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With the premiere of The X-Files revival almost upon us, I’ve been re-watching the series again. This is probably the fifth time in my life that I’ve gone through and watched the entire series. (Thanks for that, Netflix!) It’s the gift that keeps on giving. I have a blast watching this show, and there are always things I catch that I’ve never noticed before. As I watched it this last time, I made a list of ten of my favorite episodes that left a lasting impression on me, and I wanted to share that list with you.
There are so many great episodes in this show that it was hard to nail it down to just ten, but that's what I did. There's a good chance that all of my choices won't be in line with your choices of favorite episodes. I wanted to add as much variety as I could. So please feel free to share what some of your favorite episodes are in the comments below.
I previously put together a list of best comedic X-Files episodes, and there are a couple episodes from that list that also made it on to this one. You can see that list here if you want.
Pilot - Season 1, Ep. 1
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“Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted.”
This is what started it all! This is where we were introduced to Fox Mulder and Dana Scully for the first time. Little did we know the long crazy journey that these two characters had in store for them. Scully is assigned to Mulder to debunk The X-Files project he was working on, and I was hooked on the series the moment that Mulder and Scully met for the first time in his office. Things just escalated and got better from there.
Their first assignment took them to Bellefleur, Oregon to investigate the mysterious deaths of four high school class members. They are met with some paranormal and strange activities during their investigation and Mulder believes that Swenson's death is due to extraterrestrial activity.
Home - Season 4, Ep. 2
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“Well, aside from the need for corrective lenses and a tendency to be abducted by extraterrestrials involved in an international governmental conspiracy, the Mulder family passes genetic muster.”
The story for this episode follows agents Mulder and Scully as they encounter three creepy, monstrous-looking brothers living on a farm in a remote section of Pennsylvania. They are the product of generations of inbreeding of the Peacock family. The investigation is sparked by the death of a newborn child found in a shallow grave on the outskirts of a small town.
This was inspired by true-life events and even included a story from Charlie Chaplin’s autobiography about an encounter in an English tenement home. As the story goes, after dinner, the family he stayed with took him upstairs to meet their son. They pulled him out from under a bed and he saw that he was a quadruple amputee who "flopp[ed] around" while the family sang and danced.
The episode was so controversial that it was banned from Fox after its first airing due to its sensitive subject matter. It’s also the only episode to receive a TV-MA rating in America.
The Unnatural - Season 6, Ep. 19
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“I don't want to be no famous man. Just want to be a man.”
In this episode, Mulder is searching through a FBI reference book and finds a photo of Arthur Dales with a baseball team and an alien bounty hunter. The story takes place in the 1940s and revolves around a black baseball player who played for a minor league team in Roswell, New Mexico. As the story unfolds we learn that baseball player Josh Exley is really an alien who just loves to play the game, and Dales was assigned to protect him from the KKK.
This was a moving episode for me, and it felt like I was watching a great baseball movie with a sci-fi twist. David Duchovny made his writing and directing debut with this episode. The character Josh Exley is based on a real baseball player named Josh Gibson of the Homestead Grays, aka "the black Babe Ruth." It was also the first and last time that the Alien Bounty Hunter in the series showed his true face.
Squeeze - Season 1, Ep. 3
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“Is there any way I can get it off my fingers quickly without betraying my cool exterior?”
Scully and Mulder are brought in to investigate the mysteries surrounding a businessman who is found dead in his office. There was no way that any living human could have committed this crime. Turns out the killer's victims can be traced to cases over 60 years old and Mulder figures out that the killer is able to squeeze himself through small places and that he comes out of hibernation every 30 years to feed his appetite of human livers.
This was just such a fascinating concept and it kind of reminded me of Stephen King's IT, only without the creepy-ass clown. The story was originally supposed to involve an alien conspiracy, but they ended up changing it and it became the first “Monster of the Week” standalone story that became a staple of the series.
Drive - Season 5, Ep. 2
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“Well, on behalf of the International Jewish Conspiracy, I just need to inform you that we're... almost out of gas.”
In this thrilling episode, a man infected with a deadly pathogen climbs into Mulder's car and forces him to keep the car moving because if he doesn’t, his head would pretty much explode. While this is going on, Scully is trying to produce an antidote that can save him.
The episode was inspired by real-life secret military experiments that explored the use of low-frequency waves. Bryan Cranston starred in the episode, and he gave an incredible performance. This was his first time working with Vince Gilligan, who eventually went on to cast Cranston as Walter White on Breaking Bad.
Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose - Season 3, Ep. 4
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“You know, there are worse ways to go, but I can't think of a more undignified way than autoerotic asphyxiation.”
I’ve always been fascinated by psychic abilities, and this episode deals with exactly that. Scully and Mulder are are assigned to investigate of a series of murders in which the victims were all some kind of psychic. The police end up bringing in a well-known TV psychic that Mulder thinks is ridiculous. While investigating the case, he comes across a man named Clyde Bruckman, an insurance salesman who is actually a genuine psychic and can see how people will die.
This is not only a great episode, but it’s also loaded with some great humor. Clyde is played by Peter Boyle and he’s freakin’ awesome in it! He was so good that he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. The episode also won Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.
Ice - Season 1, Ep. 8
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“Before anyone passes judgment, may I remind you, we are in the Arctic.”
If you’re a fan of John Carpenter's The Thing, then of course you’re going to love this episode! In this story, Mulder and Skully are sent to investigate a team of geophysicists who were killed off by a parasitic alien life form at a remote Alaskan outpost station. When the agents arrive at the deserted post, they come across an ancient micro-organism from one of the deep core samples the scientists were drilling for. This begins to infect some of the team members and leads to insanity and paranoia among them as they try to figure out who is infected so they aren’t all killed.
The character Campbell is said to be a tribute to John W. Campbell, the author of the story "Who Goes There?" which is the story that inspired the 1951 film The Thing From Another World and 1982’s The Thing.
Post-Modern Prometheus - Season 5, Ep. 5
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“I am alarmed that you would reduce these people to a cultural stereotype. Not everybody's dream is to get on Jerry Springer.”
As a long-time fan of classic monster movies, I couldn’t help but just fall in love with this episode. The story was inspired by those films and it revolved around a Frankenstein-type monster that lived in the woods near a small community. Mulder receives a letter asking for his help to solve the mystery, so he and Scully go there to help out in any way that they can. One of the locals in the town even created a comic book inspired by the creature that he called the Great Mutato.
The episode was shot in black and white, which perfectly set the tone and mood. The title of the episode was is a homage to Mary Shelley's famous book Frankenstein - which is actually titled Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.
Via Negativa - Season 8, Ep. 7
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“Just cause I'm assigned to the X-Files, you want me to think like Scully or Mulder would. You got the wrong guy - I need facts, not wild ideas.”
Just because David Duchovny left the X-Files for a while doesn’t mean the series got any worse. Robert Patrick came into the series as John Doggett, who was Scully’s new partner. They had a great run together, but this is my favorite episode that featured Agent Doggett.
In the story, Doggett teams up with Skinner to go after a cult leader who murders people in their dreams with an axe. Doggett gets too close and the killer influences him into going after Scully to kill her. This leads to an intense and creepy final act.
The Truth Part I and II - Season 9, Ep. 19 & 20
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“What is the point of all of this? To destroy a man who seeks the truth or to destroy the truth so no man can seek it? Either way, you lose.”
These are the two final episodes of the series that brought The X-Files series to an end. It marks the return of Fox Mulder after being absent from the series for a while. Upon his return, he is tried before a military tribunal that is looking to justify and prove the existence of an alien conspiracy and the X-Files.
I loved how the final scene in series took place in a motel that is kind of a call back to the same motel scene in the pilot episode when Mulder told Scully about Samantha's abduction. It’s one of my favorite series finales ever.
It was really hard for me to watch because I thought it would be the last time we ever got to see Mulder and Scully together. It ended with them in such a touching and beautiful way. Thankfully, after the series concluded, we got another X-Files movie and a series revival is coming soon! Tune in to Fox on January 24th to check it out!
