"Pilot"

The X-Files - Season One
Aired: September 10, 1993
Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson
Written by Chris Carter
Directed by Robert Mandel

"The following story is inspired by actual documented accounts," reads a title card as the debut episode of The X-Files begins.  I always find this tidbit interesting because never again to my recollection did the show try to pass itself off as true-to-life.  But that is just one thing that sets the pilot episode ever so slightly apart from the remainder of the nine seasons that would follow it.

The X-Files is a show I treasured and revered in my childhood, and even though (especially in retrospect), the series was never the most consistent, either narratively or qualitatively, the level of detail and depth that went into the characterization of its two protagonists was - and arguably still is - unrivaled.  David Duchovny (Twin Peaks, Kalifornia) played FBI pariah Fox "Spooky" Mulder for the show's first seven seasons, returning as a recurring character in the final two.  His deadpan manner and inclination toward the bizarre rendered him an iconic personality, balanced only by the collected, self-possessed rationale of parter Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). Throughout the majority of the show Scully's scientific persuasion would complement Mulder's unrestrained pursuits of the unknown.

MULDER: Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?
SCULLY: Logically, I would have to say "no."

Such is the template that the pilot episode follows.  Yeah, we get a bunch of omnium-gatherum about aliens and metallic implants and abductions of teenagers in the woods in Oregon, things that would become revenant staples of the series throughout its run, but these were all MacGuffins - plot devices that strengthened and, at times, disarmed the agents' relationship.  While this episode establishes a baseline for a very convoluted mythology arc that would unwind over the course of several years, at its heart it's a character study.  Looking through the back-catalog, the episodes that rank highest in the minds of fans typically were.

Although Scully is assigned to the Oregon case as a means of debunking Mulder as part of a sinister conspiracy, her steadfast loyalty and probable attraction to him render this effort not only futile, but dangerous (this fact would be reflected in a high-stakes plot line that would unravel in season two).  Taken aback by what she considers pure bullshit, Scully counters his contentions.  She adamantly dismisses the involvement of extraterrestrial presence in the case, yet perhaps in the episode's best scene, frightfully runs to Mulder's motel room after coming across two red pustules on her back, closely resembling the symptoms of the purported alien abductees.  Underneath that hard exterior lies a permeant fear of the unknown:  why admit the possibilities of such ethereal terrors when it is so much easier to deny?  This is a concept the writers would play with at intervals throughout the show's lifespan.

At the episode's end it is revealed all the evidence and paperwork filed for the case has mysteriously vanished.  In the final scene a shadowy cigarette-smoking man is seen stashing the implants away in a warehouse.  Perhaps this is the show's scariest particular - that in spite of the enormity of the stakes of all involved, in the end there is still nothing to show.  That a government can maintain such a citadel of unbridled power and use it against its own people without forbearance.  The details of this episode aren't particularly essential, but the set-up it establishes would be a continuing factor in the years to follow.

Grade:  A-