With the 33rd anniversary of The X-Files, I’ve decided to rewatch the show in its entirety—for about the 10th time!—and write a perspective/review of each episode. I expect this project will take me well into 2027 since there are 202 eps throughout the first nine season and I will try in my power to watch as many as time allows.
Season 1, Episode 1—Pilot
Please note the following post contains spoilers. If you’ve never seen an episode of The X-Files, I highly suggest you watch it first!
And so begins the adventures—or, misadventures, depending on how you look at it—of Mulder and Scully, two young and smart FBI agents brought together, not through happenstance, but by the hand of those in higher power who wish to bury the truth: the government. Assigned by Division Chief Blevins, Agent Scully is tasked with becoming Agent Mulder’s partner in crime on the infamous X-Files, unsolved cases that contain a paranormal aspect. Scully is essentially told by Blevins to debunk Mulder’s work in detailed field reports that are for Blevins’ eyes only.
On their first case together, Mulder and Scully are summoned to Bellefleur, Oregon, where the unexplained deaths of several friends from the same high school class have baffled the local authorities. Mulder is immediately convinced it’s the work of little gray men from space, while Scully (sporting her best Clarice Starling hairdo) is skeptical and believes a logical, scientific explanation is at hand. After uncovering metallic implants and the desiccated corpse of an unidentified animal in a coffin, Mulder and Scully discover the murders were orchestrated by beings unknown through the help of unconscious Billy Miles, a comatose local who was being used as a sort of conduit/delivery boy for the aliens.
In what would become a reoccurring theme on The X-Files, the reason behind the murders is undeniably extraterrestrial, but with a large chunk of information being kept out of reach not just from Mulder and Scully, but from the audience as well. Among other things, it’s this tease that makes the pilot work so well, and it would ultimately serve the show—specifically with the Mythology episodes—advantageously throughout the first five years.
David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, while not at their best, display charisma and have great chemistry together, especially when debating the existence of E.T.—another staple the show would build on with spectacular results. Written by series creator, Chris Carter, the pilot also does a good job at balancing the dramatic with the humorous, another element that would popularize the series.
Rating: 👽 👽 👽 👽 out of 👽 👽 👽 👽 👽
Notes: While the pilot isn’t specifically a mythology episode in the classic sense of the show, it is important to mention the character of Billy Miles will come back into play in Season 7’s super-soldier storyline. It’s also interesting to note that future show villain, Cigarette Smoking Man, would make an appearance in the pilot not once, but four times, as Blevins’s henchman, and features in the final scene when he secrets away evidence (the alien implant) in a windowless storage room in the Pentagon.
Stay tuned for more X-Files Retrospective: Deep Throat…
