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.