With summer quickly approaching, pretty much every show worth watching is coming to an end. That makes the summer the perfect time to binge watch what you missed along with some old classics. That’s where the Multiversity Summer TV Binge comes from. One of my personal favorite shows ever is The X-Files, and it is my mission in life to make everyone ever watch it. This summer, I’ll be looking back at season one. All great partnerships start somewhere and in “Pilot,” Mulder and Scully begin a journey that will change them (and me) profoundly. Let’s jump into the pilot but be warned, there will be spoilers throughout.
1. When Scully Met Mulder
“Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI’s most unwanted.” And with that first classic, snarky Mulder line, Scully and Mulder begin forming an unbreakable bond. Dana Scully, a medical doctor, was recruited out of med school into the F.B.I. and while she’s instructing at the academy, she’s asked to use her background in hard science to debunk or verify (mostly debunk) the cases that Fox Mulder is working on. Fox Mulder, after his sister was abducted by aliens, turned his attention to these unsolvable cases that deal with the paranormal and unexplained. He was once a very well respected profiler with a bright future ahead of him but became obsessed with this personal project and it’s made him a joke in the bureau. Dana Scully joins him with a healthy dose of skepticism and a very honest desire to see how these cases work.
2. Alien Mythology
Over The X-Files 200+ episodes, most of these featured “monster of the week” type of stories. Scully and Mulder would get a case and it’d be wrapped up by the end of the hour. Then there were episodes like “Pilot” that introduced bigger concepts involving shadowy government agents, conspiracies and aliens. “Pilot” introduces us to the alien mythology that will ultimately take both characters to hell and back. In Oregon, teenagers are being abducted and when Mulder and Scully arrive to the scene, they realize this goes a lot deeper than kids getting into kids kind of trouble. Scully initially believes this to be some kind of cult activity but after finding an implant made of something no one can identify, she begins to suspect something more is happening. At the end of the episode, we see Billy Myles (he will be important years down the line) under hypnosis, describing an alien abduction. Mulder was right but ultimately thanks to the loss of their files in a hotel fire, they can’t prove what happened.
3. We’re Singing, I Mean, Arguing In The Rain
“Pilot” spends a lot of time highlighting the differences between the two of them but as far as their dynamic is concerned, there is no belittling in any of their disagreements. Right off the bat, they push each other’s belief because at the core of each case is a desire to get to the truth, not win an argument. There is a scene in the rain that basically sets the tone for what their relationship will be throughout the course of the series’ run. After they lose time in some kind of anomaly, they go back and forth, logically debating what just happened. These very heated debates will be common throughout the series but again it goes back to a mutual respect between the two even if they have very different schools of thought. It’s what separates this show from any other procedural that attempts to recapture the magic between these two. It is in this scene and the one that follows in the hotel room that is made all the better by the natural chemistry between Anderson and Duchovny.
4. A Dose Of Humor
The X-Files pilot features plenty of edge of your seat moments and lots of heartfelt moments but it’s also pretty funny. It isn’t funny in a way that keeps you chuckling for an hour but it’s a witty pilot that infuses some snark and sarcasm in an effective way. Mulder is a sarcastic dude and from the first line we get that. Scully gives looks that kill and overall, “Pilot” takes some risks as far as humor for this genre and this kind of story.
Continued below5. This Guy
The Cigarette Smoking Man, C.G.B., Cancer Man, Man In Black, whatever you want to call him, makes his presence known early. From the first scene when we get to meet Dana Scully, he’s there, lurking and orchestrating things. At the end of the episode, it is revealed that he has taken the implant and hidden it somewhere deep in the Pentagon. Right from the start of the series we are shown just how sneaky and how knowledgeable he is. Ultimately he will be the series biggest villain and what ends up making the pilot of this series so special is how it starts so big. The conspiracies are real, the aliens are real, the shadowy government guys are here.
Come back next week as I look at “Deep Throat,” another mythology heavy episode that introduces the most important character in the first season.
