Season 1: Young at Heart (1X15)

Writers: Scott Kauffer and Chris Carter
Director: Michael Lange

Mulder and Scully are asked to join the investigation in to a series of violent bank robberies by Mulder's former boss Agent Reggie Purdue. Following a jewellery store robbery a note is found at the scene that reads, 'Fox can't guard the chicken coop'.

A reminder of Mulder's first case just after he graduated the FBI Academy. Working for the Violent Crimes section he helped in the capture of John Barnett who carried out a series of violent bank robberies and left notes for Mulder at the crimes scenes. During Barnett's arrest Mulder following FBI protocol hesitated and another agent died as a result. Barnett who vowed to 'get' Mulder was sentenced to life but died in prison in 1989. When a handwriting expert examines the latest note, he concludes it was written by Barnett recently. Mulder interviews Barnett's cellmate Joe Crandall, who swears that he saw Barnett alive on the night he supposedly died. When the prison doctor Dr Ridley who signed Barnett's death certificate turns out to have lost his license for using his research into the child disease Progeria, premature ageing, to conduct age-reversal experiments. Mulder speculates that Barnett may have been one of Ridley's guinea pigs and could have the perfect disguise, youth.

Mulder is contacted by Deep Throat who explains that the government funded Ridley's age reversal experiments and now that Barnett has stolen his work, the government is bargaining with him to get their hands on the information in return for his immunity.

Quotes:
Scully: Mulder, I know what you did wasn't by the book.
Mulder: Tells you a lot about the book, doesn't it?

Episode Number: 16
Season Number: 1
First Aired: Friday February 11, 1994
Production Code: 1X15

Season 1: Lazarus (1X14)

Writers: Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon
Director: David Nutter

Scully joins fellow Agent Jack Willis, a former lover of her's at the FBI Academy, in a stake out at the Marine Bank in Maryland following an anonymous tip off about a robbery. Willis has been on the trail of two bank robbers, Warren and Lula Dupree for over a year. During the robbery attempt Willis is shot along with one of the perpetrators Warren Dupree, they are both rushed to the ER. Dupree is DOA but Willis is worked on for 13 minutes and survives. However following the mutilation of Dupree's body to remove his wedding ring and with Agent Willis acting out of character including suddenly becoming left handed Mulder begins to suspect that a 'soul transference' has taken place, that Willis has been possessed by Dupree's spirit. Scully dismisses Mulder's concerns attributing Willis' odd behaviour to Post Traumatic Stress. Willis is concerned with arresting the other bank robber Dupree's wife Lula and asks Scully to help him, but when they manage to track her down Willis instead takes Scully hostage.

Willis tries desperately to convince Lula that he is really Dupree, that Willis died in the ER and Dupree entered his body. He even knows intimate details about Lula that only her husband would know. Scully tries to get Willis to remember their love affair in an attempt to snap him back to reality, she believes that Willis has been thinking like Dupree for over a year trying to catch him and that is the reason for his current behaviour.

Notes:
In the original script, Dupre was supposed to jump into Mulder's body, but the producers argued against this, claiming that the basis of the show is that Mulder chases after paranormal phenomena and rarely holds any evidence. It would tone down the show's ultimate theme if Mulder directly experienced a paranormal event.

Some character development for Scully: she had a relationship with Agent Willis who was her instructor at the FBI Academy.

Quotes:
Bruskin: Okay everyone, Mulder says he's got something.
Daniels: What? An alien virus or new information on the Kennedy assassination?
Bruskin: Hey, Mulder's all right. If you'd pay attention, you might learn something from the man.

Episode Number: 15
Season Number: 1
First Aired: Friday February 4, 1994
Production Code: 1X14

Season 1: GenderBender (1X13)

Writers: Larry Barber and Paul Barber
Director: Rob Bowman

Mulder and Scully travel to Germantown, Maryland to investigate the latest in a spate of serial sex killings of both male and female victims. All of the victims were found dead with high levels of pheromones in their bodies following a sexual encounter. When security camera footage of the latest victim shows him arriving home with a woman and sometime later a man leaving the apartment, Scully suspects they are dealing with a transvestite. Mulder believes they are looking for the ultimate sex machine, that has the ability to change sex. A substance found at the murder scene is traced to a small town in Massachusetts, where an Amish-like community called the Kindred live.

Mulder and Scully go to investigate this reclusive religious group and after surrendering their weapons are invited to dine with the sect members. During the meal they question the Kindred about the murders, they claim no interest in the affairs of the outside world. When one of the older members begins choking Scully attempts to help him but is forbidden to do so. That evening Mulder and Scully carry out their own clandestine surveillance during which Mulder witnesses the man who was choking at dinner lying in an underground catacomb apparently changing sex.

Meanwhile Scully is approached by Brother Andrew who tells her that another member Brother Martin was seduced by the world and left the sect, that he is responsible for the murders. But the Kindred are hiding an even bigger secret.

Notes:
This is the first episode where the credit "Music by Mark Snow" appears during the opening credits and not the closing credits.

Nicholas Lea co-starred in this episode as Marty's would-be victim, Michael. He will return in season 2 to play Alex Krycek.

Quotes:
Scully: I don't understand, how can they just disappear? They have no means of transportation.
Mulder: No earthly means of transportation.

Episode Number: 14
Season Number: 1
First Aired: Friday January 21, 1994
Production Code: 1X13

Season 1: Beyond the Sea (1X12)

Writers: Glen Morgan and James Wong
Director: David Nutter

Agent Scully wakes in the middle of the night to the image of her father in the room with her. Then the phone rings, it is her mother with bad news her father has passed away!

A young couple are kidnapped near Jackson University a year to the day after another couple were kidnapped and later found tortured and dead. Mulder is a little surprise to see Scully back at work, but she assures him she is fine and needs something to keep her mind off her father's death. Mulder tells her that he has been contacted because convicted serial killer Luther Boggs, who is scheduled for execution the following week, claims to have acquired psychic ability while in prison. Boggs is prepared to use his ability to save the two missing college students in return for a reprieve from the gas chamber.

Mulder whose profile helped to capture Boggs in the first place, is sceptical of his claims. Scully, coming to terms with her father's death, has difficulty deciding what is truth and what is not, especially when Boggs appears to know so much about her and her father and even claims to have a message from her father. Even when details provided by Boggs lead Scully to an abandoned building where she discovers evidence of the couple being held there, Mulder is sceptical of Boggs' ability, he believes that Boggs is in contact with the kidnapper.

Scully can not decide if Boggs is for real or not, but she is prepared to go along with Boggs in order to save the kidnapped couple before it is too late.

Notes:
This is the first episode that makes reference to Mulder's pornography obsession. Future writers and episodes will use this again and again, mainly for humor.

James Wong and Glen Morgan won a Digital Hollywood Award in the category "best digital writer" for this episode. James Coblentz won a Monitor Award for "best editing" for this episode.

The episode title is the name of Scully's parent's favorite song. It was played when William returned home after the Cuban Missile Crisis and when he married Margaret, and it is also the chosen music when his ashes are scattered at sea.

Episode Number: 13
Season Number: 1
First Aired: Friday January 7, 1994
Production Code: 1X12

Season 1: Fire (1X11)

Writer: Chris Carter
Director: Larry Shaw

Inspector Phoebe Green of Scotland Yard contacts Mulder and Scully for assistance in the protection of a British diplomat, Sir Marsden in the US with his family following a foiled assassination attempt. Phoebe, a girlfriend of Mulder's while he was at Oxford explains that there has been a series of British aristocrats burned to death by an unknown assailant. Mulder tells Scully that he is afraid of fire and Phoebe knows it, that this is the sort of 'mind game' she likes to play. In order to spare Scully the ordeal Mulder decides to help Phoebe on his own. A move that causes resentment in an already jealous Scully.

Following a fire in a local bar in which a witness claims that a man with a British accent caught fire, although no body is found in the ashes, Mulder formulates a theory that the man has the ability to control fire, that he has been using this ability to kill. When a fire breaks out in a hotel where the Marsdens are attending a party that traps their children upstairs, Mulder is overcome as he tries to rescue them, although the children are still saved, by the Marsden's caretaker Bob much to the their delight. However Scully working on the case herself manages to match a name Cecil L'Ively from a list of people the previous victim's employed. Records show L'Ively has recently been issued a US visa. When Scully gets a description of the man, she realises that he is the Marsden's caretaker Bob. But can Mulder overcome his fear of fire in time to foil L'Ively's plan.

Notes:
While shooting this episode, David Duchovny suffered a burn severe enough to leave a scar on his hand. It is clearly visible on the outside of his left hand in the scene where he is waiting outside the ballroom and he wipes his forehead. It was not there earlier, in the opening scene between Mulder and Scully. The scene where Mulder is crouched in the hallway, the ceiling on fire, is where he got the burn. If you watch closely, as he walks down the hallway, with his hands on the walls, he yells in pain and grabs his left hand - exactly where the burn later surfaces.

This is the second episode to provide character development as we learn a bit about Mulder's past: His rocky relationship with fellow Oxford student Phoebe Green (where they shared a certain 'youthful indiscretion atop the tomb of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle'), and that Mulder is deathly afraid of fire.

Episode Number: 12
Season Number: 1
First Aired: Friday December 17, 1993
Production Code: 1X11

Season 1: Eve (1X10)

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Season 1: Fallen Angel (1X09)

Written by: Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon

Directed by: Larry Shaw

Mulder receives a tip off from his contact Deep Throat about a government quarantine in Townsend, Wisconsin due to a toxic chemical spill in the area. Deep Throat however claims it is really a UFO crash site and that Mulder has roughly 24 hours before the airforce's reclamation group removes all the evidence. Mulder rushes to the area and manages to photograph the crash site but is apprehended and put in a cell where he meets a ufologist, Max Fenig who mistakes Mulder for a fellow UFO enthusiast. Scully arrives to take Mulder back to Washington, Section Chief McGrath aware of Mulder's conduct has scheduled a hearing, he wants to fire Mulder and close down the X-files. Mulder persuade Scully to help him investigate the government cover-up in hope of finding evidence of the UFO crash to save himself and the X-files. At the hotel they find Max ransacking Mulder's room, it turns out Max recognised Mulder from his photograph in a trade magazine and has been following their work on the X-files. Max a member of the National Investigative Committee of Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) travels the country investigating UFO sightings, but there maybe another reason for his UFO fascination.

Mulder witnesses Max having a seizure and while helping him notices marks on his neck that are text book abduction scarring. Mulder believes that Max is a multiple abductee and that his presence in the area at the time of the UFO crash is no coincidence.

Notes:
Scott Bellis will reprise his role as Max Fenig in the season four episodes "Tempus Fugit" and "Max".

This episode gives the first impressions of Mulder's enemies within the FBI, and those who would prefer him being kicked out of the Bureau rather than risk the embarrassment of his actions. It also redefines the border between Mulder and Scully; him as the out of control believer, and her as the scientist who must keep him in line.

Quotes:
Mulder: You really believe that story?
Scully: That story happens to be highly classified.
Mulder: It's a highly classified lie.

Episode Number: 10
Season Number: 1
First Aired: Friday November 19, 1993
Production Code: 1X09

Season 1: Space (1X08)

Written by: Chris Carter

Directed by: William Graham

Mulder and Scully travel to Houston, Texas after being contacted by NASA Scientist Michelle Generoo when evidence emerges that the space shuttle program is being sabotaged. Michelle shows them an X-ray of the shuttle's Auxiliary Power Unit, that appears to have been tampered with, although how the value could have been damaged is a mystery. The X-ray itself was sent to her anonymously. Mulder fulfils his boyhood fantasy when the two agents meet with the Space Shuttle Program Director, former astronaut Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Aurelius Belt. He assures them that no one is trying to undermined the Space Shuttle Program, that no one could with the tight security and sophisticated technology NASA employs. However when the next shuttle mission encounters a technical problem while in orbit Michelle, who's husband is one of the astronauts on the shuttle, again calls on Mulder and Scully for help. The technical problem is over come thanks to some quick thinking by Lt Col Belt, but it appears that he may hold the key to the case. He is haunted by an alien image of something he saw in space 20 years earlier.

Something that cohabits his body and may be responsible for the sabotage. When it is discovered that the X-ray that Michelle was sent was ordered by Lt Col Belt, Scully concludes that Belt is responsible. But as the lives of the space shuttle crew hang in the balance, Belt has to struggle with the force inside him.

Quote:
Mulder: "You know Scully, we send those men up in to space to unlock the doors of the universe, and we don't even know whats behind them."

Notes:
Writer and series creator Chris Carter admitted that he wasn't entirely happy with the special effects in this episode. Mat Beck, the visual effects superviser on the show, had only 4 days to create all the special effects in this episode and wasn't able to complete them all.

This is the most expensive episode of the first season. A big chunk of the budget went to the construction of the large control room set.

Episode Number: 9
Season Number: 1
First Aired: Friday November 12, 1993
Production Code: 1X08

Season 1: Ice (1X07)

Written by: Glen Morgan and James Wong

Directed by: David Nutter

When the Government funded Arctic Ice Core Project's final transmission is a crazed geophysicist saying, "We are not who we are", Mulder and Scully join the team sent to investigate. Along with geologist Dr. Denny Murphy, physician Doctor Lawrence Hodge, toxicologist Doctor Nancy Da Silva and their pilot Bear they travel to Icy Cape, Alaska.

On arrival at the Arctic base they discover that the geophysicists all killed themselves or each other. The Ice Core Project's mission was to drill in to the Arctic ice and extract core samples to analyse Earth's climate all the way back to the dawn of man. Further investigation reveals that there was a pathogen in the latest ice core samples recovered. It appears that this pathogen got loose among the geophysicists and that it is capable of inducing a killing frenzy in it's host. When the discovery of an infected dog which attacks the group leads to the pilot Bear being infected, Scully orders a quarantine to prevent the pathogen spreading. But Bear refuses to stay and has to be restrained as he attempts to leave, during the scuffle something is seen under his skin, it is surgically extracts and turns out to be some sort of parasitic worm.

The location that the ice core sample came from is traced to a meteor buried deep in the ice indicating the possibility that the organism is alien in origin. With the possibility that other members of the group could be infected it soon becomes apparent that the first thing to die is trust.

Quotes:
Mulder: "It's still there Scully, two hundred thousand year down in the ice!"
Scully: "Leave it there!"

Episode Number: 8
Season Number: 1
First Aired: Friday November 5, 1993
Production Code: 1X07

Season 1: Ghost in the Machine (1X06)

Writer: Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon

Directed by: Jerrold Freedman

When Benjamin Drake, the CEO of Eurisko is electrocuted in his office washroom, Mulder's old partner from the violent crimes section Jerry Lamana is given the case. On probation following an incident in Atlanta when he mislaid some evidence that resulted in a federal judge being disfigured, he knows this case is important to his future at the FBI, so he requests Agent Mulder and Scully's assistance. Their examination of the crime scene reveals that Drake answered an incoming phone call moments before he was electrocuted. Evidence of a sophisticated booby trap, but with only a few people with access to the building's Central Operating System (COS) the list of suspects is small.

Top of the list is the Eurisko company founder programmer Brad Wilczek, who had fought with Drake about the COS system he has been working on. The evidence mounts when Scully uses a voice analyser on the recording of the phone call Drake received from the talking clock and matches the voice to Wilczek. Agent Lamana wants to be the one to arrest Wilzcek and follows him to the Eurisko building, only to be killed when the lift he is riding in drops 29 floors to the ground.

Mulder meets with his contact Deep Throat who explains that Wilzcek was working on artificial intelligence. Mulder becomes convinced that the COS machine at the Eurisko Building is to blame, and enlists the help of Wilczek to destroy the system before the Defence Department get their hands on the technology.

Notes:
This is the second episode in which Deep Throat appears. Originally, that character was only supposed to be in one episode. Later it was decided to add him on as a recurring character.

Episode Number: 7
Season Number: 1
First Aired: Friday October 29, 1993
Production Code: 1X06

Season 1: Shadows (1X05)

Written by: Glen Morgan and James Wong

Directed by: Michael Katleman

Agents Mulder and Scully are contacted by another government agency for their expertise of strange events. They are shown two dead men whose bodies are still warm and show signs of electromagnetic activity. Told only that their throats were crushed from the inside but nothing else about the case, Mulder and Scully can offer no help. After they leave Mulder admits he has seen this before, in the X-files in cases involving psychokinesis. Mulder managed to secretly lift prints off the two bodies during their examination. Using these they discover that the two men were members of an Iranian terrorist group found murder in Philadelphia. At the scene where the bodies were discovered Mulder notices an ATM machine round the corner, on checking the security footage, they see the two men attack a young woman Lauren Kyte.

They question Lauren Kyte, a secretary for HTG Technologies whose boss Howard Graves recently committed suicide. Lauren claims that the two men attacked her for her pay check but she broke free and ran off, the agents doubt her story but as they leave their car looses control and crashes. Scully is convinced that Lauren's accomplice sabotaged the car while they were interviewing Lauren. Especially when a photograph reveals Lauren's supposedly dead boss Howard Graves in the background. Mulder however believes Howard Graves is protecting Lauren Kyte from beyond the grave.

Notes:
The writers were inspired by the 1981 movie ''The Entity'' in which a woman is tormented by an unseen entity.

Quotes:
Scully: I think Howard Graves faked his own death.
Mulder: Do you know how difficult it is to fake your own death? Only one man has pulled it off: Elvis.
(Mulder's joke about Elvis is the first of many throughout the entire series. Apparently Mulder is something of an Elvis fan).

Episode Number: 6
Season Number: 1
First Aired: Friday October 22, 1993
Production Code: 1X05

Season 1: The Jersey Devil (1X04)

Written by: Chris Carter

Directed by: Joe Napolitano

Mulder and Scully investigate the gruesome murder of Roger Crockett, a homeless man who was attacked and partially eaten in a wooded area outside Atlantic City. Mulder believes the death is related to a similar incident that occurred in New Jersey in 1947, in which a motorist was attacked and eaten by a half-human creature as he attempted to fix a flat tire. The agents travel to the Atlantic City morgue to gather more information. They clash with Detective Thompson, the local police official in charge of the investigation.

Unphased, Mulder decides to perform an investigation on his own. He interviews Ranger Brullet, who discovered the body, and a homeless man named Jack, who knew the victim. Both believe Crockett was killed by The Jersey Devil, a legendary half-human creature that roams the New Jersey countryside. Meanwhile, Scully attends her godson's birthday party, where she meets Rob, a handsome divorcee. Mulder stakes out a dark alley near the woods where Jack claims the Devil has been prowling. That night, the creature makes an appearance, but before Mulder gets a good look at it, the police arrive and arrest him, mistaking him at first for a vagrant.

At the jail, Mulder again clashes with Thompson, accusing him of keeping the creature a secret so as not to upset tourism in Atlantic City. Scully bails Mulder out of jail and the duo travel to the University of Maryland, where Dr. Roger Diamond affirms Mulder's theory that a human being might at birth revert to its most primal instincts-devolving into a carnivorous Neanderthal. Scully, meanwhile, goes on a date with Rob. Ranger Brullet finds another body in the backwoods, but this time the corpse appears to be half-animal. Mulder theorizes that two such creatures may have roamed the countryside. He and Scully comb an abandoned building for the Devil as the police fan out to capture them. Mulder manages to allude police long enough to locate the second creature, which turns out to be female. She suddenly attacks and wounds Mulder and escapes into the woods. Police track the creature and kill it, despite Mulder's plea to take it alive. An autopsy report confirms the female creature recently gave birth, leading Mulder to conclude it came to the city in search of food scraps for its young after its mate died. Some time later, a feral child roams the New Jersey countryside in search of food.

Quotes:

Mulder: Who was that on the phone?
Scully: A guy.
Mulder: A guy. Same guy as the guy you had dinner with the other night?
Scully: Same guy.
Mulder: You going to have dinner with him again?
Scully: I don't think so.
Mulder: No interest?
Scully: Not at this time.

Episode Number: 5
Season Number: 1
First Aired: Friday October 8, 1993
Production Code: 1X04

Season 1: Conduit (1X03)

Writen by: Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon

Directed by: Daniel Sackheim

As Section Chief Blevins expresses his concern with the direction of the X-Files department, Mulder is personally affected by the abduction of a young girl, whom he speculates might have been abducted by aliens — a scenario similar to that which he believes occurred to his younger sister, Samantha, who went missing Nov. 27, 1973, at age 8.

In a remote region along the banks of Lake Okobogee in Iowa, a mysterious bright light descends from the night sky. Ruby Morris, a teenage girl, vanishes from her sleeping bag while her brother Kevin frantically call out to their mother. Mulder requests that the FBI investigate the Ruby Morris disappearance after it is reported in a tabloid. Scully and Blevins note a similarity between the case and Mulder's own childhood "encounter" in which his sister was allegedly abducted by aliens. Mulder tells Scully that Lake Okobogee is a UFO "hot spot." He presents several newspaper articles written over the last several decades as proof. One article describes a sighting reported by girl scouts, one of whom is identified as Darlene Morris, mother of the girl who disappeared. The agents travel to Iowa to investigate further. Darlene sticks by her story, insisting the disappearance has nothing to do with her divorce. Mulder questions Kevin Morris, who cannot remember what happened the night of the encounter. But Kevin's strange doodling piques Mulder's interest and he has the doodles faxed to Washington for analysis. The boy says his doodles are the result of his television communicating with him.

Scully and Mulder are contacted by a young girl who keeps her identity secret. The girl states that a boy named Greg Randall got Ruby pregnant, and that he couple were planning to elope together. Kevin Morris' doodles turn out to be part of a top secret binary defense satellite transmission. The boy is taken into custody by NSA Agent Holtzman and then released. New doodles taken from the Morris home turn out to be digital renderings of everything from Shakespeare passages to bars from a Brandenburg concerto. Mulder believes the boy has become a conduit for alien transmissions. The agents return to the site of the abduction. They find evidence of intense heat.

They also find Greg Randall's body buried in a shallow grave. Mulder discovers a handwritten note in Randall's wallet noting a doctor's appointment. The handwriting matches that of the mysterious girl encountered earlier. By questioning the doctor, the agents locate the mysterious girl, who turns out to be Tessa Sears. Scully informs Tessa that officials know that it is she-and not Ruby-who was impregnated by Greg Randall. Sears admits she shot Greg when she discovered he was having an affair with Ruby. But she insists she did not murder Ruby. Scully and Mulder return to the Morris home and find it abandoned. They also find a large portrait of Ruby formed with binary numbers. The agents travel back to Lake Okobogee. Mulder finds Kevin floating in a strange fog. Just as Mulder pulls Kevin away, a group of bikers drives by them and Ruby's unconscious body is discovered nearby. Darlene forbids Mulder from speaking with her daughter, insisting that as far as she is concerned, Ruby had simply run off with bikers. That night, Mulder listens to tape recordings of his hypnosis session in which he described his belief that one day his sister will be returned to Earth unharmed.

Episode Number: 4
Season Number: 1
First Aired: Friday October 1, 1993
Production Code: 1X03