The X-Files first aired on September 10, 1993 at 9p.m.ET. It ran for 9 seasons, ending on May 19, 2002. at 8 p.m. ET.
Major Characters:
Fox Mulder:
Mulder (no one calls him Fox) was originally part of VICAP. He was the “golden boy” of the Bureau.His success in his work allowed him to pursue what ever he wanted to. Having lost his sister when he was young and having no real memories of that night (even though he was there), he went under hypnosis to find out what happened on that night that his sister was taken.Under hypnosis, he found memories of his sister, Samantha, Being abducted by aliens. This gave him a desire to look into the weird things of this world. Looking into unexplainable cases in the Bureau, he found a group of files and a unit of the bureau that had been closed for many years known as the X-Files. His own story led him to re-open the X-Files unit.
Dana Scully:
Scully was a doctor and a scientist, but not long after she graduated from medical school, she (for personal reasons) decided to work for the F.B.I. After graduating from the academy, she taught forensic Pathology classes. Her medical and scientific background, as well as her logical approach to things, led the higher-ups in the Bureau to choose her to “debunk” the X-Files and close the unit down for good. Fortunately, She didn’t. After all this time, she has become the Spock to Mulder’s Kirk, equals, but opposites. Scully provides the reality and the logic, while Mulder provides the theories.
Walter Skinner:
Skinner is an assistant director in the F.B.I. He is Mulder and Scully’s immediate superior. While Skinner was in Vietnam, he had a near death experience. This experience has given Skinner respect for Mulder and Scully’s work for the willingness to look deeper into strange phenomena when he himself couldn’t do it. (More on Skinner in the section about Krycek.
Cigarette Smoking Man (a.k.a. C.G.B. Spender):
Cigarette Smoking Man is Mulder’s father, but that wasn’t found out until the beginning of the 7th season. CSM is a member of the Syndicate (the group that is behind the conspiracy). He constantly lies to the Syndicate, though, and seems to have his own agenda, which includes breaking Mulder. He has shot his own son, Jeffery Spender, but he keeps Mulder alive and won’t kill him or let him be killed (at least not before he breaks Mulder).
Alex Krycek:
Krycek was originally an F.B.I. agent. He was partnered with Mulder for a short time before Scully” abduction. Alex Krycek works for the Cigarette Smoking Man (whenever the Syndicate isn’t trying to kill him) and has access to many things in the Project (see section on the Project and the Syndicate). This includes the nanotechnology that he implanted into Walter Skinner. When these nanobots are activated, they give skinner a heart attack and start eating his body. This is the reason that Skinner has had to go against Mulder and Scully a few times. Krycek is known by many pets names, including “rat-boy”, “sick son-of-a-bitch”, and many other colorful names.
John Doggett:
Doggett was assigned to the X-Files unit in search of Mulder when Mulder was abducted. He was originally a New York detective. Doggett has had his own loss. His son, Luke, was kidnapped one day when he was riding his bike around the block.. Luke was later found dead in a field. This is part of the reason that Doggett feels so protective of Scully’s baby.
Monica Rheas:
Monica met Doggett while his son was missing. She was assigned to the New Orleans field office when Doggett asked her to look into Mulder’s disappearance.She was later assigned to the X-Files unit after Mulder was fired from the F.B.I. and Scully had her baby and went back to teaching. She has become a good friend to Scully. She also claims to have a small amount of psychic ability.
There are too many characters to list all of those who are important.
Episodes:
There are 2 main types of episode, the mythology episodes and the MOTW (Monster Of The Week) episodes.
The mythology episodes deal with the alien colonization and the government conspiracy that helps them. The mythology episodes include such elements as the CSM, Deep Throat (named after the Watergate scandal), Marita Covarrubias, Alex Krycek, etc.,etc.
MOTW episodes are all stand alone episodes that deal with a creature, some sort of creature that poses as human, some sort of insect, or some sort of bacteria or contagion.
Some of the MOTW episodes have been known to tie-in with Mythology episodes. For ex.: the episode “Leonard Bettes”(a killer that eats cancer) tied in with the episode “Momento Mori” where Scully learns that she has cancer because of her abduction. This is just one example of how the stand-alone episodes tied in with Mythology episodes.
MOTW episodes also have tied in with each other. Two examples of this are:
In the episode, “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”, Clyde Bruckman tells Scully that “You won’t” in response to her question about how she is going to die. And in the episode “Tithonus”, she meets an old man who claims that he will be immortal unless he takes someone else’s death and makes them immortal then he can die. The old man and Scully both get shot. The old man dies and Scully survives.
The most known example of two MOTW episodes tieing in with one another is the episodes “Squeeze” and Tooms”. In “Squeeze”, we meet the killer, Eugene victor Tooms, who emerges every 30 years from hibernation to kill 5 people and take their livers. He is institutionalized at the end of the episode. In “Tooms”, he’s released and Mulder tries to keep an eye on him. One thing leads to another and Tooms finally gets his 5th liver, he goes back to the place that he has hibernated in all of these years and when Mulder shows up, Tooms winds up dead.
The Mythology:
The Mythology of the X-Files is very complex all of the parts are hard to understand unless you watch every Mythology episode. So I have broken down all of the parts for you.
The Black oil:
The black oil is also known as purity and the alien virus. Purity is the blood of a pure alien being and holds the alien conscious inside. It can survive for thousands of years in a dormant form underground and hides in oil. It only wakes up once it is near a living person that it can easily get to.The purity can easily control a human being. The only outward sign of a person being infected is a black film that rolls over the eyes once in a while. When the oil is in a body, it can send out a powerful amount of radiation and kill people in a wide radius. If the oil leaves a host body, the previously infected person will have no memory from the time they were infected until the time after the oil left.
Alien Bounty Hunters:
This term really applies to all alien beings capable of shape-shifting into whatever humanoid form they choose.The actual Bounty hunters are those who go around and clean up evidence of alien life on Earth that cannot be entirely debunked by the Syndicate. They will clean up evidence until the time is right for the information to come out. The clean-up usually entails killing other shape shifters and people who know too much to keep them from revealing anything about the Project. They have turned into Mulder or Scully more than once.
The Project. Purity Control, and the Syndicate:
The Syndicate works on both “the Project” and ” Purity Control”. The project is a collaboration with the aliens to reinstate them as masters of the Earth, like they were thousands of years ago. The aliens are referred to as “colonists”. The plan is to create human/alien hybrids to become slaves to the alien race, infect those who aren’t hybrids to use as slaves until they die from the oil, and re-colonize the Earth.
But, unknown to the colonists, the Syndicate is working on a vaccine against the black oil to save themselves and their families from death. To do this, the Syndicate has killed thousands of people by infecting them with the black oil and conducting tests.
The Super Soldiers:
Super soldiers were ordinary people who were abducted many times. Then all at once, these people began to be abducted and kept for long periods of time. When they were returned, they were either on life support or pronounced dead.The super soldiers are incredibly strong, can survive anything, including being torn to bits, and can cut off a person’s head with the swipe of their hand. The only thing that can kill them is a substance found in iron ore called magnetite. There are many of these super soldiers hiding in the government and they are one of the last steps in the colonization process.
Now let’s get away from the show itself and talk about the fans and the merchandise that have sprung up because of the show.
The Fans:
Die hard fans of the X-Files are known as X-Philes. The X-Philes were originally known as File-o-Philes. which was an attempt by Cris Carter to name the fans. There are roughly 2.5 million X-Philes. Most are only loyal to the seasons before Mulder’s abduction because the general consensus it that the last 2 seasons were the worst seasons. Chris Carter has said that these die-hard fans are why the show has had to watch out harder for technical inaccuracies.
Merchandise:
Books:
The first 7 seasons of the X-Files were covered in 6 official guides to the X-Files. The first few season’s episodes were re-written and covered by little paperbacks-one for each show. There are 2 books called the Book of the Unexplained which give real-life stories that correspond to the stories in different episodes. There are many different books for the show and the movie, including unauthorized books.
Merchandise:
There is merchandise for the X-Files in just about any category you can think of. Merchandise includes: Topps trading cards, a collector card game much like the Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon card games, t-shirts, calendars, a jacket whose price is not for the faint of wallet, collector figures, badges, Mulder and Scully Barbie and Ken dolls made by Mattel, key chains, mugs, etc.
