly apartment, convincing him to come to the hospital with him. Kritschgau believes that Mulder has mind reading abilities and injects him with a drug to slow down his brain activity. Skinner gets him back to his bed by the time Diana Fowley and his doctor arrive. With his mind reading abilities, Mulder is able to tell Skinner that he knows about him being indebted to Krycek and Diana Fowley's connections with the Cigarette Smoking Man. Scully, with Dr. Barnes' help, is able to translate some of the spaceship, which contains information on genetics and various human religions. Dr. Barnes starts going out of control, however, and armed with a machete refuses to let Scully or Ngebe leave. Kritschgau and Skinner put Mulder under additional tests to verify his abnormal brain activity. Dr. Barnes realizes that the craft is bringing dead fish back to life, but Scully and Ngebe take the opportunity to knock him out and escape. Scully sees the vanishing man again in the car as they drive off.

Skinner and Kritschgau again inject Mulder the drug to slow down his brain activity, but this time they are caught by Fowley and Mulder goes into a seizure. Dr. Barnes kills his driver, but the driver soon comes back to life and kills him. Scully returns to the U.S. and sees Mulder at the hospital. On the African coast Ngebe arrives with the police, finding Dr. Barnes dead and the spaceship missing.

Production

Part of the plot for "The Sixth Extinction" was based on the ancient astronaut theory.

Frank Spotnitz said of the episode's origins, "We've destroyed all the stuff about Mulder's father, the project, and the Syndicate. All the things that had sustained us for six years were suddenly gone. We had no crutches. From that point on, every time we sat down to write a mythology show, we knew it was going to be a completely different challenge." Chris Carter saw the episode as a transitional episode, stating "I felt that, with "The Sixth Extinction", I was just playing a supporting role and that the episode, essentially the middle episode of a three-episode arc, was just a transitional episode to get us to 'Amor Fati', which was really less about the mythology and more about Mulder's choices in life."

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson both had other commitments as the season began, resulting in the producers delaying filming for this episode. It ended up being filmed third in the season, after the episodes "Hungry" and "The Goldberg Variation". Carter wrote the episode at the same time as Duchovny was working on the next episode, "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati". Kim Manners said preparations were confusing since it wasn't known at the time how the storyline would unfold. Spotnitz said of the end result, "For me, it was a lot like a fifties monster movie with Scully out on the beach with this guy going nuts with a machete, the bug attacks, and the sea of blood. Yeah, it was supposed to be serious business but, overall, I thought it was shaping up as a pretty entertaining hour."

The producers had to move the filming of the beach sequences from the previous episodes due to changes in the tides at that time of year. Similar to the previous episode, the spaceship was computer-generated. The sequence where the locals are boiled by the ocean water was accomplished using underwater filming of stuntmen under various degrees of make up. Fifty thousand dead crickets were rented from a local entomologist for the scene where Scully's tent was attacked by bugs. The live insects were portrayed by blowing popcorn and packing foam at Anderson with fans and editing it into insects in post production.

A large portion of the episode was based on the ancient astronaut theory; a theory that proposes intelligent extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth in antiquity or prehistory and made contact with humans. Frank Spotnitz later remarked that he was astounded at how little negative fan mail the show received, despite the fact that the "Biogenesis"/"The Sixth Extinction"/"Amor Fati" story arc heavily hinted that aliens were the originators of the notion of God and religion. He credited the manner in which the show handled this delicate subject, saying, "Often in the past, we've done stuff where I was sure we would get angry letters. But we rarely do. And the reason is because of the way we handle things. In 'Amor Fati' we treated the religious side with respect." The ancient astronaut themes were later revisited in the two season nine episodes "Provenance" and "Providence."

Broadcast and reception

"The Sixth Extinction" first aired in the United States on November 7, 1999. This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 10.6, with a 16 share, meaning that roughly 10.6 percent of all television-equipped households, and 16 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. It was viewed by 17.82 million viewers and was the most watched episode of the seventh season in the United States. The episode aired in the United Kingdom and Ireland on Sky1 on May 7, 2000 and received 1.00 million viewers and was the third most watched episode that week.

Critical reception was largely positive. Den of Geek writer Nina Sordi ranked "The Sixth Extinction," along with "Biogenesis" and "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati," as the fifth best episode of the series, writing, "it is evident that as [The X-Files] progressed, the episodes surrounding those storylines and the breaking points Mulder and Scully endured push them further and further towards total, irreversible defeat. This is especially poignant when viewing this anxiety inducing trio of episodes." Kenneth Silber from Space.com wrote positively of the episode, hoping that it foreshadowed answers to come, writing, "As the middle installment of a three-part story and what was then thought to be the final season premiere of The X-Files, 'The Sixth Extinction' is suffused with a somber pre-apocalyptic mood, but one vivified by the possibility that soon we'll have answers to the most important outstanding mysteries of the series."

Footnotes

References

• Hurwitz, Matt; Knowles, Chris (2008). The Complete X-Files. Insight Editions. ISBN 1933784806. 
• Shapiro, Marc (2000). All Things: The Official Guide to the X-Files Volume 6. Harper Prism. ISBN 0061076112. 

External links

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