Sorry that the post is later again this week; I started it yesterday but went out for a meal with my dance group and didn't have time to finish. :)
Back in 2014 I did a post of my Top 10 X-Files episodes which you can read here: http://starsparklex.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/top-10-x-files-episodes.html
Now Season 11 is currently on in the UK, here's a follow ups of more of my favourite episodes. While the Top 10 post is in the order that I like the episodes, this one is in chronological order.
Unless otherwise stated videos are trailers. Post contains some spoilers. :)
Eve (Series/Season 1, Episode 11)
Two men are murdered in startlingly similar ways (blood drained out of holes in their necks) at exactly the same time. When Mulder and Scully (played by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson respectively) investigate they discover that the men's daughters Teena Simmons (played by Sabrina Krievens) in Connecticut and Cindy Reardon (played by her real life twin Erika) look identical. It turns out both girls were conceived by IVF (back in the early 90s I don't think it was as well known or widely used as it is now) but their origins are more complicated than that, and they share a connection that puts them (or other people) in danger...
Originally I thought this was about vampires but it turned out to be about the dangers of genetic cloning. The ending left it open for a follow-up episode. I didn't think the "Eves" have come up again but on IMDB they're listed as appearing uncredited in the S5, Ep 20 episode The End.
Darkness Falls (S1, Ep 20)
When a group of loggers go missing deep in the Olympic Forest in Washington State Scully and Mulder are sent to find out what happened to them. They team up with Park ranger Larry Moore (Jason Beghe) and Steve Humpreys (Tom O'Rourke) who works for the logging company and than come across Doug Spinny (Titus Welliver), an eco-terrorist who deeply resents what the logging team are doing to the woods. Having no choice but to stick together, they soon learn that they're not alone in the forest; there are also strange insects unlike any known on earth,and the only thing that keeps them away is light. Can they make it through the night?
Of course you already know that Mulder and Scully escaped or the series would be over! lol. The bugs that perhaps came from another plant thousands of years ago and have been disturbed by the logging company is a good storyline and timely now too, considering environmental issues are probably worse than they were over 20 years ago.
Watch a scene from Darkness Falls here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7iWpZK5LHw
3 (S2, Ep 8
Scully is currently missing after being abducted by Duane Barry in the previous episode Ascension and Mulder is grieving her loss when he's asked to look into a murder in Los Angeles thought to be linked to previous vampire inspired killings. His investigation leads him to a goth/vampire club Club Tepes (named after Vlad Tepes aka Vlad the Impaler) and the mysterious Kristin Kilar (played by Perrey Reeves). She indulges in blood play in the club and is the ex-girlfriend of John aka The Son (Frank Military) who has been arrested after Mulder found him in a blood bank helping himself to bags of blood. John believes himself to be a vampire which Mulder and the other detectives doubt, so naturally they're shocked when he burns up after being left in a cell during sunrise! Mulder grows close to Kristin but is he too close to see the truth?
This is one of only a couple of X-Files episodes featuring vampires I think. The other one would be Bad Blood which is more of a comedy one. (See Top 10 post at the top of the page). 3 has a much darker vibe. Mulder is missing Scully during this episode and I think it makes him more vulnerable to getting caught up in Kristin's life.
John is part of a vampire trio made up of himself (The Son), The Father and The Unholy Spirit. When Kristin sees the dark turn things have taken she tries to get away from him the others, but it's not so easy and she ends up making the ultimate sacrifice.
Note: Perrey Reves was David Duchvony's girlfriend in real like at the time. I didn't know this until today!
Small Potatoes (S4, Ep 20)
The agents investigate when several babies in a town are born with tails and despite belonging to 4 different couples (plus one single mum), testing reveals that thy all have the same dad. It turns out all the women apart from one have been receiving IVF treatment. The "odd woman out" Amanda Nelligan (Christine Cavanaugh) says that her baby's father is Luke Skywalker! Mulder suspects the janitor (caretaker) Eddie Van Blundht (with a silent H!) at the clinic where 4 of the woman were treated, of having had a tail removed and his suspicions are proved right. Eddie (who is played by Darin Morgan, a series writer on the show) turns out to have fathered all 5 babies. But how is that possible when none of the women remember sleeping with him?
"Mulder" behaving strangely!
This is a funny one. Eddie is a man who hasn't been very lucky in life, he's "small potatoes" and doesn't stand out much, apart from the fact that he once had a tail and has the ability to shapeshift. He uses this to take advantage of women, so while you may feel sorry for someone who feels like a "loser in life", he loses that sympathy somewhat! He appears to each woman as the person most likely to able to successfully seduce them, eg. as their husbands, or in Amanda's case as Luke Skywalker! There are some good scenes where he tries out being Mulder for a while. Check out the video above.
Terms of Endearment (S6, Ep 7)
Wayne Weinsider (played by Bruce Campbell, probably most famous for the horror films Evil Dead) and his wife Laura (Lisa Jane Persky) tragically lose their baby. But there are strange circumstances around the supposed miscarriage, just before it happened Laura had a vivid dream that a demon was trying to pull the baby from her womb. Since the couple had just learnt that the baby has some birth defects, Laura is suspected of having induced miscarriage herself and arrested. Her brother the local deputy sheriff contacts the X-Files. Mulder soon has a hunch there's more to the case and thinks that Wayne is not who (or what he appears to be). After delving further into his private life he begins to piece a theory together about what Wayne is up to.
Clip of Mulder pursuing Wayne
Good episode and interesting concept of a demon just trying to be a normal "family man" but disappointed because his babies inherit his demon traits. At first he's happy to let Laura take the blame and tries to murder her, but shows some compassion at the end. He has other options baby wise but his 2nd pregnant wife has plans of her own!
Hungry (S7, Ep 3)
Fast food worker Rob Roberts (Chad Donella) is struggling with an unusual eating disorder- he's really hungry but normal food just isn't filling him up. Could his problems have something to do with the disappearance of a customer at the Lucky Boy drive-thru where he works?
Rob is a likable character despite what he does, and you end up feeling sorry for him. (Unlike with the character Virgil Incanto in 2Shy, a serial killer who preys on overweight women for a strange reason; I found him annoying, lol). He's just trying to live his life but his addiction gets in the way.I aways want to know more in these storylines like: Was he born different or did it develop during puberty or something? (I would think maybe he was born that way.) *How come the "hunger" is getting worse now? Do/did his parents also have to eat brains/were they also genetically different?? (he appears to have no family) but there's only so much they can do in an hour episode, lol. I would have preferred a different ending where Rob got help. The therapist is a nice character.
*Update 28/6/18: After watching this again last night, I realised that Rob says he's always had cravings but it's been getting harder to control them more recently.
Sein und Zeit and Closure (S7, Eps 10 & 11)
These two episodes dealt with one of the longest running storyline in the series- the disappearance of Mulder's younger sister Samantha, which happened in November 1973 when he was 12 and she was 8. He believed her to have been taken by aliens and it was a large part of the reason behind him joining the FBI and his work on the X-Files. Read more on Samantha here (contains spoilers): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Mulder
Mulder previously thought he might have discovered what happened to Samantha in the episode Paper Hearts (S4, Ep 10). He thought she was a victim of currently imprisoned serial killer John Lee Roche who murdered little girls and cut hearts out of their clothes, but it turned out that John was stringing him along.
In Sein und Zeit (Being and Time in German) Mulder requests to be involved in the case of the disappearance of Amber Lynn LaPierre (played by Megan Corletto), a little girl who vanished from her home one night. Before her disappearance her father Bud had a vision of her dead. Her mother Billie also has a vision of her trying to communicate the number 74 to her. A note is found in her room which strangely mentions Santa Claus. It turns our to be written by Billie, although she doesn't recall doing it. Mulder remembers another case in 1987 where a little boy when missing and his mum was convicted of his murder. When Mulder visits her in prison she tells him that her son was taken by the "walk-ins", spirits who save children from impending danger.
Mulder understandably finds the case hard to deal with and things worsen when his mum kills herself. He thinks she knew something about what happened to Samantha and was murdered, but it turns out she committed suicide because she was terminally ill. Mulder wants to stop investigating but then the case takes a new turn.
Sein und Zeit
In Closure, Mulder and Scully have come to the Santa village (which Scully noticed while they were along the California State Route 74 at the end of Sein und Zeit) and discover that the owner Ed Truelove (Randall Bosley), who dresses as Santa Claus as part of his job, has murdered many children and buried them out the back of the ranch. Although Amber visited the Santa village and a video of her is found in Truelove's possession, her body is not there. Mulder meets psychic Harold Piller who also believes in the walk-ins and determines to find out what's going on.
Major spoilers
Scene where Mulder sees Samantha
I like the way they tied things up in this episode and it's an interesting concept. Mulder learns that Samantha was abducted by the government/aliens and used as part of their cloning experiments. She ended up living on an Air Force base with the Cigarette Smoking Man, real name Carl Gerhard Busch (played by William B. Davis) and his son Jeffery (who is probably Mulder's half brother since the Smoking Man is thought to be his real father) and she was subjected to further painful tests. In 1979 she managed to escape and ended up in a local hospital where a nurse also had a vision of her dead and then later found her gone from the hospital room, a case mirroring Amber Lynn's. Mulder sees Samantha, now in her early teens, and the other walk-ins, including Harold Piller's son who disappeared as well. He now knows that she is safe.
The idea of walk-ins is intriguing. I'd heard of them elsewhere (it's a real concept, not just made-up for the X-Files) but they're not usually described as children who have physically disappeared. They are normally said to be people whose original soul has gone and been replaced with a new one, usually a more "advanced being", so the physical body is still there. It's kind of like Quantum Leap, I suppose, but in that case Sam Beckett temporarily enters the bodies and he is also human. Somebody might want to leave their body because they've suffered a trauma or are severely depressed and no longer want to be alive. If you're interested in the concept here are a couple of links:
http://www.crystalinks.com/walk_ins.html
http://www.greatdreams.com/walkin.htm
In this story walk-ins are "beings of starlight" who save children before the suffer tragedy. This kind of thing make me think though, why some kids and not others? Any why didn't they save Samantha earlier? Why not take her before she was abducted by the government and save her all that pain? I suppose it's like in real life, you can't explain everything. Anyway, it was nicely tied-up. :)
Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster (S10, Ep 3)
Scully and Mulder are looking into the case of a person found in the woods who appears to have been the victim of an animal attack. They soon realise there's more to it- there are reports of a strange lizard creature in the local area. The agents come across a man named Guy Mann (played by New Zealand actor and comedian Rhys Darby), a mobile phone worker who is seemingly unconnected with the events. But it becomes apparent he's more involved than they thought.
In general I don't like this series as much as the older ones but I would say this is the best episode of S10. It was directed by Darin Morgan who played Eddie in Small Potatoes (see above). Fans may also notice producer/director Kim Manners' name on a gravestone in one scene. He sadly died in 2009.
This is a comedy episode like Bad Blood and X-Cops (S7, Ep 12). I like the twist on the werewolf myth. For a serious werewolf episode see Shapes, another good one). In this case Guy was a lizard who was bitten by a human and transformed into a man! He hates being human and doing mundane things like working in a phone shop, and desperately wants to be a lizard again. (His wish comes true!).
Best parts are Guy's sweet relationship with his dog, the creepy old man in the motel and what he sees while "peeping" and Guy's mobile phone shop fantasy scene! I have included a clip of the fantasy scene here. (Adult theme).
Hope you enjoyed the post! I may do another one about more episodes in future. :) Want more X-Files? Check out these links:
Return of the X-Files in 2016: http://starsparklex.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/new-x-files-series.html
About the latest series/season, S11: http://starsparklex.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/the-x-files-returns.html
Back in 2014 I did a post of my Top 10 X-Files episodes which you can read here: http://starsparklex.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/top-10-x-files-episodes.html
Now Season 11 is currently on in the UK, here's a follow ups of more of my favourite episodes. While the Top 10 post is in the order that I like the episodes, this one is in chronological order.
Unless otherwise stated videos are trailers. Post contains some spoilers. :)
Eve (Series/Season 1, Episode 11)
Two men are murdered in startlingly similar ways (blood drained out of holes in their necks) at exactly the same time. When Mulder and Scully (played by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson respectively) investigate they discover that the men's daughters Teena Simmons (played by Sabrina Krievens) in Connecticut and Cindy Reardon (played by her real life twin Erika) look identical. It turns out both girls were conceived by IVF (back in the early 90s I don't think it was as well known or widely used as it is now) but their origins are more complicated than that, and they share a connection that puts them (or other people) in danger...
Originally I thought this was about vampires but it turned out to be about the dangers of genetic cloning. The ending left it open for a follow-up episode. I didn't think the "Eves" have come up again but on IMDB they're listed as appearing uncredited in the S5, Ep 20 episode The End.
Darkness Falls (S1, Ep 20)
When a group of loggers go missing deep in the Olympic Forest in Washington State Scully and Mulder are sent to find out what happened to them. They team up with Park ranger Larry Moore (Jason Beghe) and Steve Humpreys (Tom O'Rourke) who works for the logging company and than come across Doug Spinny (Titus Welliver), an eco-terrorist who deeply resents what the logging team are doing to the woods. Having no choice but to stick together, they soon learn that they're not alone in the forest; there are also strange insects unlike any known on earth,and the only thing that keeps them away is light. Can they make it through the night?
Of course you already know that Mulder and Scully escaped or the series would be over! lol. The bugs that perhaps came from another plant thousands of years ago and have been disturbed by the logging company is a good storyline and timely now too, considering environmental issues are probably worse than they were over 20 years ago.
Watch a scene from Darkness Falls here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7iWpZK5LHw
3 (S2, Ep 8
Scully is currently missing after being abducted by Duane Barry in the previous episode Ascension and Mulder is grieving her loss when he's asked to look into a murder in Los Angeles thought to be linked to previous vampire inspired killings. His investigation leads him to a goth/vampire club Club Tepes (named after Vlad Tepes aka Vlad the Impaler) and the mysterious Kristin Kilar (played by Perrey Reeves). She indulges in blood play in the club and is the ex-girlfriend of John aka The Son (Frank Military) who has been arrested after Mulder found him in a blood bank helping himself to bags of blood. John believes himself to be a vampire which Mulder and the other detectives doubt, so naturally they're shocked when he burns up after being left in a cell during sunrise! Mulder grows close to Kristin but is he too close to see the truth?
This is one of only a couple of X-Files episodes featuring vampires I think. The other one would be Bad Blood which is more of a comedy one. (See Top 10 post at the top of the page). 3 has a much darker vibe. Mulder is missing Scully during this episode and I think it makes him more vulnerable to getting caught up in Kristin's life.
John is part of a vampire trio made up of himself (The Son), The Father and The Unholy Spirit. When Kristin sees the dark turn things have taken she tries to get away from him the others, but it's not so easy and she ends up making the ultimate sacrifice.
Note: Perrey Reves was David Duchvony's girlfriend in real like at the time. I didn't know this until today!
Small Potatoes (S4, Ep 20)
The agents investigate when several babies in a town are born with tails and despite belonging to 4 different couples (plus one single mum), testing reveals that thy all have the same dad. It turns out all the women apart from one have been receiving IVF treatment. The "odd woman out" Amanda Nelligan (Christine Cavanaugh) says that her baby's father is Luke Skywalker! Mulder suspects the janitor (caretaker) Eddie Van Blundht (with a silent H!) at the clinic where 4 of the woman were treated, of having had a tail removed and his suspicions are proved right. Eddie (who is played by Darin Morgan, a series writer on the show) turns out to have fathered all 5 babies. But how is that possible when none of the women remember sleeping with him?
This is a funny one. Eddie is a man who hasn't been very lucky in life, he's "small potatoes" and doesn't stand out much, apart from the fact that he once had a tail and has the ability to shapeshift. He uses this to take advantage of women, so while you may feel sorry for someone who feels like a "loser in life", he loses that sympathy somewhat! He appears to each woman as the person most likely to able to successfully seduce them, eg. as their husbands, or in Amanda's case as Luke Skywalker! There are some good scenes where he tries out being Mulder for a while. Check out the video above.
Terms of Endearment (S6, Ep 7)
Wayne Weinsider (played by Bruce Campbell, probably most famous for the horror films Evil Dead) and his wife Laura (Lisa Jane Persky) tragically lose their baby. But there are strange circumstances around the supposed miscarriage, just before it happened Laura had a vivid dream that a demon was trying to pull the baby from her womb. Since the couple had just learnt that the baby has some birth defects, Laura is suspected of having induced miscarriage herself and arrested. Her brother the local deputy sheriff contacts the X-Files. Mulder soon has a hunch there's more to the case and thinks that Wayne is not who (or what he appears to be). After delving further into his private life he begins to piece a theory together about what Wayne is up to.
Good episode and interesting concept of a demon just trying to be a normal "family man" but disappointed because his babies inherit his demon traits. At first he's happy to let Laura take the blame and tries to murder her, but shows some compassion at the end. He has other options baby wise but his 2nd pregnant wife has plans of her own!
Hungry (S7, Ep 3)
Fast food worker Rob Roberts (Chad Donella) is struggling with an unusual eating disorder- he's really hungry but normal food just isn't filling him up. Could his problems have something to do with the disappearance of a customer at the Lucky Boy drive-thru where he works?
Rob is a likable character despite what he does, and you end up feeling sorry for him. (Unlike with the character Virgil Incanto in 2Shy, a serial killer who preys on overweight women for a strange reason; I found him annoying, lol). He's just trying to live his life but his addiction gets in the way.I aways want to know more in these storylines like: Was he born different or did it develop during puberty or something? (I would think maybe he was born that way.) *How come the "hunger" is getting worse now? Do/did his parents also have to eat brains/were they also genetically different?? (he appears to have no family) but there's only so much they can do in an hour episode, lol. I would have preferred a different ending where Rob got help. The therapist is a nice character.
*Update 28/6/18: After watching this again last night, I realised that Rob says he's always had cravings but it's been getting harder to control them more recently.
Sein und Zeit and Closure (S7, Eps 10 & 11)
These two episodes dealt with one of the longest running storyline in the series- the disappearance of Mulder's younger sister Samantha, which happened in November 1973 when he was 12 and she was 8. He believed her to have been taken by aliens and it was a large part of the reason behind him joining the FBI and his work on the X-Files. Read more on Samantha here (contains spoilers): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Mulder
Mulder previously thought he might have discovered what happened to Samantha in the episode Paper Hearts (S4, Ep 10). He thought she was a victim of currently imprisoned serial killer John Lee Roche who murdered little girls and cut hearts out of their clothes, but it turned out that John was stringing him along.
In Sein und Zeit (Being and Time in German) Mulder requests to be involved in the case of the disappearance of Amber Lynn LaPierre (played by Megan Corletto), a little girl who vanished from her home one night. Before her disappearance her father Bud had a vision of her dead. Her mother Billie also has a vision of her trying to communicate the number 74 to her. A note is found in her room which strangely mentions Santa Claus. It turns our to be written by Billie, although she doesn't recall doing it. Mulder remembers another case in 1987 where a little boy when missing and his mum was convicted of his murder. When Mulder visits her in prison she tells him that her son was taken by the "walk-ins", spirits who save children from impending danger.
Mulder understandably finds the case hard to deal with and things worsen when his mum kills herself. He thinks she knew something about what happened to Samantha and was murdered, but it turns out she committed suicide because she was terminally ill. Mulder wants to stop investigating but then the case takes a new turn.
In Closure, Mulder and Scully have come to the Santa village (which Scully noticed while they were along the California State Route 74 at the end of Sein und Zeit) and discover that the owner Ed Truelove (Randall Bosley), who dresses as Santa Claus as part of his job, has murdered many children and buried them out the back of the ranch. Although Amber visited the Santa village and a video of her is found in Truelove's possession, her body is not there. Mulder meets psychic Harold Piller who also believes in the walk-ins and determines to find out what's going on.
Major spoilers
Scene where Mulder sees Samantha
I like the way they tied things up in this episode and it's an interesting concept. Mulder learns that Samantha was abducted by the government/aliens and used as part of their cloning experiments. She ended up living on an Air Force base with the Cigarette Smoking Man, real name Carl Gerhard Busch (played by William B. Davis) and his son Jeffery (who is probably Mulder's half brother since the Smoking Man is thought to be his real father) and she was subjected to further painful tests. In 1979 she managed to escape and ended up in a local hospital where a nurse also had a vision of her dead and then later found her gone from the hospital room, a case mirroring Amber Lynn's. Mulder sees Samantha, now in her early teens, and the other walk-ins, including Harold Piller's son who disappeared as well. He now knows that she is safe.
The idea of walk-ins is intriguing. I'd heard of them elsewhere (it's a real concept, not just made-up for the X-Files) but they're not usually described as children who have physically disappeared. They are normally said to be people whose original soul has gone and been replaced with a new one, usually a more "advanced being", so the physical body is still there. It's kind of like Quantum Leap, I suppose, but in that case Sam Beckett temporarily enters the bodies and he is also human. Somebody might want to leave their body because they've suffered a trauma or are severely depressed and no longer want to be alive. If you're interested in the concept here are a couple of links:
http://www.crystalinks.com/walk_ins.html
http://www.greatdreams.com/walkin.htm
In this story walk-ins are "beings of starlight" who save children before the suffer tragedy. This kind of thing make me think though, why some kids and not others? Any why didn't they save Samantha earlier? Why not take her before she was abducted by the government and save her all that pain? I suppose it's like in real life, you can't explain everything. Anyway, it was nicely tied-up. :)
Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster (S10, Ep 3)
Scully and Mulder are looking into the case of a person found in the woods who appears to have been the victim of an animal attack. They soon realise there's more to it- there are reports of a strange lizard creature in the local area. The agents come across a man named Guy Mann (played by New Zealand actor and comedian Rhys Darby), a mobile phone worker who is seemingly unconnected with the events. But it becomes apparent he's more involved than they thought.
In general I don't like this series as much as the older ones but I would say this is the best episode of S10. It was directed by Darin Morgan who played Eddie in Small Potatoes (see above). Fans may also notice producer/director Kim Manners' name on a gravestone in one scene. He sadly died in 2009.
This is a comedy episode like Bad Blood and X-Cops (S7, Ep 12). I like the twist on the werewolf myth. For a serious werewolf episode see Shapes, another good one). In this case Guy was a lizard who was bitten by a human and transformed into a man! He hates being human and doing mundane things like working in a phone shop, and desperately wants to be a lizard again. (His wish comes true!).
Best parts are Guy's sweet relationship with his dog, the creepy old man in the motel and what he sees while "peeping" and Guy's mobile phone shop fantasy scene! I have included a clip of the fantasy scene here. (Adult theme).
Hope you enjoyed the post! I may do another one about more episodes in future. :) Want more X-Files? Check out these links:
Return of the X-Files in 2016: http://starsparklex.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/new-x-files-series.html
About the latest series/season, S11: http://starsparklex.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/the-x-files-returns.html
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