X-Files - Classic Science Fiction

Created and executive produced by Chris Carter, The X-Files, which premiered on FOX on September 10, 1993, chronicled the lives and adventures of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, two disparate FBI agents assigned to investigate unsolved cases within the Bureau - cases that often involved the paranormal, the supernatural, and the inexplicable.

The X-Files won numerous awards and honors, including a George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting, three Golden Globes for Best Dramatic Series, a Golden Satellite Award for Best Drama Series, Science Fiction and Fantasy Saturn Awards for Outstanding Television Series, and a Parents' Choice Honor for Best Series. In 1997, Gillian Anderson won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

The X-Files was as much of a phenomenon abroad as it was in the United States. The show's conspiratorial tone and blend of paranoia, horror and suspense made it the most popular television series in Canada, the highest-rated series on Britain's BBC2, and one of the biggest sensations ever in Japanese television.

The show's nine-season run came to an end in 2002. In 1998, Twentieth Century Fox released the first feature film based on the series. The film - produced and written by Carter and co-written by Spotnitz - became a worldwide success, taking in $187 million in theatrical box office sales.

"Shadows" was the sixth episode of the first season of The X-Files science-fiction television series created by Chris Carter. It dealt with the ideas of spirit hauntings.

When an unseen force commits several murders where a young woman is present, Mulder suspects that it is the spirit of the woman's former boss who was believed to have committed suicide, but was actually murdered and is protecting her from his business partner.

When two very odd corpses appear in Philadelphia, Mulder and Scully are requested to take a look at them. The investigation turns up a secretary whose employer recently committed suicide and a strange force which seems to protect her.

The X Files was a unit of the FBI headed by two agents, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who investigated paranormal occurences.

The hugely successful television series The X Files ran for nine seasons and was created by Chris Carter. Focusing on the adventures of two FBI agents, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) the show frequently explored supernatural and unexplained events. Under the close supervision of their boss Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) Mulder and Scully would investigate cases involving genetic mutants, vampires and alien bounty hunters. Humans with abnormal abilities such as telekinesis and the power to appear and disappear at will also contributed to the appeal of the series.

The main focus of the long X Files saga was Mulder searching for iron clad evidence of extraterrestrials. David Duchovny played his role to perfection as a tortured man haunted by the mysterious disappearance of his sister Samantha.

Mulder was convinced that alien beings were involved and spent years looking for her, but with limited success. Scully, armed with a medical degree and a strong scientific education was somewhat less accepting of Mulder's far flung theories, and at times showed very little tolerance for his endless crusading.

Not only are they seeking the truth about the strange things they encounter, but their efforts are continually thwarted by men outside the FBI, members of a so-called shadow government who want the X Files shut down permanently. An assortment of characters with peculiar names such as Deep Throat, (Jerry Hardin) Mr. X, (Steven Williams) and the Smoking Man (William B. Davis) have made numerous appearances throughout the series and have given the show a dark, spooky and unsettled feeling as they step out of dark corners unexpectedly, sometimes to help and at other times to do harm.

In a fourth season episode viewers were given a more detailed insight into the early life of the Smoking Man, and in a surprising revelation it is learned that as a captain in the U.S. military he is assigned to assassinate President Kennedy in 1963. He moves up the ladder to become a member of a secret group of men who know of the existence of alien beings, who wanted to colonize Earth and get rid of the human race in the process.

Later in the series a new group of FBI investigators are introduced. John Doggett (Robert Patrick) a former U.S. Marine and New York City police detective, joins the FBI to assist in the search for Mulder, who is abducted by an alien craft in Oregon. The few scenes with Mulder are unnerving as his body is held down aboard the alien ship being drilled and sawed with unearthly instruments. Doggett is even more skeptical of the paranormal than Scully, and stumbles awkwardly alongside his new partner with the mindset of a veteran police investigator, and not as a believer in extreme possibilities.

A new deputy director within the FBI, Alvin Kersh, (James Pickens Jr.) made his first appearance while Mulder and Scully were still working together. Kersh made it clear that he had zero tolerance for paranormal investigations and assigned both of them to mundane tasks like background checks. After Mulder was returned Kersh refused to re-instate him into the FBI, and after an unauthorized investigation into the disappearance of oil workers in the Gulf of Mexico, Kersh promptly fired Mulder.

The film opens in prehistoric times in a wordless sequence. A pre-historic man stumbles upon what appears to be a large, primal, vicious alien in a cave. The two fight, and the caveman wins, stabbing the alien to death. However, what fans of the show will recognize as the black oil bleeds from the alien's wounds and soaks into the Neanderthal. After a fade to modern-day small-town Texas, a little boy (Lucas Black) falls down a hole in his back yard, and finds a human skull. As he picks it up, black oil seeps out of the skull and into the boy's skin, as a team of firemen descend to rescue him.

In the summer of 1998, at the end of the show's fifth season, the X-Files were shut down, and Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were assigned to other projects. They are first seen assisting Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Darius Michaud (Terry O'Quinn), and his FBI team investigating a bomb threat to a federal building in Dallas, Texas. When Mulder separates from the team to scout out the building across the street, he discovers the bomb. He and Scully are able to evacuate the building and prevent hundreds of casualties before it explodes.

Mulder and Scully return home to Washington, D.C., but instead of commending their roles in preventing the deaths of hundreds, they are instead chastised because four victims were still in the building: three firemen, and one little boy. They are both scheduled separate hearings in which their job performance will be evaluated.

That evening, Mulder encounters a paranoid doctor, Alvin Kurtzweil (Martin Landau), who explains that the four victims were already dead, and the bomb was allowed to detonate to destroy the evidence as to how they died. Mulder enlists Scully to travel with him to the morgue to examine the bodies. They learn that the bodies have suffered a complete cellular breakdown, not at all caused by the bomb. Mulder leaves Scully in the morgue to fly back to Dallas to investigate evidence left from the explosion. He urges Scully to join him, and she shares evidence that the bodies were infected with an alien virus.

They travel to the boy's home, but find a brand-new park in place of the hole in which he fell. Unsure what to do next, they wind up following a team of tanker trucks to a massive cornfield surrounding two bright, glowing domes. When they infiltrate the domes, they find simply a large empty space. However, grates on the floor open up, and a massive swarm of thousands of bees chase the agents into the cornfield. Soon helicopters fly overhead, and the two make a harrowing escape back to Washington.

Upon their return, Mulder, finding the evidence disappearing before his eyes, unsuccessfully seeks help from Kurtzweil, while Scully attends her performance hearing, and learns that she is being transferred to Salt Lake City, Utah. She informs Mulder that she would rather resign from the FBI than be transferred. Mulder is devastated at the thought of not having Scully as a partner to help him uncover the truth, telling her, "I don't know if I want to do this alone. I don't know if I even can. And if I quit now, they win." The two have a tender moment (they lean towards each other, as though to kiss), until she is stung by a bee which had lodged itself under her shirt collar.

She has an adverse reaction, and Mulder calls 911. However, when the ambulance arrives to transport her, the driver shoots Mulder in the head, and whisks Scully to an undisclosed location. Mulder awakens, (the bullet grazed his temple) and, with the help of The Lone Gunmen, sneaks out of the hospital. He is accosted by The Well-Manicured Man, who gives him Scully's location in Antarctica, along with a serum to combat the virus she is infected with. Well-Manicured Man then kills himself before his betrayal to the Syndicate is found out.

Mulder journeys to Antarctica to save Scully, in the process discovering a secret lab run by the Cigarette-Smoking Man and his colleague Strughold. The lab is destroyed just after they escape to the surface, when the alien ship lying dormant underneath comes back to life and leaves its underground port, zooming away into the sky. Only Mulder sees it go, as Scully is unconscious at the time.

Later, Mulder and Scully attend a hearing where their testimony is routinely ignored, and the evidence covered up. The only remaining proof of the whole ordeal is the bee that stung Scully, collected by The Lone Gunmen. She hands it over, cooly stating, "I don't believe the FBI currently has an investigative unit qualified to pursue the evidence at hand."

At another crop outpost in Tunisia, Strughold learns that the X-Files office has been reopened...

Hope you like this copy of Mulder's poster that hangs in the X-files basement office.

It has become something of a Holy Grail for fans of the show.

Many X-files fans would like a copy of the poster, but unfortunately it was a one off produced for the X-files production team.