The X-Files (season 1)
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| The X-Files Season 1 | |
|---|---|
 Region 1 DVD cover art |
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| Country of origin | United States and Canada |
| Network | FOX |
| Original run | September 10, 1993 – May 13, 1994 |
| No. of episodes | 24 |
| DVD release date | Region 1: May 9, 2000 Region 2: November 6, 2000 Region 4: November 22, 2000 |
| Next season | Season 2 |
The first season of the science fiction television series The X-Files commenced airing on Fox Broadcasting Company (FOX) in the United States on September 10, 1993, concluded on the same channel on May 13, 1994, and contained 24 episodes. In the first two seasons, executive producer Carter and co-executive producers Morgan and Wong, along with other writers, helped to define the show's fledgling story arc. The "mythology", as the producers called it, was initially established as a government plot to cover up anything pertaining to the existence of extraterrestrial life, and Mulder's attempts to discover the fate of his sister, Samantha. He believed that she had been abducted by aliens years prior, when Mulder was a child, which profoundly affected him and ignited his obsession with the paranormal. Carter himself wrote the show's second episode, "Deep Throat", which was directed by Daniel Sackheim. It introduced a character named Deep Throat (played by Jerry Hardin), the first of several secret government informants who would at times help or hinder Mulder and Scully's investigations.
The "pilot episode" aired on September 10, 1993. In the United Kingdom it first aired on satellite television channel Sky One January 19, 1994 before being shown to a wider audience on the terrestrial channel BBC2 from September 19, airing at 21:00. Since then, it has expanded into other countries across the world (including Canada, Latin America, New Zealand, Ukraine, Russia, Australia, Republic of Ireland, Singapore, India, the Philippines, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Croatia, Germany, Poland, South Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, South Africa, France, Malaysia, Italy, China, Taiwan, Brazil, Thailand,Turkey, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Serbia, Bulgaria, Japan, Belgium and Lebanon either being dubbed or subtitled to accommodate for foreign language viewers.[1] Season one regular cast members include David Duchovny (as Fox Mulder) and Gillian Anderson (as Dana Scully). Episodes marked with an asterisk (*) are part of the series' mytharc. Episodes with a double asterisk (**) are part of the series' Alien Mythology.
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[edit] Production
Chris Carter's initial pitch for The X-Files was rejected by Fox. He fleshed out the concept and returned a few weeks later, leading to the commission of the pilot. Gillian Anderson commented, regarding her early work on the show, "It's a complete learning experience for me – the pilot was only the second time I'd been in front of a camera." The X-Files opening-closing theme music is not used in this episode. David Duchovny's father (Amram Ducovny) appears here as a plane passenger.[2]
"Lazarus" is said to have had Dupre 'jump' into Mulder. However, a decision was made that the supernatural effects of any episode should not directly happen to either of the two leads. The episode "E.B.E." is the first appearance of The Lone Gunmen, the episode also featured guest stars Allan Lysell as Chief Rivers, Peter LaCroix as Ranheim/Frank Druce. "Tooms" is the first appearance of Mitch Pileggi's character Assistant Director Walter Skinner. When producing "Tooms", Glen Morgan got the idea for this episode when he was Christmas shopping in an L.A. mall and saw men working on the escalator which was open and exposed. A working title for this episode was "Squeezed". This episode features the first spoken line by the Cigarette Smoking Man, "Of course I do." Mulder is watching The Fly.
[edit] Episodes
| # | Title | Writer(s) | Director | Original airdate | Code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 001-101 | "Pilot"** | Chris Carter | Robert Mandel | September 10, 1993 | 1X79 |
| Agent Dana Scully is assigned to work with Agent Fox Mulder on the X-Files in an attempt to debunk his work on the paranormal. Their first case has them investigating apparent alien abductions. A near comatose man, Billy Miles, is taking his classmates, including Theresa Nemman, into the woods, where they are killed in a flash of bright light. | |||||
| 002-102 | "Deep Throat"** | Chris Carter | Daniel Sackheim | September 17, 1993 | 1X01 |
| Mulder & Scully travel to Idaho in order to investigate the disappearance of a military test pilot. They observe unusual aircraft activity, prompting Mulder to proclaim the existence of a government conspiracy. Mulder sneaks onto the military base and is spotlighted by one of the craft, but is captured by soldiers and has his memory erased before he is released. | |||||
| 003-103 | "Squeeze" | Glen Morgan & James Wong | Harry Longstreet | September 24, 1993 | 1X02 |
| Mulder and Scully investigate a series of murders where there appears to be no tangible method for the murderer’s entrance and escape. Eugene Tooms, a seemingly normal janitor, is suspected by Mulder to be a mutant who kills his victims and extracts their livers in order to prolong his existence. | |||||
| 004-104 | "Conduit" | Alex Gansa & Howard Gordon | Daniel Sackheim | October 1, 1993 | 1X03 |
| As Section Chief Blevins expresses his concern with the direction of the X-Files department, Mulder becomes obsessed with solving a case that closely parallels an ‘encounter’ he experienced as a child... the abduction of his younger sister, Samantha. | |||||
| 005-105 | "The Jersey Devil" | Chris Carter | Joe Napolitano | October 8, 1993 | 1X04 |
| The murder of a homeless man which is very similar in detail to a murder committed in 1947 leads Mulder and Scully to the legendary man-beast the Jersey Devil roaming in the forests surrounding Atlantic City. Mulder and Scully are summoned to investigate, but Scully leaves early to go to her Godson's birthday party. | |||||
| 006-106 | "Shadows" | Glen Morgan & James Wong | Michael Katleman | October 22, 1993 | 1X05 |
| When an unseen force commits several murders where a young woman is present, Mulder suspects that it is the spirit of the woman’s former boss who was believed to have committed suicide but was actually murdered and he is protecting her from his business partner. | |||||
| 007-107 | "Ghost in the Machine" | Howard Gordon & Alex Gansa | Jerrold Freedman | October 29, 1993 | 1X06 |
| A computer with highly advanced artificial intelligence begins to kill in order to preserve its existence when it is deemed inefficient to continue controlling the workings of an office building. | |||||
| 008-108 | "Ice" | Glen Morgan & James Wong | David Nutter | November 5, 1993 | 1X07 |
| When an Arctic research team mysteriously kill each other and themselves only days after drilling deeper into the ice than ever before, Mulder and Scully accompany a team of doctors and scientists to investigate. They discover an organism which infects living creatures and amplifies the host’s feeling of anger and paranoia, and the new team starts to deteriorate as they wonder who among them are killers. | |||||
| 009-109 | "Space" | Chris Carter | William Graham | November 12, 1993 | 1X08 |
| A mysterious force is sabotaging a space launch program which leads directly back to the commander of the team, who once claimed to have seen an alien in space while witnessing Mars from Earth orbit. | |||||
| 010-110 | "Fallen Angel"** | Howard Gordon & Alex Gansa | Larry Shaw | November 19, 1993 | 1X09 |
| Mulder puts the future of the X-Files in jeopardy when he heads to a UFO crash site being rapidly covered up by the military. He is arrested and while in jail he meets Max Fenig, a UFO nut whose NICAP group has followed Mulder’s work on the X-Files. When Mulder is released, Scully urges him to return to Washington to face his superiors and try and save his job but Mulder finds out that Max is more than meets the eye and ignores Scully to try and save him instead. | |||||
| 011-111 | "Eve" | Kenneth Biller & Chris Brancato | Fred Gerber | December 10, 1993 | 1X10 |
| When two fathers on opposite sides of the country are unexplainably murdered at the exact same time in the exact same way, Mulder and Scully find that their eight-year-old daughters are perfect twins and were created in order to continue The Litchfield Experiment, a eugenics project of the 1950’s which produced cloned boys named Adam and girls named Eve who have heightened strength and intelligence, but are prone to psychotic behavior. | |||||
| 012-112 | "Fire" | Chris Carter | Larry Shaw | December 17, 1993 | 1X11 |
| Mulder investigates the deaths of British dignitaries at the behest of an old Oxford girlfriend. Bob/Cecil L’Ively is a pyrokinetic, and he wants Sir Malcolm Marsden’s wife. Cecil attempts to kill Marsden, with his ability to make fire come out of his hands, but Mulder stops him. | |||||
| 013-113 | "Beyond the Sea" | Glen Morgan & James Wong | David Nutter | January 7, 1994 | 1X12 |
| A death row inmate named Luther Lee Boggs claims that he is psychic and can lead Mulder to a serial killer in exchange for a lesser sentence of life in prison. The agents’ roles are reversed in this episode, with Mulder doubting Boggs’ claim and Scully believing him after she is told that she can communicate through him with her recently deceased father. | |||||
| 014-114 | "Gender Bender" | Larry Barber & Paul Barber | Rob Bowman | January 21, 1994 | 1X13 |
| A series of identical sexual murders, where the killer appears to be both male and female, draw Scully and Mulder to an Amish-type community of people who may be alien in origin. | |||||
| 015-115 | "Lazarus" | Alex Gansa & Howard Gordon | David Nutter | February 4, 1994 | 1X14 |
| When FBI Agent Jack Willis and bank robber Warren Dupre are both shot at the same time during a robbery attempt, Dupre dies when Willis is brought back to life. When Willis rushes out of the hospital and begins acting strangely, Mulder concludes that Dupre has come back to life in Willis’ body. | |||||
| 016-116 | "Young at Heart" | Scott Kaufer & Chris Carter | Michael Lange | February 11, 1994 | 1X15 |
| A psychotic criminal from one of Mulder’s past cases - John Barnett - is back to get revenge on Mulder for incarcerating him. Before Barnett’s release, a renegade doctor had found a way to reverse the aging process - using Barnett as his test subject. Mulder and Scully rush to catch the now-unrecognisable youthful Barnett before he carries out his threat to kill all of Mulder’s loved ones. | |||||
| 017-117 | "E.B.E."** | Glen Morgan & James Wong | William Graham | February 18, 1994 | 1X16 |
| Mulder and Scully receive information from Deep Throat about a UFO that was shot down over Iraq and has been secretly transported to the US. However, Deep Throat then intentionally misleads the agents to prevent them from discovering the truth. | |||||
| 018-118 | "Miracle Man" | Howard Gordon & Chris Carter | Michael Lange | March 18, 1994 | 1X17 |
| Mulder and Scully travel to Tennessee to investigate the “Miracle Ministry” and its star attraction - a young man with the ability to heal people with his touch - when a person dies shortly after being healed. As more people start dying, the agents must unravel the earthly from the divine. | |||||
| 019-119 | "Shapes" | Marilyn Osborn | David Nutter | April 1, 1994 | 1X18 |
| Mulder and Scully head to an Indian reservation in northwestern Montana to investigate a manslaughter case which Mulder believes may relate to the very first X-File ever created at the FBI, and its main subject: Lycanthropy. | |||||
| 020-120 | "Darkness Falls" | Chris Carter | Joe Napolitano | April 15, 1994 | 1X19 |
| Mulder and Scully travel to the remote Washington State National Forest when an entire group of loggers goes missing. | |||||
| 021-121 | "Tooms" | Glen Morgan & James Wong | David Nutter | April 22, 1994 | 1X20 |
| Eugene Victor Tooms (see “Squeeze”) is released from the psychiatric sanitarium in which he was incarcerated for assaulting Scully - and he needs to kill once more to get the final liver which will allow him to hibernate for another thirty years. Mulder and Scully race against time to find evidence of his involvement in the past string of murders before Tooms disappears again. | |||||
| 022-122 | "Born Again" | Howard Gordon & Alex Gansa | Jerrold Freedman | April 29, 1994 | 1X21 |
| After a detective and his former partner die in unexplained circumstances, the accidents are linked to a little girl who witnessed both deaths and Mulder believes that she may be the reincarnation of a policeman murdered by his colleagues | |||||
| 023-123 | "Roland" | Chris Ruppenthal | David Nutter | May 6, 1994 | 1X22 |
| Agents Mulder and Scully investigate series of murder in Mahan Propulsion Laboratory as a team of scientists die one by one and the only suspect is a mentally handicapped cleaner named Roland. | |||||
| 024-124 | "The Erlenmeyer Flask"** | Chris Carter | R.W. Goodwin | May 13, 1994 | 1X23 |
| A seemingly unrelated car chase leads Mulder and Scully to a scientific lab encompassing a secret which could provide proof of a government conspiracy. However, individuals involved with the scientific experiment are being murdered, and Mulder is taken hostage by a group of Men in Black operatives. | |||||
[edit] References
- ^ "The X-Files FAQ". Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences. http://paul.rutgers.edu/~cwm/bedlam/x-files/xfilesFAQ.html#real. Retrieved on 18 June, 2009.
- ^ ""X APPEAL: 'THE X-FILES' BUILDS A CULT FOLLOWING BY FOLLOWING THE OCCULT"". Entertainment Weekly. March 18, 1994. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,301487,00.html.
[edit] External links
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