Supernatural Pilot: The X Files meets The O.C. meets Buffy

Within the first ten minutes of the show we see the baby version of Sam react as his mother is immolated on the ceiling of his nursery, while his father saves him and his older brother. Only to be whisked ahead in time about 18 years in the very next scene where we see Sam at college pretty well adjusted, with a girlfriend and probably going to get a full ride next year into law school. When older brother Dean shows up and wants him to come away from all this to find his missing father. On a personal side note, if your famous for playing a character like say oh I don't know, DEAN from Gilmore Girls, then either your character should be called Dean or no one of the main cast should have that name. In the end of the pilot he even refers to his brother as Dean-uh or perhaps Dana Scully.

We find out that the boys have had their share of ghost hunting Buffy-esque missions in the past and Sam is renascent to go look for his Papa because he's got a big interview next Monday and can't miss it. After the promise this will only be a weekend hunt, the boys pull out an arsenal that would make homeland security jump up and take notice and they decide to go and try and save good old dad.

We cut to Jerico, California, where we learn once again that no good deed goes unpunished. This time in the form of having your guts spayed against the inside windows (that's windows plural) of your car.

In the next few scenes we see the boys work on their angst of their collective childhood drama, impersonate federal officers, check out a crime scene and use phony credit cards to buy gas and treats. Not the most promising start for someone who wants to go to law school. Plus the car we saw particulate brain matter scatter in a very Grassy Knoll-esque fashion the night before is perfectly clean and free of any evidence of a struggle, this all seems to culminate with a ghostly game of cat and mouse involving a car and bridge and a very depressed ghost who lost her children in an "accident", we soon find out there is more to this ashen hitchhiker than meets the metaphysical plane, and the hunt is on to find and the boys are on the case to take care of this situation once and for all. A lot of this pilot could have been set in Sunnydale, and plays out very much like a fairly good episode of Buffy.

Steve Railsback from "The Stuntman" and "X-Files" fame plays the grieving husband to the woman in white, his part is short but memorable, if the rest of the series populates itself with such great actors it could be a saving grace.

The resolution, or near reasolution comes with car crashing, ghost hunting and a few borrowed elements from the "Ringu" and "Dark Water" films. Soon the case is solved and we are ready to go back to live a normal life. Unfortunately, when Sam gets home we find his girlfriend is about to end up just like his Mom did in the opening minutes and this leaves him free to go ghost hunting with his wacky brother, James Dean like brother.

Supernatural: The X Files Similarities and References

 It's the Alien week here where we look into interesting facts and tidbits of some favorite tv shows about the extraterrestrial. That being said...

When Supernatural started almost 20 years ago, it was like the X-Files in many ways. Sometimes better, sometimes not so. They really tried to take all of the best aspects of the X-Files, polished them up and set them in a new story that is somehow more unbelievable and at the same time fascinating than all the crazy stuff that happened to Scully and Mulder. Here are some of the similarities between the two shows.
 

Main characters are a duo, one all-in about their mission, the other reluctant
 

In the X-Files, Fox Mulder is a rogue agent who insists on following cases that don't make any sense, based on his finding a bunch of closed but unsolved cases called the X-Files in the basement of the FBI. His superiors are not happy that one of their golden boys has gone more or less nuts-o and partner him up with Dana Scully, a by-the-book, analytical scientist and doctor who doesn't believe in any of the strange things Fox wants to believe in. This dynamic created a great push-and-pull feeling in the show, where you'd watch Scully go from total disbelief to almost belief and back again.

In Supernatural, Sam and Dean Winchester were raised by their father to hunt demons because one k*lled their mother and torched their house when Sam was a baby. Sam, now in college studying to be a doctor, has left that all behind him, hoping to exchange his crazy life for something much more normal. But when his father disappears and Jess is k*lled by the same demon who k*lled his mom, he reluctantly agrees to rejoin his brother Dean on his never-ending demon-hunting mission, with the added quest of finding their father. Sam's reluctance to take part in the demon-hunting aspect is unflagging for the first season, in stark contrast to Dean's near blood-lust. He tries to stay focused on finding their father and each time they stop to track something new, he gets more annoyed. There's nothing quite so fun as watching two brothers snipe at each other as they are fighting literal monsters.

Plot mainly driven by the crazy monsters of the week

 
This one's pretty damn obvious. X-Files is interesting because of all the crazy beings and alien issues Mulder and Scully have while Supernatural is awesome because of how they re-interpret Americana and other mythologies (their take on genies was incredibly unique!) and also, a show full of demons never hurts.


Little stuff eventually adds up to one bigger plot

In the X-Files, it seems for a while that most of the encounters Scully and Mulder have are totally random and unconnected. Eventually, the alien stuff turns out to be all interconnected with each other and with a secret group in the government that is cooperating with them to create an alien-human hybrid, even going so far as to turn their own family members over to the aliens for testing. The struggle with this group and with the aliens drives most of the series.

In Supernatural, the demon stuff also seems very random but it turns out that the demon who k*lled Sam's mom and girlfriend has big evil plans that include people like Sam, whom he gave special powers. Turns out, he's trying to open the gate to hell and let out his army of demons - but wants a human to lead them. All of this leads up to Sam having to fight for his life with the other "contestants" and the desperate search to kill this honcho demon and keep hell at bay.

The main duo constantly cheats death

Scully and Mulder both cheat death in the X-Files as both are abducted by aliens (though not at the same time), Scully gets cancer, Mulder is devoured alive and the list goes on and on. They've got such a tenacious ability to come back, which Sam and Dean share. Both have died of natural and unnatural causes and come back (usually by making deals with demons), but Dean was even brought out of hell itself by an angel of God. Stuff like this can be overplayed sure, but these guys do it with style.

Some notable and very literal References:

• Season One, Episode One:

"Agent Mulder, Agent Scully." Dean says it to the officers as him and Sam are walking away from the crime scene on the bridge.

• Season Two Episode Seven:

Dean calls Sam "Scully". This exchange happens at a cafe when during the first flash back of their “cover story” to the cops. Sam “I’m not Scully. You’re Scully.”
Dean “Nah, I’m Mulder. You’re a red headed woman."

• Season Three Episode Eleven

In the episode Mystery Spot Dean says "It seems a little too “X-Files” to me." to Sam on one of the many Tuesdays that Sam has had to live through when Sam is trying to explain to Dean what is happening. Dean is referencing the episode of the X-Files named Monday which references the movie Ground hog day.

• Season Four Episode Five

In the episode Monster Movie Jaimie, Dean and Sam are in the bar right after they just discovered that the monster they are hunting is a shapeshifter. Jamie says: So you guys are like Mulder and Scully or something and the X-Files are real? to which Dean responds: No. The X-Files is a tv show. This is real.

Supernatural has even more crossovers with The X Files, including actors and directors who worked on both shows. More on that in one of the next posts.

The X Files 124 The Erlenmeyer Flask Facts, Trivia, Goofs & Description

 Dp Thoat tips Mulder to a critically important case involving a missing fugitive and the cloning of extraterrestrial viruses.

Trivia

• The lab on Pandora Street is a clear reference of the myth of Pandora's Box, where all humanity's evils were contained and then unleashed.
• The climax of each season for the first five years is directed by R.W. Goodwin.
• The Silence of the Lambs is credited with inspiring several of the themes used in season 1 of the X Files. In this episode, when Mulder & Scully are talking to Captain Lacerio, Mulder questions why there would be 3 different law enforcement agencies hunting a man who was originally stopped for a moving violation, to which Captain Lacerio responds, "I know it's not Silence of the Lambs, but it's what we do".
• The "purity control" sample Mulder finds in the lab and gives to Scully is actually in an Erlenmeyer flask (hence the title). However a flask for biological samples would have a screw-cap closure, not a ground-glass stopper (like the prop shown). The latter type of stopper can't protect biological samples from contamination by environmental bacteria.
• Ken Kramer, the doctor in the lab in this episode, is a reoccurring actor in the series, this being his first of three appearances.
• This episode takes place from May 8 to May 26, 1994.
• At 20mins 51secs, the film makers perform a Dolly Zoom in-camera effect on Mulder.

spoilers

• This is the last appearance of Dp Thoat alive. After this episode, he reappeared at separate occasions in flashbacks and dream sequences.
• When Jerry Hardin received his copy of the script, it included a note on the front from Chris Carter saying "No one really dies on The X-Files."
• The closing scenes are almost identical to the closing scenes of Pilot (1993). Scully is in bed and sees her digital clock turn from 11:21 to 11:22. Mulder calls and they talk. The scene cuts to The Cigarette Man, who places an object in the vast Pentagon vault. Both episodes end with the door of the vault slamming shut and the camera showing the sign on the door: "In Case Of Fire Or Emergency / Know Your Exits / PENTAGON / Evacuation Procedure."
• The Fox Network was very against the season ending with the closure of the X-Files department as they figured that audiences would think the show had been canceled.
• This is the first time in the series that an alien body is shown.
• Dp Thoat was k*lled on May 13, 1994. This was the same day that this episode originally aired.

Goofs

• After waking Scully up, Dr. Carpenter then goes on to explain the basics of genes and base pairs. As a medical doctor, Scully would already know about this, as it's basic high school biology.
• When Scully attempts to gain entrance to the holding facility where the alien body is being kept, she hears a security guard ask her for the "Project Password" through a speaker grate. If you look closely, embossed on the bottom of the grate it says, "Cold Water Only". Apparently this grate was appropriated from another source and wasn't a speaker grate at all.
• The police chase involves a Buick Century as the suspect's car. However, when Mulder asks the alleged owner (Dr. Berube) about his car, they mention that it is a Ciera (Oldsmobile), a different car altogether, though it was built on the same platform. What's more, the Buick that is shown is clearly from the late eighties (1988 at the latest) judging from the headlight style. Scully and Mulder determine that one of the two identical cars belong to a rental agency and it is extremely unlikely that a 6-year old (or more) car would have been kept in a rental agency's fleet.
• In the picture of the suspect's car captured from the video, the license plate is clearly visible prior to Mulder having it "enhanced", after seeing the replacement car in police custody. Mulder even comments that the plate "isn't visible" even though it's been clearly shown on the screen moments prior.
• In the early part of the police chase, we see the suspect's car crossing a railroad track; a CN (Canadian National) logo is clearly visible on the approaching locomotive. The chase supposedly takes place in Maryland and the CN's network, even in its American network, does not go close to Maryland.
• Dr Berube allowing two strangers (Mulder and Scully) into an animal research facility without protective gear (to minimize the risk of human-borne pathogens) is a major safety violation. However, the research company is later revealed to be involved in shady dealings, so this could be a deliberate character error on the producer's part.

The X Files 123 Roland Trivia, Facts, Goofs & Description

 When scientists at an aeronautics lab die under mysterious circumstances, the agents suspect a mentally challenged janitor may be the culprit.

Trivia

• Zeljko Ivanek was the first actor to read for the part of Roland. Chris Carter was blown away and decided almost immediately to cast him.
• Director David Nutter considered this the weakest of the six scripts he directed in the first season (to be fair, he had also helmed Ice (1993) (1x8) and Beyond the Sea (1994) (1x13), the two high water marks of Season 1). Nutter was thankful that he had such a strong guest actor in the form of Zeljko Ivanek to help sell in what he considered to be weaker material.
• The quote paraphrased by Dr Nollette ("If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants") is commonly attributed to Sir Isaac Newton.
• This was the third episode in close proximity in the first season to feature the concept of resurrection in a different body, following Lazarus (1994) (1x15) and Born Again (1994) (1x22).
• Kerry Sandomirsky who appears as Tracy would go on to play the character Joanne in the season three episode 2Shy (1995).
• Canadian 1990's Sci-Fi show PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal (1996), which borrowed many plot elements and story ideas from the show, borrows some elements of the episode for their own episode John Doe (1999).

spoilers

• In this episode it is revealed that Scully has two brothers, one older and another younger than her, but she doesn't speak about her sister.

Goofs

• When Dr. Nollette is in the wind tunnel, at times his fingers gripping the screen are curled tightly around the mesh; at other times they are straight, affording him no grip against the fan's pull.
• On Mulder and Scully's third visit to Mahan Propulsion Laboratory, they are both seen wearing visitor's passes. Mulder's pass has the number 23 in the top right corner while Scully's pass has the number 11. However, during one camera cut from Mulder to Scully, Scully is suddenly wearing the number 23 pass and Mulder is wearing 11.
• Turbine engines will sustain heavy damage if an animal is sucked into them. An object as large as a full grown man would cause catastrophic damage and require serious repair before it was operational again. It does not seem that enough time had passed for that to happen in this episode.
• Wind speeds of 60+ can uproot trees and blow the roofs off of buildings. The first victim caught in the wind tunnel was still standing at nearly mach 2. At sea level, mach 1 is equal to 761.2 mph. It is impossible for anyone to stand in such high winds.
• The obituary that Scully reads states that Dr. Crabill completed his doctorate and post-doctoral work at Harvey Mudd. However, Harvey Mudd College only offers undergraduate degrees.

spoilers

• After Dr Keats' death, while the forensics team is gathering evidence, the floor at the crime scene is spotless and marked with the position of the doctor's remains. Given the nature of his death, there should have been a lot of blood after the remains thawed, and it would not have been so thoroughly cleaned up before the forensics team completed their inspection.

The X Files 122 Born Again Facts, Trivia, Goofs & Description

 An 8-year-old girl is the prime suspect in a series of bizarre, seemingly unrelated deaths.

Trivia

• David Duchovny has openly stated that he hates this episode.
• Gillian Anderson was pregnant with her first child in the latter stages of Season 1. This is probably the first episode in which it's fairly obvious that she's expecting, with a pronounced use of trenchcoats to cover up her baby bump.
• Maggie Wheeler and David Duchovny previously dated.
• David Duchovny and Maggie Wheeler were both born August 7th, but he is one year senior.
• Guest star Brian Markinson would appear again in the series in the Season 5 episode, Folie a Deux (1998).
• Detective Lazard mentions that she heard about Mulder and Scully thanks to their work on the Tooms case in Tooms (1994).
• Guest actresses Mimi Lieber and Maggie Wheeler would both go on to make noteworthy appearances in "Friends": Lieber as one of Joey's 7 sisters, and Wheeler in the recurring role of Chandler's whiny sometime-girlfriend Janice.
• This case occurs in Buffalo New York.

Goofs

• When the fish-tank exploded, loads of water is splashing everywhere. But when the camera close-up at the ground, the floor is dry.
• When Scully reads the post-mortem report, she reads out a note "marked bradycardia" suggesting "drowning in sea water". Bradycardia is a slow heart rhythm. There's no such thing as an irregular heart rhythm of a deceased person who is a subject to autopsy.
• Buffalo does not have a Chinatown.
• At around 10:00, when Mulder is talking to Dr. Sheila Braun, she references "dissociative disorders," in this case likely referencing Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder), going by the DSM-IV. Mulder replies, "as in schizophrenia," to which she nods in agreement. Psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia, are often confused with Dissociative Identity Disorder, but have little to do with each other. Schizophrenia is "a mental disorder characterized by a breakdown of thought processes and by poor emotional responsiveness." However, the dr*g Michelle is put on (Thorazine) is commonly used to treat various psychotic disorders.
• In the final act when the fish tank exploded and jettisons glass everywhere, Michelle hadn't moved, so when there is a close up of her feet and she moves away, there is shattered glass under her feet, something which is obviously not possible if she hadn't moved.
• In the opening scene, a detective finds a lost girl in the alleyway. The next scene she brings the child back to the station and puts her in the room to be interviewed by a older male investigator, alone. This scene takes place in 1994 and it would have been against guidelines to have a child in a room with anyone with out guardianship assigned by the courts to represent them. At the very least, two people must be presented to do the interview.
• The corpse blinks quite noticeably during an autopsy.
• The corpse's abdomen moves during autopsy in two different shots.
• Although the scene at about 43 minutes was supposed to be at night, when the lights went out in the house, there was daylight showing through the window.
• Michelle Bishop (Andrea Libman) is wearing the same sweater that young Samantha Mulder (Vanessa Morley) used in a photograph from 1972 when she was 8 years old (Little Green Men (1994) and The X Files (1998) ).
• When the man gets his tie trapped in the bus door, the driver of the bus is a different driver. This happens when the camera changes from the side door of the bus to the front windscreen view while the bus is in motion.
• When the scarf is wrapped around the hand rail of the bus, and in the following scenes, you can see the other end of the scarf hanging down his shirt. Why would he have not been able to just remove the scarf?

spoiler

• At the culmination of the story when Michelle is wreaking psychokinetic havoc in Tony Fiore's living room. Fiore starts talking to her as though he understands that she is Charlie Morris, his former partner, reincarnated. But how could he possibly know that? He's never seen Michelle before, so he has no idea of her involvement in the case, and never was privy to any of Mulder's theories of something paranormal going on. As far as he knows Nichelle is just a random girl with strange powers who showed up at his house. He has no reason at all to think she has any connection to Charlie, let alone that she actually IS him.
• 21:13 mins in (netflix version) when the detective steps off the bus and has his scarf ghostly lift up and get trapped in the doors and he gets dragged, we see that the bus driver is a young black man, however at 21.53/54 the front shot of the bus shows a middle age white man driving the bus.
• When Mulder goes to break the glass on the door around 39:30, he hands Scully his g*n from his right hand. He's holding a flashlight in his left. Either option would have been a better choice to break the glass, rather than his elbow that he uses.
• Around 24:50 Mulder and Scully are looking at an evidence checkout log. There's a column indicating the department of the person checking out the evidence. There are 2 department entries, "Fellonius Crime". Felonius is spelled with a single "l".

The X Files 121 Tooms Trivia, Facts, Goofs & Description

 Eugene Tooms, a supernatural k*ller whom Mulder helped incarcerate, is released on parole.

Trivia

• Walter Skinner's debut appearance.
• The bile-like substance coating Tooms and his nest was actually yellow piping gel, which stuck to the cast members' skin and pulled out hair upon removal.
• For his final scenes, Doug Hutchison performed nude. As scripted, Tooms was supposed to emerge from his "cocoon" wearing his animal control uniform, but Hutchison thought that made no sense.
• First time Smoking Man William B. Davis has any on-screen lines.
• When Scully calls him Fox, it is learned that Mulder does not like his first name, even having his parents call him Mulder.
• Glynis Davies who appears as Defense Counsel Nelson would go on to star in further episodes of The X-Files (1993), playing Ellen Brumfield in Irresistible (1995) (season 2) and Monica in 2Shy (1995) (season 3).
• Squeeze (1993), the first part of Tooms, was so amazing that Doug Hutchison wrote a script himself and presented it to Chris Carter. James Wong and Glen Morgan, the original writers, did it instead.
• The movie playing when Mulder is asleep on the couch is The Fly (1958).
• Timothy Webber who appears as Detective Talbot would go on to star in further episodes of The X-Files (1993); playing Jess Harold in Our Town (1995) (season 2) and Dr. Paul Farraday in Quagmire (1996) (season 3).
• In the car outside Tooms' house Mulder explains to Scully that he's listened to a Phillies game, an Orioles game and 4 hours of Baba Booey. The latter is a reference to The Howard Stern Show which was very popular in the 90s, as the radio show was syndicated in more markets nationwide. Baba Booey was the kick name of the show's producer Gary Dell'Abate.
• Aired the night 37th US President Richard Nixon died at age 81.

spoilers

• Among other things, this episode is famous because of the conversation of the car, aka TCotC, as far as the fans clearly read the subtext in it as Scully telling Mulder that she loved him. Because of this, iced tea is synonymous of love in the fandom.
• The last scene in which Mulder says that he feels something is about to change is a spooky forecasting of the things that will come soon.

Goofs

• Tooms is released after a year yet his apartment has been demolished and a new building has been constructed in its place. It is unlikely such an intricate structure could be created and opened in one year.
• In episode three of this series, when the sheriff sees the newspaper declaring Tooms has been sent to prison, he rips out the text, separating it from the photograph of Tooms. However in this episode, the sheriff is seen looking at the same removed piece, but with the photograph. (In episode 3, you see the sheriff START to rip the newspaper. However, when they show it being separated from the picture, it's in Tooms' hand. He ripped it for his cocoon/nest. They never show how the sheriff rips the paper, he could have very easily torn the paper across the top of the article. This would have made the tear go around the article and not through it. The sheriff going around the article makes more sense since he told Fox & Dana that he had waited for 25 years for someone to ask him about the case.)
• A body encapsulated in cement would remain conserved in a relatively good condition. The remains found in the concrete floor however, consist merely of bones.
• When the police come to Mulder's home, they enter without asking his permission, and seize evidence without presenting a warrant.
• In the scene with Tooms' dental radiographs, an anatomical "full mouth series" (FMX) is depicted, however all of the films are in a random order, not anatomically correct.
• When the victim enters his car, it is shown from Tooms' mutant vision perspective, where only the target is in color and everything else is not. In the previous scene - as the guy was walking to the car - it was indeed red.
• As Mulder enters the escalator shaft to search for Tooms, you can see the reflection of a red LED on the filming camera reflecting off of polished metal surfaces.
• Twice we see Tooms being alerted by someone wearing blue (a woman in a blue coat and a man in a blue suit) as possible prays so much so that the rest of the image around these two characters turns black and white. Still, at the end he will jump on the psychologist not wearing anything blue, that he knows for years and in its room which will direct any suspicions towards him who is supposed to be so careful.

The X Files 120 Darkness Falls Facts, Trivia, Goofs & Description

 A group of loggers working in a remote forest unearths thousands of deadly insectlike creatures that paralyze and cocoon their victims. Scully, Mulder and a few others end up trapped there.

Trivia

• This was intended to be a bottle episode, based in a single location to save money, but bad weather plagued production. It was one of the toughest episodes of the season for the crew. The weather delayed production so much that pick-up shots and inserts had to be filmed later on to finish. Delays were also caused by the inaccessibility of the location because only generators, camera equipment, and first aid crew were able to stay on-site, and time was wasted commuting staff in each day.
• Jason Beghe is one of David Duchovny's best friends. They studied together and worked together as bartenders and as actors.
• During this episode, Gillian Anderson was often sick due to her pregnancy.
• The episode received the 1994 Environmental Media Award (EMA) for Best Environmental TV Episode.
• Jason Beghe and David Duchovny would go on to co-star alongside each other in several episodes of Californication (2007).
• This is the first of three times that Jason Beghe and Titus Welliver worked together. The others are Finders Keepers (2007) and Ghosts (2018).
• The helicopter seen during the rescue at the end is a Hughes 500C (model 369). The latest model is known as the MD530F.

Goofs

• When Humphreys goes back to the truck to "get on the horn" he hot wires the truck. When he tries to leave it's overlooked that there is still a flat tire on the truck.
• Mulder and Scully are in the Olympic Mountains, Mulder makes a comment that the bugs in the tree could be the result of a volcanic eruption. The Olympic Mountains are not volcanic and the Mt. St. Helen's eruption of 1980 blew ash east, away from the Olympics.
• As trained FBI agents neither Scully nor Mulder would have allowed a civilian to carry a firearm around when they were investigating a potential crime scene.
• They wouldn't have known either his mental state, nor his culpability (if any) involving the possible crime. Additionally, if he was injured or even k*lled by his own weapon, they would have been held responsible for it as they didn't know if he was trained in the use of the weapon.
• Around 00:40:22, the quarantine team arrives and you see a man open the car door but his quarantine suit ends above the wrist. He has an exposed skin between his glove and the suit.
• A close-up of the mysterious bugs is obviously archive footage of aphids.
• When Humphreys touches the felled Douglas fir, the prop bark flexes under his fingers.
• At 11:33, a full-on view of the victim shows pale gray skin, with a normal size mouth opening...at 11:45 the victim is shown in a fetal-type position and has a pronounced pinker/flesh colored tinge and appears more decayed, with a wider mouth opening showing back molars.
• The fallen tree where they took the core sample was called a Douglas fir, but the bark resembles a Sitka spruce tree.
• Although Olympic Mountains (themselves on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State) cover a vast area (3,600 square miles, about the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined) it's not uninhabited and it certainly isn't so remote that any of its towns are more than one hours driving time from any other location.
• It certainly wouldn't take a "four hour drive" as stated by the Forestry Service ranger to get anywhere on the peninsula from any other location.
• Plot holes
• If the insects are prevented from swarming by light shining on them, how would they swarm on Spinney, when he's standing in front of the car's lights?
• The bugs do not swarm in light - it does not cross anyone's mind to actually light a bonfire - after all they are in a wood with newly felled trees and branches all around them.
• Mulder can only send a brief distress message with the radio due to the necessity to turn off the generator to save fuel for the night. He could, however, have used the radio as much as he wanted during the night, when the generator was running normally.
• Scully says the first insects appeared around 600 million years ago. However, insects did not evolve until 400-450 million years ago. 600 million years ago, no animals existed at all on the land, and the very first terrestrial plant life was only just appearing. Anyway, she herself admitted not being an expert about insects.

The X Files 119 Shapes Facts, Trivia, Goofs & Description

 A creature, possibly from Native American lore, is suspected of k*lling a man, bringing Mulder and Scully to the Indian reservation where the attack occurred in order to uncover its identity.

Trivia

• The word "manitou" doesn't specifically mean "werewolf" in Algonquin but more broadly signifies a spirit-being that is both tangible and conceptual; everything has its own manitou, even a machine.
• This is the second time that Michael Horse has played a sheriff or deputy, most famously in Twin Peaks (1990). He would go on to play another one in the TV series Roswell (1999).
• David Duchovny and Michael Horse had previously worked together on Twin Peaks (1990).
• When Mulder says the line "They told me that even though my deodorant is made for a woman, it's strong enough for a man.", he is referring to Proctor and Gamble's Secret womens deodorant. The tagline "Strong enough for a man, but made for a women." was first used in 1972. It was still widely used well into the late 90s. It is one of the most well know advertising tag lines and was frequently parodied and adapted for other situations.

spoilers

• The old Native American man tells Mulder that they will meet again in eight years. This does not happen, but in The Truth (2002), which roughly happens around 8 years later, Scully and Mulder do end up in the territory of another Native American tribe called the Anasazi.
• Mulder and Scully encounter another werewolf in Season 6 in Alpha (1999). Mulder also encounters a human who could shape-shift into a reptilian monster who holds Doggett and Agent Harrison captive in Season 8 in Alone (2001) while Mulder and Scully encounter another were-lizard in Season 10 in Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster (2016).

Goofs

• Toward the end, the manitou's claws shred a shower curtain. In the next shot, its hands show no claws.
• Native Americans have never used funeral pyres as part of their death ceremonies. That practice was limited to the Old World, specifically Europe and South Asia.
• Spoilers
• The creature involved in the killings, a manitou, is from the Iroquois pantheon of deities. Native Americans in Montana, more than a thousand miles from the nearest Iriquois settlements, would not share the same beliefs.
• In the funeral pyre scene, when the man touches the flaming torch to the pyre, there is a significant delay before it ignites, and from a totally different location than where he placed the torch.
• When the transforming manitou shreds the shower curtain, the tears start at the fingertips not the claws.
• When Lyle is in the bathroom turning into a werewolf, he lets out a big roar. Scully is right outside of the door trying to pick the lock and yet somehow she does not hear this and keeps trying to pick the lock.
• In one scene, you can clearly see that a US flag patch sewn onto the right arm of the Sheriff's shirt has the star field on the left. This is not how flag patches are supposed to be shown. A little later, you see the Sheriff's jacket has a flag patch sewn on the correct way. As a matter of fact, you can see the incorrect version on the photo page for this episode here on IMDB.
• Plot holes
• If the shapeshifters shed their skin when changing between human and manitou and back again, then there should be manitou skin when it dies and changes back to human.

The X Files 118 Miracle Man Trivia, Facts, Goofs & Description

 The agents investigate a ministry led by a man whose son possesses the power to heal, and to k*ll, with a touch of his hand.

Trivia

• Producer R.W. Goodwin felt that the greatest difficulty was finding enough Vancouver-area actors who could portray a convincing Southern US accent, so they hired a dialect coach to prevent the cast from sounding "like they were coming from fifteen different parts of the South".
• All the faith-healing scenes in the tent were shot in one day with the help of 300 extras.
• Scully's autopsy begins at 11:21 pm. 11:21 is a recurring time during this season, featured in both the pilot and season finale as well.
• Brought up Catholic, Dana Scully states that one of her favorite movies is The Exorcist (1973).
• This episode takes place in 1983 and 1994.
• The first script written by executive producer Howard Gordon without his longtime partner, Alex Gansa.
• The plot for "Miracle Man" was also adapted as a novel for young adults in 2000 by Terry Bisson.

Goofs

• (at around 15 mins) The screen caption says "Kenwood County Courthouse" but the building shown is the "Dekalb County Courthouse" in Auburn, Indiana. In the original broadcast, the sign on the courthouse had not been changed, resulting in a revealing mistake. Subsequently, the sign was changed digitally to replace "Dekalb" with "Kenwood" so there is no error when viewing the episode in broadcast syndication or on home media.
• (at around 25 mins) Scully palpates the radial pulse by holding the hand of the girl in the wheelchair, Margaret, and immediately pronounces her dead. A medical doctor, such as herself, would know that one can never pronounce a person dead just by the absence of pulse, that too, just by examining the radial pulse for hardly 3 seconds. Conditions such as ventricular fibrillation (heart attack) might present as pulselessness, but a person can still be revived by appropriate medical procedures. A doctor would ideally perform a full medical exam before declaring someone dead.

The X Files 117 E.B.E. Facts, Trivia, Goofs & Description

 Mulder and Scully become the focus of a disinformation campaign when they attempt to trace the government's secret transport of an alien life form.

Trivia

• First appearance of The Lone Gunmen.
• The inspiration for the Lone Gunmen came from a group of men that writers Glen Morgan and Marilyn Osborn met at a UFO convention in June 1993.
• Early in the story, Mulder tells Scully about places where he's experienced multiple sightings of UFOs. One that he mentions is Okoboji Falls, which Scully would have known about because she was with him there in Conduit (1993).
• As per Dean Haglund (Langly), his glasses are different for the first several appearances of The Lone Gunmen, as the wardrobe department wasn't sure if the characters would return.
• The casting of Tom Braidwood as Frohike was absolutely casual, being he is an assistant director. When they were looking for Frohike, nobody found the perfect one. Somebody told something like "we need someone repulsive and with the appearance of Braidwood", so, he was cast.
• The name Mulder uses to infiltrate the military base is Tom Braidwood. Tom Braidwood is the name of the actor who plays Melvin Frohike and is also a First Assistant Director on the series. The cover name given to Scully is Val Stefoff, which is a variation on Val Stefoff - another First Assistant Director.
• Some of the scenes were inspired by photographs sent to the writers by location scouts of a BC Hydro power station, which was used as a shooting location.
• Roger Cross, who plays the guard in the facility, is a reoccurring actor in The X-Files, with "E.B.E." as the first of his five appearances throughout the series.
• The episode's title, E.B.E., stands for Extraterrestrial Biological Entity.
• Peter LaCroix, who plays the trucker Ranheim, later played different characters in Ascension (1994) and Unrequited (1997).

spoilers

• First instance of Mulder turning off his apartment lights leaving just a lamp on shining out his window. No 'X' in tape, just the lamp. He used this sign when he wanted to meet Deep Throat. Later, he would use the X in order to meet Mr. X.
• The Lone Gunmen say that they have had breakfast with the man who k*lled John F. Kennedy. Later in Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man (1996), the supposedly true (within the X-Files universe) identity of the k*ller is revealed.
• Deep Throat reveals to Mulder that he actually exterminated a captured alien many years ago. This scene will be portrayed in a flashback in Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man (1996).
• When The Lone Gunmen first meet Scully, Frohike tells her twice that she is hot. This is the beginning of an internal joke about the crush that Frohike has on Scully. He seems to be both Mulder and Scully's favorite gunman.

Goofs

• During the first truck scenes, it is clearly the middle of the night and the time is stated as 12:20 AM, except when the police cars pass the truck at 03:30, it is daylight.
• When Fox and Scully gain access to the "power plant" they are trying to get to Level 6. The black guard who confronts them is a 1st Sgt in the US Army. In the military, 1st Sgt is an administrative position. They handle pay, discipline, punishment and grooming of the Company they lead. A 1st Sgt would not be guarding a door.
• Not all sharks have to swim constantly to achieve a flow of water through their respiratory system, so not all sharks will die if they stop swimming; they must continue swimming, however, to avoid sinking to the bottom of the water column.
• The polyester strips inserted into some US currency is neither metallic nor magnetic, and has absolutely no effect on metal detectors.
• Revealing mistakes
• While following the truck, the electronics go haywire in the Taurus. When Scully slams on the brakes, the transmission shifter is in Park.
• The 'bugging device' that Scully finds in the pen is just a collection of resistors, diodes and capacitors. It is fully rotated to reveal that there are no transistors which would be required to form a transmitter.
• At the start, when we first see the agents in the woods, Scully is incorrectly using a camera with a telephoto lens to examine things very close up.
• At 27:40 Mulder and Scully parked their gray car in front of a red car already parked on the street. Both cars have the same license plate: 5S2 706.
• (at around 30 mins) When Scully is looking through binoculars in the car in the background, she (and her window) are clearly on a green screen because they contain interference.
• When explaining the cover-up of the Roswell incident, Deep Throat mentions a secret conference between "the United States, the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, Britain..." in reality, the PRC was established in August 1949, more than two years after the Roswell incident, and therefore the Chinese Communist Party was unlikely to have been privy to such negotiations.
• Audio/visual unsynchronised
• Frohike is using a SLR camera with a telephoto lens, yet it makes the shutter sound of a digital camera.
• When Mulder and Scully wait for the truck on the side of the highway and drive off to follow it, the crew is briefly reflected on the car's windows.
• (at around 29 mins) There is a large snow-capped mountain in the distance, even though Mulder is supposed to be driving through D.C. towards the Baltimore airport.
• Mulder and Scully meet a group of UFO enthusiasts in a thick forest identified as being outside Mattawa, Washington. Mattawa is situated on a plateau in the high desert surrounded by sagebrush; there are no natural forests for more than 50 miles in any direction.

The X Files 116 Young at Heart Facts, Trivia, Goofs & Description

 A criminal believed to have died in a prison years earlier wages a vendetta against Mulder.

Trivia

• The footage of the young girl with progeria was filmed after the production crew contacted the Progeria Society and were put in touch with the family of Courtney Arciaga, who was a young girl with the disease. She and her family were fans of the series, and were flown from their San Diego home to Vancouver to shoot the scene.
• The CIA man in the background of the final scene is William B. Davis (Cigarette Smoking Man) making his second appearance on the show. Like his first there appears to be no dialogue.
• Gillian Anderson was already pregnant in these episodes, although she did not show it yet.
• Robin Mossley, who appears as Dr. Joe Ridley, would go on to appear in further episodes of The X-Files, playing Dr. Vance Randolph in Our Town (1995) (season 2) and Dr. Kingsley Looker in Terma (1996) (season 4).
• This was repeated on June 17th 1994, the night of the O.J. Simpson chase.

spoilers

• This is the first episode where Mulder actually k*lls someone.
• The first time that Scully is shot, although she wears a bulletproof vest.

Goofs

• When Scully is typing the report in her apartment, her computer screen goes from white text on a blue background in the extreme closeup to white text on a green background in the medium shot and back to white on blue again in the wide shot.
• When agents Scully and Purdue are viewing the archived footage of the warehouse standoff, it is all a single wide shot, presumably from a security camera. At the end of the scene's dialog the camera pans back to the TV monitor, where the tape is on a freeze frame, but the shot has tightened up to a medium shot focusing on the relevant plot detail.
• At 10:35 Mulder gets into his car. Comparing the close up to the wide shot seconds later, the distance between the parked cars changes.
• (at around 43 mins) Young Barnett is seen in the hospital with a bullet wound on his left shoulder, received from the shot fired at him by Mulder. However, his left shoulder was earlier hidden behind his hostage, so could not have been the target of Mulder's shot. Only his right shoulder was visible, which could have been the target of the only shot fired at him by Mulder. However, a shot fired at his shoulder could not have incapacitated him the way it was depicted, which could only have been possible with a shot aimed at his head. But, as seen in the hospital, his head was completely injury-free. Moreover, a shot fired at his shoulder should have also given his arm a strong backward thrust, which was not seen.
• Around 00:43:12, you can see a ball socket falling off from Scully's Kevlar onto his hair.
• The establishing shot of the recital hall, supposedly in the DC area, is actually the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, PA.
• The judge orders Mulder from the witness stand without allowing Barnett's lawyer to cross-examine him, a violation of Barnett's rights under the Sixth Amendment.

The X Files 115 Lazarus Trivia, Facts, Goofs & Description

 The consciousness of a dangerous criminal possesses an FBI agent who is also Scully's ex-boyfriend.

Trivia

• The original script was that Dupre's spirit jumps into Mulder's body but the studio argued against that, considering it too coincidental. Writer Howard Gordon later said that that was the right call.
• The bank heist was shot in a real bank. Preparations for filming took twice as long as usual as it was the run-up to Christmas and the area was filled with Christmas shoppers. A lot of them dispersed rather quickly, however, when the filming actually took place and many mistook it for a real bank robbery, with most of them running away.
• Here, it is revealed that Scully's birthday is February 23.
• Callum Keith Rennie would reappear as a cemetery groundskeeper in Fresh Bones (1995) (which was about voodoo).
• This is the first episode without David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in every scene after the teaser, either together or separately.
• Jack Willis was born on February 23, 1957.

spoilers

• The first time Scully actually kills someone with her g*n.
• The first time that Scully gets abducted.
• The first of two times on the show that Scully's seemingly normal boyfriend is secretly a possessed villain with a supernatural tattoo who eventually tries to kill Scully. The second time is in Never Again (1997) from season 4.
• This is the first time that a Scully's lover returns from death but won't be the last one. Mulder will do it in Deadalive, in the 8th season.

Goofs

• During the scene where Jack is practicing to re-qualify with his Beretta 92-F, he fires several rounds into his target. When we see him remove his target and show it to Mulder, the breech (slide) is closed. In the next scene with Jack turning around to put the target and gun down, the breech is open.
• Scully mention the time to be stop at 6:47, where when watch is showed the time is 6:54.
• While directing the search for Scully, Mulder says that "200 units of NPH insulin were taken, along with a box of syringes" from a dr*g store break-in. All vials of insulin sold at that time were sold in 10-milliliter, 1000-unit vials.
• Even though Scully says the watch isn't working, the second hand can be seen moving.
• While the doctors are working to revive Jack a ventilator can be heard on the soundtrack. There is no ventilator in use at any point.
• When Willis/Dupre is re-qualifying at the shooting range his Beretta 92 experiences a stovepipe jam. Note the empty casing wedged between the breech and barrel chamber. FBI agents are trained to clear such malfunctions and continue firing. Dupre would not have known this.
• Mulder says that the kidnappers were using a mobile and it can't be traced. Mobile calls were routinely traced by the police using contemporary (1994) means. Even the "signal check" broadcast gives a signal to triangulate and find the location of a mobile that is turned on.
• Scully describes Jack's high sugar intake from soda causing him to suffer from high blood sugar. She describes high blood sugar as hypoglycemia, but he would be experiencing hyperglycemia. Hypoglycemia is low blood sugar.

The X Files 114 Gender Bender Facts, Trivia, Goofs & Description

 A religious sect becomes the prime suspect in a murder spree.

Trivia

• The first X-Files appearance of Nicholas Lea before taking on the role of Alex Krycek.
• The big painting shown a few times on the wall of the discotheque is a copy of a painting by H.R. Giger, the Swiss artist who designed Alien (1979).
• Steveston is a real town located in Richmond, British Columbia and also doubles as Storybrooke, Maine in Once Upon a Time (2011). In fact, the popular Granny's Diner (Cannery Cafe in real life and as seen in this episode) is first spotted behind Mulder and Scully at 9:32.
• First episode to be directed by Rob Bowman. He would go on to direct 33 more episodes in the series and of course was also handed the plum assignment of directing the first feature film, The X Files (1998).
• The X Files has often been compared to the movie The Silence of the Lambs. Brent Hinkley (Brother Andrew) played Officer Murray in the movie.

Goofs

• Male Marty is seen in the left hand corner after female Marty exits the car for the officer.
• When the team is examining the first corpse, the eye twitches (time between 5:15 and 5:25).
• At around 40:00, when Mulder and Scully break into a hotel room, a silhouette can be seen dropping down behind the window. It could be falling equipment or a crew member ducking out of sight.
• A brief scene of Mulder and Sculley driving to Massachusetts shows mountains in the background that clearly are nowhere near New England, but are the mountains of British Columbia.
• There are no nightclubs in Germantown, Maryland.
• If you look carefully around 5:20 into the episode, when Muller is taking samples from the dead guy, you can see the "dead" guy blink.

The X Files 113 Beyond the Sea Facts, Trivia, Goofs & Description

 Scully believes that the psychic predictions of a death row inmate are the only hope in the kidnapping of two college students.

Trivia

• One of Gillian Anderson's favorite episodes.
• Chris Carter's favorite episode of the first season.
• In the scene where he appears as a vision to his on-screen daughter, Don S. Davis is mouthing The Lord's Prayer.
• Chris Carter had to lobby hard for the casting of Brad Dourif as serial killer Luther Lee Boggs. Dourif was more expensive than the usual guest star but Carter knew he would be perfect for the role. He rang Fox president Peter Roth at his home on Thanksgiving to plead his case. Roth agreed to it, mainly because he wanted to get back to his dinner.
• Mulder addresses Scully as "Dana" while inquiring as to her well-being in their first scene. Presumably, because he heard of her father's death. She hesitates and mouths her name to herself before responding "fine". The agents had been exclusively on "last name basis" up until this point.
• The network was opposed to even doing this episode, one of the high watermarks of the first season, as they felt it traded too much in the shadow of The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
• One of the killers is named Lucas Henry. There was a real-life American serial killer named Henry Lee Lucas (subject of the movie Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)).
• While the series is known for its alien story lines and mutant stand-alone stories, it has also dealt extensively in the area of seemingly ordinary serial killers. "Beyond the Sea" is the first episode to reflect that.
• Brad Dourif is the second Academy Award nominated actor to guest star in the show's first season, following Carrie Snodgress in the fourth episode, Conduit (1993).
• First appearance of Scully's parents.
• This is the first episode in which either Mulder or Scully appears in the teaser. The opening scene depicts Scully with her parents William and Margaret.
• Interestingly, the character beliefs of Mulder and Scully are switched this episode. Mulder is skeptical and Scully believes. Mulder does believe in psychics but not in Boggs case.
• Second utterance of the line "I want to believe". The first was nine episodes earlier Conduit (1993).
• Don S. Davis and David Duchovny acted together in Twin Peaks (1990).
• Part of this episode was filmed in Vancouver, Canada. After her first meeting with Boggs, Scully is driving back to the hotel and sees the "angel of stone." This is a WWI memorial piece called the "Angel of Victory" located at Waterfront Station. However, most of the episodes during The X-Files entire run were filmed in Vancouver.
• After writing Humbug, Darin Morgan seemed to be dissatisfied with his work, so, in order to write his next script, Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, he reviewed Beyond the Sea in order to catch up with what the series was about.
• The version of Beyond the Sea that we can listen to in this episode is Bobby Darin's. Glen Morgan's parents were huge fans of him and named Glen's brother, possibly the best writer of The X Files, after him.
• Brad Dourif, Don S. Davis and David Duchovny all had previously worked with director David Lynch on various projects.
• In front of the window Scully is looking at when she wakes up and seems to see her father, there appears to be a pair of wayang golek puppets, used in traditional Indonesian shadow puppet theatre.
• Brad Dourif voices another serial killer with three names (with the middle name being Lee) in the Chucky movies and tv series. In those, he plays Charles Lee Ray.
• This episode is included in The X-Files Revelations compilation DVD set, released in 2008.
• Brad Dourif plays a serial killer on death row in this episode. He played a similar role as a serial killer in three episodes of Star Trek Voyager.

spoilers

• This is the first time that Mulder is shot in the series.
• This could be the only time in the entire series in which can see Scully's little brother, Charles, and probably his kids and wife. In the funeral Maggie Scully says that her father only wanted his family there and can see besides them two men, two women, and two kids, who could be Bill, Melissa, Charles and his family. Despite being a major character, this is the third time Charles Scully has been played by an uncredited actor. His second appearance was in "One Breath" and the third is a voice-over in "Home Again".
• The first of many episodes which sees Mulder end up in hospital.

Goofs

• When Mulder tells Scully he is sorry about her father's death, he puts a hand on her shoulder and moves it up towards her cheek. In the following shot, his hand is moving down towards her cheek from her temple.
• During her father's funeral, Scully tells her mother "As a Captain he was eligible for burial at Arlington." Rank has nothing to do with eligibility at Arlington Cemetery.
• Mulder sarcastically tells Scully that he had Boggs channel Jimi Hendrix, and mentions Hendrix having been dead for 20 years; Jimi Hendrix in fact died approximately 23 years prior to this production.
• When Scully swiftly leaves Boggs' interrogation room, the elbow of a crew member trying to hide against the wall is briefly visible as she rounds the corner.
• When the police officer assisting Scully in the investigation of Mulder's shooter gives a history of the suspect he completely mispronounces the name of the prison where the suspect had been incarcerated. This is very odd as "Angola" the prison name, is the same name as a nation in Southwest Africa. It's as if the speaker had never heard of either of them and had never spoken the word prior reading it from the script.

The X Files 112 Fire Trivia, Facts, Goofs & Description

 Mulder and Scully join forces with an inspector from Scotland Yard when a man with pyrokinetic powers stalks members of the British aristocracy.

 Trivia

• The character of Phoebe Green was originally intended to be a recurring role because Chris Carter admired actress Amanda Pays and he liked working Sherlock Holmes references into the script. But the fan reaction to this rival to Scully proved so strong that this idea was swiftly dropped.
• The arsonist's target, Lord Malcolm Marsden, is named for the show's hair stylist.
• David Duchovny suffered the only injury on-set, burning his hand, which left a small permanent scar.
• Amanda Pays previously worked with Mark Sheppard's father William Morgan Sheppard in Max Headroom (1985) and Max Headroom (1987).
• Mark Sheppard and Lynda Boyd would later both guest star on Supernatural.

Spoilers

• Near the end, Scully briefly speaks with a British accent in order to kid Mulder. Gillian Anderson grew up in London and is known for speaking equally well with an American or British accent depending on where she is or where her interlocutor is from.
• Fifth- and sixth-degree burns are actual classifications. Descriptions of burns beyond third-degree are not usually taught in health classes because the prognosis is almost certainly fatal.
• This episode features Mulder's first onscreen kiss.
• Mulder's personal fear and dislike of fire is revealed.
• When the "pyrokinesic" in the hyperbaric chamber, it is the last view the audience ever sees of the character. With the X-Files writers et al. so keen on returning previous characters to increase tension and guesswork, it is not clear why they chose not to bring him back into the storyline.

Goofs

• Phoebe Green mentions having a "certain youthful indiscretions atop Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's tombstone on a misty night in Windlesham" with Fox Mulder. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was buried in Windlesham but was reburied in Minstead in 1955.
• Phoebe Green states that a "minister of parliament" was killed. There is no such title. Individuals elected to parliament are "members of parliament", usually abbreviates as "MPs". Members of parliament and other individuals who form the government/cabinet and have a department portfolio are called "ministers" (i.e. the prime minister, education minister, justice minister, finance minister, etc.). They are appropriately called "government ministers".
• During the hotel fire, Mulder places the palm of his hand directly on the door to check for heat from the fire. The correct way to check for heat at a door is to use the back of your hand, placing it close to the door but never actually touching it, so as not to get burned if the door is hot.
• Scully claims Cecil L'Ively is a "documented citizen or Great Britain." Great Britain is not a country. It is the largest island of the British Isles. L'Ively would have a UK passport as he is British.
• Just before Dana Scully phones from Mulder's hotel room to ask about the composite sketch, she looks at her wristwatch which as both analog hands and a digital display. The digital display shows 4:22 but the analog hands show the time as 5 past 5.

The X Files 111 Eve Trivia, Facts, Goofs & Description

Mulder and Scully search for two missing girls who disappeared after their fathers were murdered in an identical fashion.

 Trivia

• The rock band Eve 6 took their name from a character in this episode.
• Eve 6 says, "I am her, and she is me, and we are all together," which is a reference to the first line of the song "I Am the Walrus" by The Beatles. ("I am he as you are he as you are me, and we are all together").
• The characters of Teena and Cindy were named after the wives of Glen Morgan and James Wong, who rewrote the original script prior to filming. Chris Carter said in The X Files Official Season 1 book and in Season 1 DVD Extras that Erika's character name was in honor of Glen Morgan first wife, Cindy, but in real life her mother is also called Cindy.
• This is the first episode to mention supersoldiers, a recurrent theme in Seasons 8 and 9.
• This episode was originally called "The Girls from Greenwich," a reference to the similarly themed The Boys from Brazil (1978).
• The footage shown on the television (Eek the Cat! and following news segment) is the same footage used in Human Essence (1998).
• The story has many similarities to the bizarre true story explored in the documentary Three Identical Strangers (2018).
• When Harriet Sansom Harris guest-starred on Frasier (1993), she played a character who makes herself sick by ingesting digitalis, the poison of choice of Eve 6 in this episode.
• At one point, it was considered using digital effects to create the twins.
• Garry Davey who plays Hunter would go on to appear in other episodes of The X Files, playing Dr. Keats in Roland (season 1), the Captain in End Game (season 2) and Bob Spitz in Syzygy (season 3).
• This episode has strong similarities to the 1982 film Anna to the Infinite Power, which deals with a teenage girl who discovers she's part of a cloning experiment.
• This is the 11th episode of season 1. The number 11 being a twin number.

spoilers

• Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen were briefly considered to play the two evil twins. However, stricter US child labor laws precluded the casting of Americans in the roles, so they cast twins from the Vancouver, BC, Canada filming area instead.

Goofs

• At the truck stop diner Mulder and Scully stop at with the two girls, a key is needed to enter the restrooms. However, the doors on the restrooms have no outer locks or keyholes.
• When Mulder first picks up his soda which has been spiked with foxglove, the spilled green foxglove liquid is vaguely visible around the bottom of the cup, positioned just behind the two rivets on the table from the camera's perspective. When he returns to pick up his keys, however, the green spill has moved to a different spot in front of the rivets. It is also a much darker green color, and has an almost crystalline appearance, whereas it had previously been a light green-colored liquid.
• When the second girl was abducted, Scully reports to the cop that Sally fled in a light blue '93 Corolla. But when Sally gets to the motel in Point Reyes, she arrives in a dark blue Pontiac Bonneville.
• The girls say they cultivated the foxglove themselves. The powdered foxglove is then kept in a vial. The powder looks very green, like peas. Real dried foxglove looks brownish with a tint of whatever colour the flower was (usually purple).

Spoilers

• The dr*g used by the twins to poison others is said to be extracted by a plant called digitalis, supposedly from South America. Digitalis purpurea, the common foxglove, is in fact European (particularly common in what is now the UK) and was well known in the middle ages as a heart stimulant. Being a stimulant, its effect on someone who ingested it would also not have been paralysis, as stated in the episode. The death cause should be a heart attack, instead.
• A Canadian flag is reflected in the "NO VACANCY" sign outside the motel that is supposed to be situated 40 miles north of San Fransisco.
• Highway 49 in California is nowhere near Point Reyes.
• Character error
• Part of the plot line takes place in Point Reyes, yet Mulder refers to this town as Port Reyes.
• The doctor's name is "Dr. Sally Kendrick," and most characters refer to her by that name, including Dr Kendrick herself in the video seen at the clinic, and Scully when she is reviewing the patient history form. But when discussing the video with Mulder, Scully calls her "Kendricks".

The X Files 110 Fallen Angel Trivia, Facts, Goofs & Description

 The future of the X-Files project is jeopardized after Mulder secretly infiltrates the government cover-up of a UFO crash.

Trivia

•  This is the first episode that references the line "Trust no one."
• Max tells Mulder that he read Mulder's pseudonymous article in Omni Magazine about the Gulf Breeze sightings. Omni was a real magazine that covered both science and science fiction; it was published in a hard-copy edition between 1978 and 1995. The Gulf Breeze sightings were also "real." In late 1987, a Gulf Breeze, Florida, resident, Ed Walters, claimed that he had seen--and photographed--an alien spacecraft near his home. Although some flying saucer enthusiasts found the photographs convincing, they were revealed as staged hoaxes several years later when the new owners of Walters's old house found a model of a UFO identical to the one in the photos secreted in the house. This is discussed in Gulf Breeze UFO Incident (1996).
• As Scully looks around inside Max Fenig's trailer, the first shot of what she sees is of some shelves holding electronic equipment and some books, including one titled "The Other", which has an image of a "gray" alien on the cover. The object just to the left of the book is a piece of test equipment, an Eico Model 950 Resistance-Capacitance-Comparator Bridge. On the shelf below, the larger radio is an amateur (ham) radio transceiver, a Yaesu FT-990, capable of transmission on the amateur HF bands (160 meters through 10 meters), with a general coverage receiver covering 0.1 - 30 MHz. The smaller radio on top of it appears to be a CB radio.

Spoilers

• The character of Max Fenig would return to the series in Season 4 in the episodes Tempus Fugit (1997) and Max (1997).

Goofs

• When Scully returns to the motel after a night spent treating the wounded, Mulder tells her that Max Fenig has an abduction scar behind his left ear. The audience has just been shown the scar to be behind Max Fenig's right ear.
• In the scene when Max struggles to escape from the motel, close shot reveals he was caught by the slide-up window. However, in both the preceding shot (when Mulder opens the door) and subsequent one (when Mulder pulls Max back), the window is widely open and locked in upper position.
• Max Fenig refers to Scully as "enigmatic agent Scully", yet a few moments later, when an amused Mulder repeats the phrase, he says "enigmatic doctor Scully".
• When searching for the alien entity, a high pitched sound comes out of the headphones of Commander Calvin Henderson and a soldier reports picking a frequency of 200,000 MHz, even though human can hear frequencies that span from 20 to 20,000 Hz.
• The reporter claims that Townsend's 12,000 residents are being evacuated. Townsend has less than 1,000 residents.
• Max Fenig's abduction scars were behind his right ear, while the other cases in Mulder's file stated that the abductees had scars on the left.
• Scully tells Mulder she was told it was a Libyan jet not a UFO. Libya at that time and before its collapse, had no fighter jet with the range to reach the United States' airspace.
• When the communications officer is reporting the 'bogie' to his commanding officer he states that the object dropped off the radar screen at 24:17. On the 24 hour clock there is no such time. An Air Force communications officer would have used 00:17. However, later, after the second bogie, the comms officer repeats 2417 but was giving a location not a time as the supervisor then says to her "2417 - isn't that where...?" indicating it is the same location as the first incident.
• When Scully aims at the bathroom door in the motel, the slide of her pistol is moved halfway back, as if it stuck during cocking the gun.
• The doctor treating the first burn victims said they suffered "fifth and sixth degree burns." Burns are only classified as first, second and third degree.
• Brent Strait's character is credited as "Corporal Taylor", but his uniform has the rank insignia of a Captain.
• When Max Fenig first starts talking to Moulder in the prisoner compound, a large square greenish-white reflection can be seen in his glasses which clearly has nothing to do with the location scene.
• Townsend Wisconsin is located in the north east part of the state and an hour from Lake Michigan. The show portrays the city to be close to the lake and the map shows in the in beginning of the episode that the town is located in the southeastern part of the state.
• Mountains can be seen in the background of the motel, which is supposed to be in Townsend, Wisconsin. There are no mountains in Wisconsin (and there are no large hills in Oconto County Wisconsin, where Townsend is located), but there are many in British Columbia where the series was filmed up until its sixth season.
• When Max Fenig has an epileptic seizure, Mulder straddles him and holds him still. In reality, you do NOT restrain an epileptic during a seizure as you can cause that person to hurt themselves.

The X Files 109 Space Trivia, Facts, Goofs & Description

 When a space shuttle mission is sabotaged, Mulder suspects it may be the work of an alien spirit that inhabits the body of a former Gemini astronaut.

Trivia

•  Although the series made use of a good amount of inexpensive stock footage from NASA, the construction of the command center set was subject to cost overruns, leading the episode to become the most expensive of the first season.
• Col. Belt was the mission command of Gemini 8 which nearly ended in disaster and had to make an emergency landing in the Pacific Ocean. This mirrors the real Gemini 8 commanded by Neil Armstrong. After docking with the Agena the coupled vehicles began an increasing unordered/uncontrollable spin. Armstrong was forced to emergency separate from the Agena, in hopes that would stop the spin. When it did not, he then fired the retro rockets to arrest the spin which resulted in the mission being aborted.
• Visual effects supervisor Mat Beck had only 4 days to create the special effects needed for the episode.
• This was intended as a "bottle episode" to save money by being shot in a single location, but still went over budget.
• The interior shots were filmed on a set constructed at an old Molson brewery site.
• When Mulder asks Michelle for access to her records, a starwars.doc is visible on the computer screen.
• This episode takes place in 1977 and 1993.
• Guest star Susanna Thompson has also appeared on an NCIS (2003) episode entitled The Ex-File.

spoilers

• This 1993 episode uses footage of three different shuttles. The aborted first launch sequence shows the shuttle Discovery. The successful second sequence shows the ill fated shuttle Columbia. In 2003, ten years after this episode premiered, the shuttle Columbia would disintegrate on reentry due to damaged heat tiles. Colonel Belt says in the episode, "the shuttle can't survive reentry. The fuselage- the fuselage is damaged. Silicone tiles are destroyed." When the shuttle is shown in orbit, the name on the tail appears be that of the space shuttle Challenger. The Challenger exploded 73 seconds after its launch on January 28, 1986.

Goofs

• (at around 28 mins) Michelle was involved in a car accident, which left her bruised at several places on her face. In the scenes following Col. Belt's press interview, there is absolutely no hint of any scar or injury on her face.
• Before the car crash, both cars have their wipers on because it is raining hard. And it is foggy. This poor visibility contributes to the car crash. After the crash it is not raining and not foggy

Spoilers

• It is not consistently depicted whether Marcus Belt served in the US Air Force or US Navy. In the present time of the story he is a Colonel (USAF) but is referred to as "CMDR" (US Navy) during his Gemini spacewalk. He is shown wearing Naval Aviator wings on his space suit. At NASA and in the obituary however, he is shown to be an Air Force Officer. However, the Navy Blue Angels flies over his funeral.
• (at around 22 mins) Launch pad personnel in orange suits are seen at the base of the main Shuttle engines less than two minutes before launch. In reality, all close-out crew depart the launch pad three hours prior to launch.
• Throughout the episode NASA addresses the shuttle crew as "OTC" while in reality OTC stands for Orbiter Test Conductors. The OTC is the individual in charge of the engineers monitoring the hardware and software on board the orbiter itself. Other test conductors are responsible for the external tank and solid rocket boosters, the payloads, support operations, landing operations, safety, communications and other functions.
• A flight of Navy Blue Angels flies over the funeral. The colonel being buried and most of the service members present were Air Force personnel.
• When looking for the evidence of Colonel Belt's knowledge of the sabotage, Scully is going through a series of numbered dossiers, two of them bearing the same number 54.
• Anachronisms
• Mulder states he is a big fan of Col. Belt and watched his Gemini 8 mission when he was 14 years old. Gemini 8 flew in March 1966. It was later established in the series that Mulder was born in October 1961.
• Since the first televised US space mission was Apollo 7, in October, 1968, Mulder could not have stayed up to watch a Gemini EV event.

The X Files 108 Ice Trivia, Facts, Goofs & Description

 Mulder and Scully are sent to investigate when a team of geophysicists stationed at a remote Alaskan outpost are killed by a parasitic alien life form.

Trivia

• The dog is David Duchovny's father's dog, Blue.
• This is known in the trade as a "bottle episode". In order to cut costs, the action of the episode is largely confined to just one or two sets.
• The alien parasites seen in this episode are the larvae of the darkling beetle, also known as super worms. They are commonly available as reptile food.
• One of the men in the teaser who shoots himself is played by Ken Kirzinger, the stunt co-ordinator on the series.
• It's likely that the character of Campbell is named in honor of John W. Campbell Jr., author of the story, "Who Goes There?" upon which The Thing from Another World (1951), The Thing (1982) and The Thing (2011) were based.
• Many have remarked on this episode's similarity with John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). Coincidentally, the series' production designer Graeme Murray also worked on Carpenter's movie.
• Richter's final video message is dated November 5, 1993. This was the same day that this episode aired.
• A meteor crater in an icy climate, parasites in meltwater and suspicious deaths are all important elements in "Smilla's Sense of Snow". Although the film came out four years after this episode, the novel was published in 1992 and was a worldwide bestseller.
• The aircraft flying Mulder, Scully and the team to the Arctic station is a New Zealand registered (ZK-CKT) Cessna 185D s/n 185-0929. As the ZK is part of the registration, it makes it easy to identify as a New Zealand aircraft. However, if the aircraft operated domestically in New Zealand only, the ZK prefix would not be required on the aircraft as part of the registration.

spoilers

• This episode marks the first time in the series that Mulder and Scully point their weapons on each other.

Goofs

• During the fight scene with Mulder and Bear, there is a running pinball machine in the background. When the machine is visible for the third time, it has been powered off. Throughout the rest of the episode, the machine remains on.
• After the dog recovers, Dr Hodge says the two dead worms were passed in his stool. The worms live in the brain of the host, and they introduced the second worm into the dog's ear. There is no connection from the brain to the digestive system, so the two worms that died in the dog's brain could never be passed in this way.
• The video transmission recorded by Richter is clearly not the footage watched by Mulder and Scully later on. There are obvious differences in Richter's way of speaking that reveal that the two versions were two different takes.
• A close-up of the mysterious worms obviously consists of real life meal worms. The CGI worms seen in several shots look very different, lacking the clearly segmented exoskeleton, limbs and abdomen/thorax/head transitions.
• (at around 2 mins) The agents arrive at what is called "Doolittle Airfield Nome, Alaska". There is a Nome airport, and the smaller "Nome City Field", but no Doolittle Field in real life.
• FBI Agent Scully makes two critical gun safety mistakes: When she dramatically removes the magazines from her Sig and Mulder's Glock automatic pistols and throws them out in the snow, she fails to remove the chambered rounds, meaning the guns are still loaded. Scully also fails to unload the pistol she sealed in an FBI evidence bag, and the deranged Nancy later fires a round from it.

The X Files 107 Ghost in the Machine Trivia, Facts, Goofs & Description

 
On Halloween, Mulder and Scully investigate the death of a corporate executive who may have been murdered by a thinking computer.

Trivia

• This is the first time that Scully fires her gun.
• Writer Howard Gordon cites this episode as one of the most disappointing he worked on.
• At approximately 30'35", the book that Scully is reading on her bed is The Obstacle Course written by J.F. Freedman, who is also known as Jerrold Freedman, the director.
• Dana Scully says her FBI ID# is 2317-616. 616 is the area code for Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Gillian Anderson went to high school.
• This is the second episode to feature Deep Throat.
• When Mulder and Scully get to Brad Wilczek's house, he asks "What took you so long?" This is a reference to what David Berkowitz, the American serial killer known as Son of Sam, said to the police when they arrived at his house.
• The elevator doesn't say "level 13" as it goes up the Eurisko building. However, this is likely because the building does not have a 13th floor as the number is considered unlucky by many builders.
• The basic theme of this episode is similar (and possibly a nod) to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
• After Mulder inserts the disk into the COS to destroy it, various commands can be seen appearing on the COS screen - one is "LOG ON USER FILE.REX CODE/0014356." 4356 is the PO Box number for an X-Files fanzine named X-Treme possibilities, which went on to produce a book: "X-Treme Possibilities: A Comprehensively Expanded Rummage through Five Years of the X-Files."
• Gillian Barber who appears as Jane Spiller would go on to star in further episodes of The X Files, playing the characters Beth Kane in Red Museum (1994) (season 2) and Penny Northern in Nisei (1995) (season 3) and Memento Mori (1997) (season 4).
• Blu Mankuma later appeared in Mind's Eye (1998).
• Kill Switch (1998) and Rm9sbG93ZXJz (2018) are also about malicious and homicidal A.I. while First Person Shooter (2000) is about a homicidal video game character.

spoilers

• The culmination is the scene in which Scully nearly gets sucked into an air conditioning fan. This was a last-minute addition to the script as the original plan - to have her in an elevator shaft - proved too expensive.

Goofs

• At approximately 15:04, Scully is typing at her computer, while dictating her entry to the audience. However, the text on the screen is actually ahead of her narration, and the text we see she has typed will be entered again, moments later.
• When explaining how the death occurred, it is said the servo was tampered with and that the ground was connected to the negative. Firstly, the item being pointed to on screen is certainly not a servo, at best a servo controller. Secondly, ground is the "negative" when it comes to power. Data lines may be labeled as negative. Regardless, none of these situations would cause the handle to be electrified. In fact, the hot lead, not the ground, would need to be tampered with.

Spoilers

• Around 22:50, FBI agent Jerry Lamana is trapped in an elevator. He either seems to have fallen and can't get up or he is pinned to the ground. According to Newton's Second Law however, he should be experiencing the sensation of weightlessness in a falling elevator, or pinned to the ceiling of the elevator.
• When explaining the death of Drake, it is shown that the lock mechanism had been tampered with, causing a short-circuit and killing him. Computer circuits do not use voltages and currents high enough to melt steel and launch a 180 pound man across a room. The circuit board shown would have had to have significant fire damage as well, if a steel key was melted.
• (at around 41 mins) The same shot of Claude Peterson is shown twice, first normally and then in reverse to make it seem like he is looking left and right.
• At 29:34 the camera pans around as Mulder and Scully turn and a man can be briefly seen walking in the background. In the very next shot, as Scully faces Mulder, the same man can be seen standing still in the middle of the path. His briefcase can be seen moving, so it's not a static image.
• At 13:23 on the DVD version of the episode when Mulder and Scully are questioning Brad Wilczek, he wants to show them the computer system that runs his house. The shot of the computer monitor reveals the behind the scenes crew in the reflection just before Wilczek turns the screen on.
• An elevated train is seen in some background shots in Crystal City, Virginia. Although the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Administration has elevated subway tracks throughout the Washington, DC, area, many of which look similar to this, the train shown is actually the Vancouver SkyTrain.

The X Files 106 Shadows Trivia, Facts, Goofs & Description

 Mulder and Scully investigate the deaths of two men believed to have been killed by a powerful psychokinetic force.

Trivia

• When Mulder and Scully are in the library, if you look at the newspaper report, above the story of Howard Graves' suicide there is an article about a killer who extracts his victim's livers and escapes from impossible locations. This is a reference to Eugene Tooms from Squeeze (1993).
• Four industrial fans generating winds of up to 100mph were used to create the climactic office hurricane. The scene was filmed late at night and the noise generated by the fans was so loud, that an infuriated neighbor started complaining about it.
• This episode features a recurring motif in the series where Mulder dashes into a situation to witness a paranormal happening while Scully is somehow delayed and misses it. (In this instance, she's having trouble with her seat-belt.) This is a writer's trick to help preserve the trademark Scully scepticism.
• This episode was partly inspired by the horror film The Entity (1982). The film starred Barbara Hershey, who later played Erika Price in Season Eleven.
• When Mulder and Scully are in the car park, and Howard Graves' car parking space is being renamed, the name being painted on is Tom Braidwood - who is the actor who plays Frohike and is also an Assistant Director on the series.
• The house where Lauren Kyte lives is the same filming location as the house of the investigating officer of the Powhatten Mill Murders in Squeeze (1993). The yellow and flower Prairie style windows are the indicator.
• The birthdate on the grave marker for Sarah Lynn Graves (Howard Graves' daughter) is September 8, 1966. This was the television premiere date for Star Trek: The Original Series, with the airing of the episode, "The Man Trap."
• After interviewing Lauren Kyte, Scully tells Mulder that she doesn't believe that it's Howard Graves who has been protecting Lauren. This is despite the fact that Scully herself identified Howard Graves, standing in Lauren's house on the surveillance photo, initially causing her to believe that he had faked his own death.
• Howard Patrick Graves was born on March 4, 1940 and died on October 5, 1993.
• Sarah Lynn Graves was born on September 8, 1966 and died on August 3, 1969.

spoilers

• This episode largely came about because executive producers Glen Morgan and James Wong were under pressure from the Fox executives to have Mulder and Scully investigate what they considered to be a more traditional paranormal case involving ghosts, as opposed to liver-eating mutants or extra-terrestrials. Morgan and Wong essentially wrote the episode to get the executives off their backs.

Goofs

• Howard Graves' tombstone states that he died on the 5th of October, but the opening scenes date stamp says the 22nd of September when it was supposed to be two weeks after Graves had died.
• The newspaper article found by Scully states that Howard Graves' middle name is Thomas, yet on his grave his middle name is Patrick.
• When Mulder and Scully are questioning Lauren in the investigation room, the piece of paper on Mulder's jacket changes place in between shots.
• When the cup falls over when Lauren wants to see Mr. Dorlund, the box of tissues disappears in the last shot.
• When Mulder breathes on the glasses to reveal the fingerprints, they show up as black. Unless Mulder's mouth is full of fingerprint powder, the fingerprints should have been white.
• The pathologist states of the initial two victims that the esophagus, larynx and hyoid bones have been crushed like chalk, then immediately says that there's no evidence of tissue damage, despite having just described significant tissue damage.
• When the doctor pulls the sheet down from the first body in the morgue, one of the victims' underwear can clearly be seen. While in the morgue, victim's bodies are stored unclothed so a full and complete autopsy can be completed. Leaving a victim's underwear on during an autopsy can hide potential evidence or injury.
• The corpses in the morgue scene could be seen breathing. The chest of the one closest to the screen was seen moving.
• Very obvious stunt doubles of Fox and Dana during the crash scene.
• When Mulder and Scully are talking about Howard Graves faking his own death, when they get to the bottom of the stairs, you can see the pole which the camera used to travel down the stairs.
• When Lauren pulls into the parking lot at the office, a Canadian-spec "Do not enter" traffic sign (red circle with white rectangle inside) is visible in the background.
• When they visit the Graves' tombs at the cemetery, Scully makes a comment that Sarah Lynn Graves, Howard's daughter, was "only three years old". Actually the dates on the stone say September 8th 1966 - August 3rd 1969. While the years indicate a three year period, Sarah died one month before her birthday, and thus would have officially 2 years. However, this may have been a deliberate simplification on Scully's part.

 

The X Files 105 The Jersey Devil Facts, Trivia, Goofs

• It was David Duchovny that suggested to Chris Carter that Claire Stansfield should play The Jersey Devil. Duchovny and Stansfield had met earlier while filming The Bounty Hunter (1992) together.
• This is the first episode to allude to Mulder's obsession with pornography ("Anti-gravity is right").
• In folklore, the Jersey Devil is usually portrayed as a human-sized vampire bat with a long face. This model is not used in this version.
• Another reference to The Silence of the Lambs is used in this episode, this time by Detective Thompson, whilst he is talking to Mulder, after Mulder's arrest, he says, "I've got a perpetrator out there, whether it's Hannibal the cannibal or Elmer Fudd, I've got a job, to protect people".
• This episode takes place in 1947 and 1993.
• The drawing of the female "devil" that Mulder carries with him is a representation of the Northern California Bigfoot captured on 16mm film by Roger Patterson in 1967. It's the first filmed evidence made public, and many still consider it the best evidence of the Bigfoot phenomenon. 
• Wayne Tippit is a distant relative of Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit who was murdered by Lee Harvey Oswald after President John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas Texas in November 1963. Wayne Tippit also had a small role as FBI Agent Frank in the 1991 film "JFK". Series star David Duchovny later played J.D. Tippit in the 1992 film "Ruby". 
• Late in the episode, Mulder requests a car while at FBI headquarters. Attached to the clerks desk is a "Baby Blues" comic strip from September 27, 1992. 
• There may be a bit of an inside joke with one of the characters. The Forest Ranger's name is Peter Brullet (pronounced "broo-LAY,") which sounds close to author Pierre Boulle. Similar to the focus of this episode, Boulle wrote a book describing human-like homonoids called "Planet of the Apes." 

spoilers

• In the final scene, the man and his son hiking in 1993 are played by the same actors, Bill Dow and Lachlan Murdoch, who played the man killed by one of the Jersey Devils in 1947 and his son in the opening scene.
• If the final verdict is correct that the "devils" are just humans who were never taught to live as civilized people, then this is the first X-Files episode with no fantasy or science fiction elements.
• This and Never Again (1997) are the only times in the entire original series in which Scully has a date. She will have another one in the revitalized series season 10 opener, My Struggle (2015).
• This is the first episode in which Mulder goes to jail.
• It is revealed that Scully has a godson, but this info is never used again in the remaining 10 seasons.

goofs

 

• When Mulder is looking through the phone book, his finger rests on the listing for the New Jersey State Parks office. The listing includes a phone number to call for park hours, with a note stating "Thru Labour Day Only." American English drops the "u" from words like "labor."
• When Mulder and Scully first walk across the office to acquire a car, the cameraman walks into the edge of a desk and the camera noticeably jolts to the left. A second later the offending desk is in shot.

 

 

The X Files 104 Conduit Facts, Trivia & Goofs

• This episode marks the first time Mulder says the famous line: "I want to believe".
• The huge portrait of Ruby that Kevin draws was originally done via a computer printout. However, it looked a little too perfect so art department member Vivien Nishi painstakingly wrote out all the 1s and 0s by hand. This took her several days for a shot that lasted a few seconds on screen.
• In the file about Samantha that her boss shows Scully, the complete name of Samantha is Samantha T. Mulder, but later in the series it is learned that her second name was Ann.
• This is the first episode in which Mulder fires a gun. He uses it to scare off some wolves.
• Joel Palmer, who plays young Kevin, reappears in the series in Season 2 in the possession episode, The Calusari (1995).
• Joel Palmer, who plays young Kevin, reappears in the series in Season 2 in the possession episode, The Calusari (1995).
• Carrie Snodgress is the first Academy Award nominated actress to appear as a guest star in the series.
• The location of the incident is called Lake Okobogee which is how you pronounce the real Lake Okoboji which is also on northwest Iowa
• This episode marks the first time that the X-Files are referred to as "fringe events".
• This episode reveals that Mulder's hometown is Chilmarc, Massachusetts. When a mention of the town reappears in the Season 2 opener, Little Green Men (1994), it is spelled Chilmark.
• Shelley Owens is the sister of Chris Owens who later would have a recurring part as Agent Spender.
• Tessa's appointment with her doctor is on August 7th. This is David Duchovny's birthday.
• Samantha Mulder's case file is X-40253.
• Don Thompson who plays Holtzman would go on to star in further episodes of The X Files, playing Henry Willig in 'Sleepless' (Season 2) and Lt. Col. Victor Stans in 'The Walk' (Season 3). He also had an uncredited role as the terrorist in the ghoul mask in 'The Pine Bluff Variant' (Season 5).
• When Scully views the file pertaining to the disappearance of Mulder's sister Samantha, her date of birth is listed as being January 22, 1964. Scully states that Samantha was 8 when she disappeared, but the date of her disappearance is stated in the show as being November 27, 1973, this would have made her 9 years old, not 8, as is stated all the way through the show.
• Donald Gibb of Bloodsport (1988) appears as the bartender in this episode.

Spoilers

• Chris Carter asserts that this episode is very important in that it's the first one when Scully realizes that Mulder might not actually be the crackpot he appears to be. The scientific proof that she reads at the end of Conduit (1993) concludes that Ruby, the returned alien abductee, has spent a degree of time in a state of weightlessness.

Goofs

 

• At the opening of the episode, Darlene Morris burns her left hand trying to open the RV door, then wears an oven Glove only on her left hand. She opens the door again but this time with her both hands without any harm to the naked right hand
• In Samantha's personal X-File, her middle name is only listed as 'T', while in several other episodes it is Anne.
• Before Kevin hands the pad to Mulder you can see that some of the shapes are filled in. But after Kevin hands Mulder the paper the shapes are just outlines, and it doesn't appear that pages were flipped
• When Mulder is running after the boy near the end, and the motorcycles are coming, we see him throw the torch quite far away, yet when the motorcycles are gone we see it is right next to him
• At the end of the episode watch the small cross that Scully wears as she and Mulder walk down the hall. When the shot changes to a close-up, it has jumped into her shirt
• When Ruby is discovered late in the episode, Scully is seen administering CPR on her with a gentle pulsing motion. In fact, CPR requires firm thrusts which have been known to break ribs. The mild movements made by Scully are unlikely to have any resuscitative effect

  - When Mulder and Scully go to Okoboji, IA the title on the screen reads Okobogee, IA. This is misspelled every instance it occurs in the episode, including the captioning and the sign their car passes on the way to the lake.