Director: Kim Manners
Mulder suffering from his own insect infestation with his apartment being fumigated, he travels to Millers Grove, Massachusetts to investigate reports of UFO sightings in the area. Sitting in his car he is spotted and questioned by the local Sheriff about his activity. Sheriff Frass becomes agitated when Mulder mentions seeing bugs on his windshield. It turns out that the town is suffering from a cockroach invasion, and that these cockroaches have been attacking people.
Mulder can not resist joining the Sheriff in his investigation. Mulder confers with Scully by phone, she is sceptical of killer cockroaches. They look in to alleged cockroach attacks on an exterminator, a teenage boy and a medical examiner. But in each case Scully has an explanation, the exterminator was allergic to cockroaches and died of anaphylactic shock, the teenage boy was using drugs and suffered from Ekbom Syndrome, a drug induced delusion of insects invading the body causing the sufferer to try to cut them out.
And the medical examiner died of an aneurysm while on the toilet. Mulder catches one of the cockroaches and discovers it has a metal body. He takes the cockroach to Dr. Ivanov at the Massachusetts Institute of Robotics. Dr Ivanov is amazed at the complexity of the robot and speculates that it could be a probe sent out by an alien race to explore the far reaches of space. Scully arrives in town, but as Mulder toys with a theory on alien robotic probes, she is left to bring calm to the panic stricken populous.
Notes:
During Mulder's first meeting with Dr. Ivanov, an escaped cockroach can be seen crawling over the camera, making it appear that the viewer's TV has become infested.
Scully is reading ''Breakfast at Tiffany's'', a reference to David Duchovny's appearance on Celebrity Jeopardy. The Final Jeopardy question referred to this Truman Capote novel. Unfortunately, David guessed wrong and lost the game.
Bobbie Phillips, playing Dr. Bambi, starred alongside David Duchovny in the Showtime anthology series "Red Shoe Diaries".
Quotes:
Mulder: (speaking on cell phone) Scully, if an alien civilization were technologically advanced enough to build and send artificially intelligent robotic probes to the farthest reaches of space, might they not have also been able to perfect the extraction of methane fuel from manure, an abundant and replenishing energy source on a planet filled with dung-producing creatures?
(Dr. Bambi looks at Mulder; Scully is stunned)
Scully: Mulder, I think you've been in this town too long.
Scully: Bambi? Her name is Bambi?
Dr. Bambi Berenbaum: Does my scientific detachment disturb you?
Mulder: No. No, actually I find it...quite refreshing.
Mulder: It appears that cockroaches are mortally attacking people.
Scully: I'm not gonna ask if you just said what I think you said because I know it's what you just said.
Scully: The very idea of intelligent alien life is not only astronomically impossible, but at it's most basic level downright anti-Darwinian.
Mulder: Scully... what are you wearing?
Episode Number: 61
Season Number: 3
First Aired: Friday January 5, 1996
Production Code: 3X12
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