Season 6: The Beginning (6X01)

Written by: Chris Carter
Directed by: Kim Manners

Mulder and Scully are brought before a review board to justify their re-assignment on the X-Files. The board needs scientific proof of extraterrestrial life. Mulder argues that concrete evidence exists via Scully, who had earlier been infected by an alien virus. When Scully is vague regarding this infection, the board gives the team their final warning - find concrete evidence or else.

On the sly, A.D. Skinner gives Mulder a lead on a strange case in Arizona that might give him the hard evidence he needs. At the crime scene, Mulder theorizes that the victim was infected by an alien virus and that this virus ultimately produced an alien entity. The entity then ripped away the victim's chest from the inside as it birthed itself. Meantime, the Syndicate is irate that this "situation" has surfaced and is getting so much attention. Cigarette-Smoking Man assures them that he is taking care of the problem. He brings Gibson Praise, the young chess prodigy, to the crime scene in hopes that Praise can divine where the creature has escaped to.

The agents are drawn to a nearby power plant where another murder has occurred. They are met by agents Spender and Fowley who deny Mulder access to the new crime scene. When Mulder and Scully return to their car, they find Praise hiding in the back seat.
Mulder wants to use Praise to find the alien creature, but Scully talks him out of it, explaining that Praise is the scientific evidence Mulder's been looking for. Praise can corroborate everything Mulder's been saying. Scully tells Mulder that Praise needs medical attention and just as they're about to drive him to the hospital, Agent Fowley arrives. Scully continues on to the hospital with Praise, while Mulder and Fowley go to the plant to find the creature.

At the plant, Mulder and Fowley discover evidence that the alien is there. He calls Scully at the hospital to tell her this; in turn, she reveals that Praise has traces of the alien virus in his body - somehow, Praise is part extraterrestrial. While Scully's attention is diverted, Black-Haired Man kidnaps Praise and takes him to the power plant to find and destroy the alien. Mulder catches up with Praise and Black-Haired Man, but it is too late. They have locked themselves inside the core reactor room. Mulder watches helplessly as the alien kills Black-Haired Man. The alien turns on Praise just as the plant's alarms sound and FBI agents swarm the area. Fowley, now seeming to be on Spender's side, approaches Mulder and tells him to back off.

Back at the review board, the panel tells Mulder and Scully to cease all association with the X-Files. They are put on probation and told to report to a new boss, Assistant Director Kersh.

Notes:
This episode marks the first appearance of AD Kersh, played by James Pickens Jr.

The part of Sandy, the Syndicate scientist who unwittingly incubates an alien inside him, was played by longtime X-Files casting director Rick Millikan.

The nuclear power plant was actually a conventional generating facility that ran only rarely at times of extreme power demand. The heat wave that hit Southern California during the filming made that the generators had to be put online. Thus most scenes in the power plant had to be shot amidst noise higher than 100 decibels. Most of the actor's dialogue had to be re-recorded in the studio.

From this episode Chris Owens is now billed under the "Also Starring" heading.

"Homer", sleeping at the helm of the nuclear power plant, was a nod to The Simpsons dad, Homer Simpson; a show which portrayed Mulder and Scully in cartoon form in the episode "The Springfield Files".

In an interview with the LA Times (August 28, 1998), Chris Carter explained that the first thing in the opening teaser of the premiere is a shot of the sun. The camera then pans down to a desert landscape - a scene they would never have been able to do in Vancouver. Carter says that these opening images are a "wink to the audience that we are now in the land of sunshine".

Quotes:
Scully: Mulder, let me remind you once again... What I saw was very little.
Mulder: Look, Scully, that excuse is not going to work this time. You were there and you were infected with that virus.
Scully: Mulder, yes there is a scientific basis for what happenedto me. I was exposed to a virus but as it turns out, Mulder, that virus is not what you thought. Look, I can't identify it, Mulder... I have runthree separate tests - but I can tell you without a doubt that that virus' DNA and proteins are very much of this world.
Mulder: I saw what that virus did. I saw it generate a new being... An alien being inside a human body.
Scully: It attacks and destroys human cells but that is all it does,Mulder. It creates nothing. Look, I don't like telling you this... And Iknow that you don't want to hear it... Not that you can't question meand what I saw but what you can't question is the science.

Skinner: You're wasting your time.
Mulder: You need evidence to justify our reassignment.I've just got to bring it back from the ashes.
Skinner: Nothing you might restore is going to help you, Agent Mulder.It's over and done. Your reassignment on the X-Files has been denied.
Mulder: (angry) How can it be denied? We're the only reason the X-Files were reopened in the first place. There's no other reason to reopen them.
Skinner: I'm not arguing...
Mulder: Well, then, who is?
Skinner: When will you accept that no amount of pressure or reason will bring to heel a conspiracy whose members walk these halls with absolute impunity?
Mulder: Was there a vote?
(Skinner pauses.)
Skinner: Unanimous against.

Board Member: These spacelings, Agent Mulder. They weren't something I saw in ''Men in Black''?
Mulder: .... I didn't see Men in Black.
Board Member: (Mutters) Well, it was a damned good movie.

Mulder: I don't see there's any argument here. You admit yourself that the crime report is a lie.
Scully: Mulder, that doesn't mean that I can just accept your theory.
Mulder: What does it take? For this thing to come up and bite you on the ass?

Gibson: It's not here. Why don't you believe me when you're so afraid of me?
CSM: I'm not afraid of you.
Gibson: You think I can destroy you for what I know, because of what I am. You're thinking you could've destroyed me, too and if I don't find this creature, you will.

A clip from ''The Beginning''

Episode Number: 118
Season Number: 6
First Aired: Sunday, November 8, 1998
Production Code: 6X01

Fight the Future - The Movie

Writters: Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz

Director: Rob Bowman

The X-files movie ''Fight the Future'' continues from the time frame of the cliffhanger final episode of the 5th series. With the X-files out of action after the fire in the basement office.The movie opens back in pre-historic Texas, with two cave men hunting down an alien being in an ice cavern.

In the present, a young boy Stevie falls through the ground while playing with his friends and lands in the same cavern. As his friends peer down from above, Stevie is attacked by the black cancer, which also infects two firemen who attempt to rescue him and a further two firemen who go in after the first two.
Mulder and Scully, un-assigned from the X-files, are inspecting a building opposite the Federal building in Dallas after a bomb threat warning. Scully clears the building when Mulder discovers a bomb which shortly afterwards detonates, destroying the building.

The powers that be in the FBI try to pin the blame on Mulder and Scully for the explosion, and endeavour to spilt the partners up. Scully tells Mulder she is going to quit the FBI. Back in Washington, Mulder is contacted by Dr Kurtzweil who explains that the bomb blast in Dallas was part of a cover up by members of the government.
Mulder later learns that the body of a young boy and three firemen were found in the bombed building, which they thought had been cleared. Adding substance to Dr Kurtzweil claims, given further credence when Scully's autopsy of one of the firemen can not produce a cause of death.
Mulder manages to convince Scully to help him investigate the case as he needs her. They uncover a sinister conspiracy by the shadowy syndicate to aid aliens in there colonization plans. And their part in a planned Armageddon that will affect every man, woman and child on the planet.

But even the syndicate are caught out, as the black cancer has mutated into a virus that affects humans using them to create a new alien life form. A virus for which there is no cure, save for a weak antidote developed by the Russians.
After Mulder and Scully discover the syndicate's secret bee farm in the desert, bees that will be used as carriers of the deadly virus. The syndicate members take steps against them, kidnapping Scully and shooting Mulder. The syndicate infects Scully with the virus and takes her to a secret installation in Antarctica.
Mulder leaves hospital with the help of the Lone Gunman and Assistant Director Skinner and attempts to find Dr Kurtzweil for more information but instead meets the Well Manicured Man, who gives him Scully's location and a small amount of the Russian's antidote shortly before he is killed by a car bomb.

Mulder tracks Scully to the installation in Antarctica, gaining entry via a tunnel in the ice. He stumbles across thousands of cryo-tubes containing people infected with the virus, gestating the new alien life form. He locates Scully and injects the antidote, some of which gets in to the system. Mulder and Scully flee the installation just in time as it turns out to be an alien craft. As they collapse at a safe distance, Mulder watches in awe as the craft flies over head and disappears in to the clouds, moments later Scully regains consciousness.

A helicopter lands at the syndicate's new bee farm in the desert in North Africa, the Cigarette Smoking Man steps out and walks towards Strughold. They discuss the new bee farm and the progress of their plans. The Cigarette Smoking Man informs Strughold that Mulder has become reinvested and poses a threat to them. Strughold retorts, 'He is but one man. One man alone can not fight the future.'. The Cigarette Smoking Man hands a telegram to Strughold, it reads;"X-FILES RE-OPENED. STOP. PLEASE ADVISE. STOP."

Notes:
The movie was shot during the hiatus between the the fourth and fifth season of "The X-Files".

In the special features on the The X-Files: Fight The Future DVD, Gillian Anderson says that when she and David Duchovny were doing the scene where Mulder and Scully are attacked by bees, and Mulder grabs Scully by the wrist, she had bees all over her palm, and was stung severely once David grabbed her hand.

Several actors who have appeared in previous and/or future episodes of the show guest starred in the feature movie: Terry O'Quinn (Aubery, Trust No1) Steve Rankin (Orison), Gary Grubbs (Our Town) and Jason Beghe (Darkness Falls).

When Mulder is in the alleyway by the bar, there's a poster of the film "Independence Day" nearby. Chris Carter hated the film and deliberately wanted Mulder to relieve himself by it.

Exterior shots of the Well-Manicured Man's residence in London were shot at a house in Pasadena that was used as the exterior location of the Wayne Manor in the "Batman" television series.

Allthough there were nearly 300,000 bees used during the shooting of the dome scene, only a handful of crew members were stung.

When the crew was shooting the cornfield scenes, a teenager had managed to get past security and was hiding inside the cornfield. He was able to videotape the actors in the field and the huge white domes. He sold the footage to a local news station and thus revealed some of the key locations for the X-Files movie nearly a year before the movie was due to hit the big screen.

When Gillian Anderson was filming the rooftop scene, she had an allergic reaction to the suncreen used by the make-up department to simulate sweat.

During the first week of principal photography, the second-unit crew was stranded for 2 days on a glacier near Vancouver as bad weather conditions prevented the helicopter, which had taken them up there, to come and pick them up. They spent the night in the ice station set while the temparature outside dropped down to the low twenties.

In order to prevent the crew from making copies of the script and posting it on the Internet, the script was printed on red paper with the name of the owner placed diagonally over each page.

To protect the secrecy surrounding the movie, the project was given the 'code' title "Blackwood" during its production. However, the online X-Philes community quickly found out about the code title and started speculating about its possible meaning. Some ideas were even more out there than others as theories alluding to Edgar Allen Poe and MTV VJ Nina Blackwood were posted on the Internet. They were all wrong however, as "Blackwood" only refers to a fictional town in Dallas where some of the story is set.

Scully's exact address is: 107 E. Cordova St. Apt. 35Georgetown, VA 24026

Quotes:
Scully: Any thoughts as to why anybody would be growing corn in the middle of the desert?

Mulder: Five years together Scully, how many times I been wrong? Never. Not driving, anyway.

Scully: I need this building evacuated and cleared out in ten minutes. I need you to get on the phone and tell the fire department to block off the city center in a one mile radius around the building. Don't think! Just pick up the phone and make it happen!

Mulder: Whatever happened to playing a hunch, Scully? The element of surprise, random acts of unpredictability? If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.

Mulder: Awww, I woke you... Did I wake you?
Scully: No.
Mulder: Why not? It's three in the morning...

Well-Manicured Man: Trust no one, Mr. Mulder.

Scully: Why did they assign me to you in the first place, Mulder? To debunk your work, to rein you in, to shut you down.
Mulder: But you saved me! As difficult and as frustrating as it's been sometimes, your goddamned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over! You've kept me honest, you've made me a whole person. I owe you everything, Scully, and you owe me nothing. I don't know if I wanna do this alone. I don't even know if I can and if I quit now, they win.

Scully: Well, we're FBI Agents.
Kid: You're not FBI Agents.
Mulder: How do you know?
Kid: Cause ya'll look like door-to-door salesmen.

Mulder: A plague?
Kurtzweil: The plague to end all plagues, Agent Mulder. A silent weapon for a quiet war. The sytematic release of an indiscriminant organism for which the men who will bring it on still have no cure! They've been working on this for fifty years! While the rest of the world have been fighting gooks and commies, these men have been secretly negotiating a planned armageddon!
Mulder: Negotiating with whom?
Kutzweil: I think you know. The timetable has been set. It will happen on a holiday, when people are away from their homes. The president will declare a state of emergency, at which time all government, all federal agencies, will come under the power of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA, the secret government.
Mulder: And they call me paranoid.

Mulder: I'm the key figure in an on-going government charade, the plot to conceal the truth about the existence of extraterrestrials. It's a global conspiracy, actually, with key players in the highest levels of power, that reaches down into the lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet. So, of course, no one believes me. I'm an annoyance to my superiors, a joke to my peers. They call me Spooky. Spooky Mulder, whose sister was abducted by aliens when he was just a kid and who now chases after little green men with a badge and a gun, shouting to the heavens or to anyone who will listen that the fix is in, that the sky is falling and when it hits it's gonna be the shit-storm of all time.

Mulder: Whatever you told them in there, Scully, you don't have to protect me.
Scully: All I told them was the truth.
Mulder: They're trying to divide us on this and we can't let them.
Scully: Mulder, they have divided us. They're splitting us up.

''Fight the Future'' trailer

Episode Number: 0
Season Number: 6
First Aired: Friday, June 19, 1998 only in theaters
Prod Code: FTF