Season 1
Ratings:
1xP Pilot ****
Pilot episodes don't get much better than this one Chris Carter cooked up for The X-Files. The 2 hour premiere , in which tales of alien abductions in the Pacific Northwest are inversitagted by two FBI agents, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, briskly setup the compelling twin foundations of the show - a government conspiracy concerning alien visitations, and a realistic, subtly shaded between the acerbic believer, "Spooky" Mulder, and the rational , skeptical scientist, Scully.
1x1 Deep Throat ****
This episode builds on the pilots tantilizing revelations about government knowledge of UFO contact, positing that the Air Force may have used alien technology to build planes with awe-inpiring capabilities. Mulder's relentless inquiries leads to startling discoveries about activities at Ellens Air Force Base in Idaho, and also paint a compelling portait of the FBI agent's absession's. The dark hints of a coverup provided by Deep Throat, Mulder's mysterious informant, heighten the dramatic stakes even more. Scully's growing respect for Mulder gives dramatic resonance to the conspiracy plot, and foreshadows the complex relationship that soon developes between the two agents.
1x2 Squeeze ****
The first Morgan and Wong episode was the public debute of the liver-eating Eugene Victor Tooms, an X-Phile fave. Like many of the show's antagonists, Tooms wasn't really a villian in the classic, dark-side-of-the-soul sense, but a mutant driven to deviousness by the inherent nature of his strange needs.
1x3 Conduit ****
The UFO theme comes to force again when our intrepid FBI agents investigate what a young Iowa boy might know about the disappearance - or alien abduction - of his sister. In the midst of this taut, suspenseful episode, Mulder reveals that what drives him in his quest for the supernatural is that he might find his sister, Samantha, who disapeared under mysterious circumstances when he was a child. The final moment of "Conduit," in which Mulder sits in a church looking at a photo of Samantha, reveals the depths of the agent's personal demons - and the strength of The X-Files' commitment to grounding the shows fantastical element with finely wrought charector developement.
1x4 The Jersey Devil **
Is it a pumped-up Cindy Crawford out there in the woods? No, it's the Jersey Devil, a sort of female Bigfoot from the back of the human gene pool. With the pace and pressure of episodic television unrelenting, especially for a new show, perhaps it's understandable that Chris Carter and Co. finally produced a bit of a groaner. However, this episode does have a high-water mark for Dana Scully's personal life - the agent has an actual date, something that didn't happen again until very recently.
1x5 Shadows **
Mulder and Scully investigate a poltergeist that has invaded an office complex. It turns out the disturbed spirit is actually a murdered manager who is trying to protect his colleague and reveal the truth about his own demise.
1x6 Ghost in the Machine **
Think you're irritated when the nigh security guard makes you sign out? Meet the Eurisko building, a high-tech office complex in which the security system has taken on a life of its own and started killing those who tried to mess with its programming. It's an interesting premise, but the best X-Files charectors are the living, breathing ones - not those brought to life by computer software.
1x7 Ice *****
Everyone thinks of The X-Files as a show about the paranormal, but the program really excels at creatively exploring the hidden darkness of the human heart. Mulder and Scully do just that when they investigate a murder at a frigid Alaskan research facility, where an insidious parasite that makes humans paranoid - and murderous - is on the loose. The result is one of Season One's best episodes.
1x8 Space *
Astronaut Marcus Aurelius Belt may have encountered an alien life form during his trip into the great blue yonder, and Mulderand Scully explore whether that same extraterrestrial phenomenon is sabotaging the American space-program. Despite an excellent performance by Ed Lauter as Belt, logical inconsistencies and a curious passivity from Mulder and Scully make "Space" a first season low point.
1x9 Fallen Angel *****
Max Fenig, a sort of precurser to The Lone Gunmen, is a solo UFO crusader who is on the scene when Mulder and Scully arrive to investigate the crash of a possible alien craft near a small town in Wisconsin. Mulder is convinced that Max is an abductee, Scully thinks the well meaning activist is simply off his rocker, and the military honchos think they can remove all traces of the plane - and its mysterious pilot - without anyone finding out the truth about the crash. A classic, action packed episode.
1x10 Eve ****
The killer twins featured in this episode began an ongoing X-Files' fascination with creepy kids (i.e. "Born Again" and "The Calusan"). Eight-year-olds Cindy Reardon and Teena Simmons, who live a thousand miles apart with different families, are exact copies of one another, and both of their fathers end up dead in the same grizzly way. Eventually, Mulder and Scully discover that both girls are part of the Linchfield Project, a genetics experiment gone awry, and the FBI agents try to prevent the twins from falling into the hands of the psychotic older version of them named Sally Kendrick. The young girls playing Cingy and Teena (Erika and Sabrina Krievins) give wonderly deadpan performances - the scene where they try to nonchalantly poison Mulder and Scully is as creepy as anything in the Omen.
1x11 Fire ***
Although the writers tries it again in season two, this episode demonstrated that romance and The X-Files don't mix well. Sparks are supposed to fly when Mulder's old girlfriend, Scotland Yard detective Phoebe Green (Amanda Pays), arrives to ask for his assistance in a case involving an arsonist who could be targeting political figures. Unfortunately, the relationship between Mulder and Green is about as sexy as a root canal, and if that weren't bad enough, villain Cecil L'ively remains an enigmatic, rather pathetic loser. For all the burning of people and things that occur in this episode, "Fire" resolutely fails to ignite.
1x12 Beyond the Sea*****
Scully's rock-solid belief in science is shaken with a death-row prisoner, who may be linked to an ongoing kidnapping case, hints that he is in communication with the agent's recently deceased father. The prisoner, Luther Lee Boggs (played compellingly by Brad Dourif), wants a reduced sentance in exchange for information he can supply about the kidnapping, but for once, Mulder is the skeptical one and doubts Boggs' paranormal claims. The best thing about this evocative episode is the reveaaling glimpse into Scully's vulnerable side, the part of her that wonders if her straight-arrow father was proud of her and perhaps she should trust her instincts as much as her mind.
1x13 Genderbender**
Mulder had a close encounter of a sexual kind in "Fire," so perhaps to even the score, in this episode Scully almost succumbs to the charms of a member of the Kindred, who seems to be able to change sexes at will. But lets face it, gender-shifting amish-like people who may be from outer space are almost as implausible as the sequence in which Mulder crawls around in the gooey tunnels underneath the Kindred compound. The episode does contain, however, a bonus mauling of Nicholus Lea, who later turns up as rookie FBI agent Alex Krycek.
1x14 Lazarus***
1x15 Young at Heart***
1x16 E.B.E*****
1x17 Miracle Man***
1x18 Shapes***
1x19 Darkness Falls**
1x20 Tooms****
1x21 Born Again**
1x22 Roland***
1x23 The Erlenmeyer Flask*****