![[Mulder and Fowley]](x26.jpg "[Mulder and Fowley]")
Season
6 carries on where the film,
Fight the
Future
, left off. The physical X Files are a charred mess,
and Mulder is trying to recreate the documents. He is also trying to
convince his bosses that he should be reassigned to the X Files
project -- because he and Scully now have definitive proof of an alien
virus that causes EBEs to grow inside their human hosts. But Scully
can't back him up -- she was unconscious for most of the critical
time, and the DNA she has examined is entirely human.
Skinner gives Mulder a hint -- and so the pair rush off to investigate an alien hiding in a nuclear power plant. Agents Spender and Fowley, now in charge of the X Files, seem set on discrediting them -- but Fowley may be playing a double game. The Committee have been doing brain surgery on the mind reading boy -- but are now using him to track down the alien themselves. He escapes into Scully's care for a while -- but is re-kidnapped. But that gives her long enough to discover he has the virus, too -- in fact, so does everyone, because it is junk DNA.
A stolen car chase ends with a man in jail, and his wife bizarrely dead. Mulder and Scully, currently checking up on fertilizer purchases, decide to investigate. Scully's investigation of the corpse leads her to think there is a possibility the wife was infected with a dangerous disease, and calls a quarantine, just as Patrick Crump escapes, hijacks Mulder's car, and forces him at gunpoint to drive west. Mulder discovers that Crump has a pain in his head that can only be reduced by driving west, at ever increasing speed. If he stops, he will die, like his wife. Scully continues to investigate, and discovers an experimental Very Low Frequency radio wave transmitter at the edge of the Crump's farm. A power surge caused a build-up of pressure in the inner ear -- which is killing people. Scully rushes to the west coast, with a plan for saving Crump's life by relieving the pressure -- but she is too late. And their new FBI boss is deeply unimpressed with their extra-curricular activities.
![[Mulder and Scully]](x28.jpg "[Mulder and Scully]")
6.3
Triangle
-- BBC1, Wednesday 19 January 2000
Mulder investigates a strange appearance in the Bermuda Triangle and finds himself trapped aboard a 1939 cruise liner being invaded by Nazis. Crew, enemy and passengers all look strangely familiar -- including an OSS agent who looks like Scully, and an SS officer who smokes... Mulder finds himself in a desperate race to stop the Nazis getting hold of an important scientist. Meanwhile, back in the present day, the Lone Gunmen ask an out of favour Scully to help them find Mulder -- and she tries desperately to call in favours. Eventually, Skinner gives her the information she needs, and she and the Gunmen go off to save Mulder, searching a deserted ship. He persuades 1939-Scully to take the ship back into the Triangle to stop the Nazis. In the heat of the moment he kisses her -- she is not amused -- then jumps off the ship, to be picked up from the water by the present day Scully.
[The BBC showed the two parts as a feature-length episode.] Mulder and Scully are near "Area 51", to meet a contact. They get stopped by a military patrol, then a UFO flies overhead, and swaps the consciousnesses of Mulder and the chief agent, Fletcher. Fletcher has a grand time playing FBI agent, and tidying Mulder's flat, whilst Mulder has to cope with Fletcher's dysfunctional children and unhappy wife. The contact gets in touch with "Mulder" again, who reports it to his FBI boss. Scully eventually realises something is up, and, with the help of the Lone Gunmen, searches for a way to reverse the swap. But she discovers it is due to a warp caused by the UFO (being flown by the army), and it will be impossible to reproduce conditions precisely enough to swap back. However, she has exhausted the patience of her new boss, and been sacked from the FBI. Mulder eventually finds out who the contact is (during a wonderfully farcical scene in a bar, and an even funnier confrontation with the contact, where we learn he has contacted Mulder because he wants to find out from Mulder what's going on: "We just fly 'em. " ) Eventually one of the other agents discovers the process is healing itself, and brings Mulder and Fletcher back together in time to swap back (and lose all memory of the intervening episode, in a Trek-like "reset"). [So, if Mulder's flat stays tidy, and the coins stay entwined, why doesn't Scully's sacking stay real, too?]
![[Mulder and Scully]](x6-1.jpg "[Mulder and Scully]")
A
woman discovers her unborn baby may have some strange bony growths on
its head -- then that night she dreams a demon steals the baby, and
when she awakes, the baby has gone. Her brother, the local sheriff,
reports the case to Agent Spender -- who promises a full
investigation, then shreds the paperwork. But Mulder finds out, and
investigates (instead of doing the background investigations of
government employees that he has been assigned to). He decides Wayne,
the husband, is a demon, but Scully finds traces of an herbal
abortifacient and hallucinogen in the woman's blood. Mulder's
investigations force the husband to protect himself, and he convinces
his wife she killed the baby, and she is arrested. Wayne visits her in
prison, and sucks out her soul, sending her into a coma. Wayne, it
turns out, has another wife on the other side of the county, who is
also pregnant, and whose sonargram has shown similar fetal defects.
Wayne tries to kill that baby too -- he is a demon, but is trying to
have a normal child. But his other wife is also a demon, who has been
trying for some time for her own demonic child, and has now succeeded.
Six months ago, on Valentine's Day, it hailed heart-shaped lumps of ice in a drought stricken town in Kansas. Today, the Rain King -- who, ever since that day, has been able to make it rain -- is charging desperate farmers for his talent. But the mayor suspects him of causing the drought, and calls in Mulder and Scully to investigate. The King isn't actually making it rain -- he's just being followed around by a rain cloud. The weather controller is the local meteorologist, who is sub-consciously causing the drought, due to unrequited love for the King's ex-fiancee. After lots of chasing around, gobs of Oz references, and Mulder of all people giving advice on dating, all ends happily ever after.
On Christmas Eve Mulder persuades a reluctant Scully to join him investigating a haunted house. He tells her the story of two lovers' suicide pact in 1917 -- and that the house has been haunted ever since. The spooky incidents increase until even Scully becomes convinced "Yes, I'm scared. But it's an irrational fear." The ghosts [Ed Asner, Lily Tomlin] are real enough -- they have lured many couples in and convinced them to kill each other. They nearly succeed again, by playing tricks and psychological mind games, and nearly convincing each that they have been shot by the other, but the agents just manage to escape.
![[Mulder and Scully]](x29.jpg "[Mulder and Scully]")
6.9
Tithonus
-- BBC1, Saturday 1 July 2000
Scully is assigned to a new partner, Agent Ritter, to investigate a New York photographer, Fellig, who keeps turning up at the scene of death rather too early. Ritter suspects murder, and is determined to bag Fellig, by fair means or foul, but Scully comes to realise this is an X-File -- Fellig has looked about 65 for at least 40 years, and he can "sense" death. Mulder, back in Washington doing background checks, discovers Fellig is over a hundred years old. Scully confronts him, and he describes how he cheated Death during a yellow fever plague, and now cannot die. But he desperately wants to die, and is trying to catch Death in the act. In the finale, Ritter shoots Fellig, not realising Scully is behind him; the bullet hits her too. But just as Death is about to take her, Fellig takes her place, and finally meets death.
In a twist on the Clive [sic] Bruckman story, Scully and Mulder meet the only person on earth who not only stares death in the face but actually wants to take its picture. Alfred Fellig has developed the ability to tell when someone is about to die. But will he ever meet the Grim Reaper himself?
Radio Times -- 9 May 1999
Agent Peyton Ritter: Richard Ruccolo --- Alfred Fellig: Geoffrey Lewis
Eos obtained the gift of immortality from the gods for Tithonus, but, because she forgot to ask that he remain eternally young, Tithonus in his old age withered away to a decrepit and shrivelled old man.
-- "Tithonus", Microsoft Encarta 99 Encyclopedia.
The episode starts with Assistant Director Walter Skinner in hospital, covered in some strange black growth, having a heart attack, and dying. We flash back 24 hours to see what happened. He has been poisoned by someone -- and Mulder and Scully rush to find out who and why. There is some conspiracy about a Senate enquiry into exporting technology, and lots of people run around killing other people, chasing other people, saving other people, all of which seems to involve a strange bearded man. Skinner has been infected with some nanotechnology that is growing carbon obstructions in his arteries. He expresses his gratitude to Scully for her efforts, and apologies for not being supportive of them in the past. But the agents cannot save him, and he dies in hospital. Then the bearded man appears, and turns down a dial, which removes the carbon obstructions, and Skinner revives. Three months later, he forbids the agents to investigate further -- and we learn the bearded man is Krycek, who can turn up the dial on Skinner at any time.
[The BBC showed the two parts as a feature-length episode.] Cassandra Spender, ( Patient X ), mysteriously reappears as a patient aboard a strange train, no longer confined to a wheelchair. The mutilated faced men burn all her doctors, and she asks to see Mulder, as the only person who will believe her. But Agent Jeffrey Spender lays a trap for Mulder and Scully, and gets them suspended.
Meanwhile, Cigarette Smoking Man is telling the background to the conspiracy to Agent Fowler. It seems that the Committee were collaborating with the aliens, trying to prepare an alien-human hybrid prior to invasion, whilst secretly working on a vaccine to the black oil. But Cassandra is the first successful hybrid, exposed by the opposing mutilated-faced aliens, signalling the start of the invasion -- but they don't yet have the vaccine ready. So they are going to go over to the aliens anyway, to save their families.
Eventually, Agent Spender realises The Truth, and petitions to have Mulder and Scully reinstated to the X-Files. He is then shot by a disappointed Cigarette Smoking Man -- his father.
Mulder and Scully, officially back on the X-Files, wonder why they have been sent to investigate several disappearances from an "ideal" community, where the only problem seems to be a rather strict set of neighbourhood rules. They go undercover to investigate, posing as husband and wife. Then they discover it is an X-File after all -- a strange beast is killing anybody who doesn't follow the rules.
A family try unsuccessfully to fend off a tentacled sea monster during a hurricane in Florida. Mulder and Scully rush around a lot, chasing the monster, finding lots of slime, until they get caught in a building with it and various refugees during the height of the storm. Fortunately, they discover that it, being a creature of the sea, can be repulsed by fresh water.
Mulder wakes up to a leak in his waterbed, and the day goes downhill from there, until eventually he's shot and blown up by a bank robber. Then he wakes to a leak in his water bed... He and Scully are caught in a time loop , until they can figure out how to break it -- difficult because the only person who is aware of the loop is the robber's girlfriend. Fortunately, after a while, Mulder starts getting deja vu . [Excellent episode. Watch the various differences between the loops, tied into the discussion of free will and fate.]
A rare wild dog, thought long extinct, is imported from the Far East. But it kills two crewmen and escapes. Then it goes on a killing spree. A local canid expert, who has met Mulder on-line, calls him in, for reasons of her own. But the dog, and its importer, may not be all they appear. [A disappointingly weak episode.]
During a tornado Pinker, a violent prisoner, is locked in "the box" as punishment. The box is blown away and Pinker assumed dead. But then the warden is found burnt in half. To Mulder's astonishment Scully suggests spontaneous human combustion. But actually Pinker has been altered by the tornado so that he can pass through solid objects, making them crumbly afterwards, just like the warder's midriff. And solid objects -- like bullets -- can pass through him , making him rather difficult to stop. He is after his son, Trevor. Mulder discovers Pinker can't pass through insulators like rubber or glass -- which Scully uses to good effect by sheltering in a glass phone box at one point of the pursuit. Eventually Trevor's mother runs Pinker down in a car -- he passes safely through the engine, but splatters all over the windscreen.
A series of bizarre murders are occurring, where the victim's heart is removed without any other visible injuries. Mulder's neighbour, a writer, is the prime suspect, because he is writing a novel with just that plotline, about a psychic surgeon -- and the story also includes Scully. He has moved next to Mulder just to be closer to Scully. He is arrested, but while in custody, another murder occurs. It seems his literary creation is coming to life, and that Scully's fascination with him is also a result of his writing. But the writer is losing control of his creation. In the end, just as Scully is having her heart ripped out, the writer manages to get the psychic surgeon to kill him, instead.
For ten years, Byers has been persuading the Lone Gunmen to go to Defense Conferences, in the hope of finding Suzanne Modesky, last seen being bundled into a black limo. Suddenly, she appears, in the company of a government agent -- her fiance. Byers is convinced she has been brainwashed, but she insists she is now free. The Gunmen trick Scully into joining them. Then another conspiracy nut has been murdered, and during the autopsy Scully is attacked. When she regains consciousness, she seems to have become a bimbo. The Gunmen discover that Modesky is being bugged -- she says that she and her fiance are planning to go public with details of a mind-bending drug, but now they have been discovered. She realises Scully is under its influence -- and that she herself must have been betrayed by her fiancee. Langley is also subject to the drug, and ordered by a CIA agent to kill Modesky. But they uncover the plot, use the drug on the CIA agent, and give Modesky a new identity.
Mulder investigates the story of a black baseball player who disappeared over fifty years ago. He discovers the player was actually a baseball-loving shape-changing alien, who chose to masquerade as a black man in order to draw less attention to himself. Eventually his family found him, and killed him. But right at the end, as he died, he became human on the inside (red blood, not green acid blood) as well as on the outside. [The episode probably works only if you give a toss about baseball.]
A couple go missing while hiking, and their skeletons are discovered a few days later. Scully suggests some ritual skeletonisation, while Mulder prefers an X-File theory. As they investigate further, Mulder finds the couple, who claim they were abducted and experimented on. But parts of their story make no sense to him. Meanwhile, Scully discovers that Mulder has been killed by some strange digestive process, but everyone else, including the Lone Gunmen, try to convince her there is a prosaic explanation. She protests. In fact, both agents are in thrall to some hallucinogenic fungus that is slowly eating them. But, after thinking they have escaped then realising they haven't, they are rescued in the nick of time. [It is good to see both agents disbelieving the stories they want to hear when those don't fit the facts.]
![[Scully in Africa]](scully13.jpg "[Scully in Africa]")
A
strange metal artifact corvreed in writing is found in Africa, but the
script is in Navaho and the text is from Genesis. Mulder believes it
provides evidence of extra-terrestrial life, but it struck down by a
strange malady on seeing just a rubbing of the artifact. Skinner is
acting under orders from Krycheck. And Agent Fowler is up to no good.
Scully goes to Africa in a desperate search for information to help
Mulder, and discovers a buried spacecraft covered in the writing.