Little Green Men

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With the X-files closed, Mulder is contacted by a political ally and sent on a dangerous mission to a radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

[edit] Summary

Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) narrates the mission of the NASA Voyager satellite and the High-Resolution Microwave Survey, now shut down. In Arecibo, Puerto Rico, equipment activates at one of the abandoned satelites.

Mulder has been assigned to reviewing wiretap footage while former partner Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is back teaching at Quantico. Scully signals to Mulder that she wants to meet, and they do so in the parking lot of the Watergate hotel. Mulder tells Scully that he watched Deep Throat's funeral using binoculars from 1,000 feet away. Mulder, obviously depressed is now even wondering if the "little green men" he's seen are all in his mind. Mulder flashes back to the night in 1973 when Samantha was abducted. The two are playing stratego when the house shakes and a light appears from outside. Mulder grabs the family gun, but by then its too late; Samantha floats away and a shadowy figure stands in the doorway.

Mulder is summoned to meet with Senator Richard Matheson, who tells him to investigate Arecibo and that he'll try and hold off the Blue Beret UFO Retrieval team said to be headed there for 24 hours. Mulder heads to Puerto Rico and arrives at the satellite receiving station. He finds a frightened hispanic man, Jorge, in the bathroom, drawing for Mulder an alien that he claims to have seen. Scully meanwhile, trying to find Mulder's whereabouts, heads to his apartment and accesses a list of numbers on his computer. When some other agents arrive, looking for him, she leaves, taking the piece of paper with her. Scully visits a scientist at the U.S. Naval Observatory who tells her that they represent signals from space. Reviewing a list of flights from Washington, Scully finds Mulder using an alias 'George Hale'.

While in Arecibo Mulder finds a signal showing potentially an extraterrestrial intelligence. During a storm Jorge gets scared and runs outside. Mulder finds him dead of fright. Scully meanwhile is tracked by a couple in the airport but manages to escape from them and head down to Puerto Rico. Mulder investigates Jorge's corpse and the room shakes. The door opens and the shadowy figure of an alien appears. Scully wakes him up the next morning. Mulder is excited that the readouts and tapes of the signals will be the proof of aliens he has sought for so long, but the blue beret team arrives, forcing them to flee with only a tape reel.

Upon his return to Washington Mulder is chewed out by Skinner and the Cigarette Smoking Man. Mulder claims he still had enough evidence with the days missed to prosecute their suspect and that his phone was being tapped. Skinner demand the Cigarette Smoking Man leaves and decides to not discipline Mulder. Investigating the tape reel, he finds it blank due to a power surge during the storm. Mulder returns to his work monitoring surveillance footage.^[1]^[2]

[edit] Background Information

As the X-files had been shut down in the Season 1 finale, "The Erlenmeyer Flask", writers Glen Morgan and James Wong thought of this episode as a kind of new pilot, in the sense of altering the established ground rules of the series.

Near the start of this episode, Mulder listens to a conversation in which a stripper named Tuesday is mentioned. In Millennium's pilot episode, a stripper named Tuesday is seen dancing, and is later interviewed by Frank Black in regard to another dancer's murder.

The scene in which Samantha Mulder is abducted differs from Mulder's recollection of the incident from a 1989 hypnotic regression tape that Scully listened to in the episode, "Conduit". Mulder supposedly recalled being paralyzed in bed while his sister was abducted, but this episode shows them playing a board game called Stratego before the incident. This was due to Morgan and Wong writing this episode without having first seen "Conduit" [1]. However, according to executive producer Chris Carter, a possible explanation for this inconsistency may be due to the fact that Mulder's memories were derived from hypnotic regression and were therefore vague. Video footage of Mulder undergoing hypnosis was seen in the Season 7 episode, "Closure", but his memory of Samantha's abduction was changed to the version of events seen here.

In the pilot episode of The X-Files, Mulder states, "The only reason I've been allowed to continue with my work is because I've made connections in congress." In this episode, Senator Matheson represents an example of those aforementioned contacts.

Senator Matheson's first name was Richard in the episode's script, but the name did not make it into the final episode. Richard Matheson is a science fiction and horror writer who wrote the 1975 novel Bid Time Return, later titled Somewhere in Time after a film adaptation of that name was released in 1980. The main character of that story had a passion for classical music, much like Senator Matheson in this episode.

Senator Matheson was originally to have recited the opening monologue, but this was later changed to Mulder, and David Duchovny's voice begins the episode.

Senator Matheson was originally to have been played by Darren McGavin of Kolchak: The Night Stalker fame, as that series had influenced Chris Carter to create The X-Files.

Senator Matheson would later appear in "Ascension", the Season 3 episode "Nisei" and, finally, the Season 6 episode "S.R. 819". He would also be referenced in "731", the sequel to "Nisei".

While Scully searches for Mulder, she reads an airline passenger manifest that contains the names of many early on-line X-Philes, including Cliff Chen and Pat Gonzalez, as well as X-Files novel author Charles Grant.

[edit] Links and References

[edit] References

1948; 1973; 1977; 1992; airline passenger manifest; alien abduction; amino acid; AMPEX; Arecibo; Arecibo Ionospheric Observatory; Argentina; Arlington; Atlanta; autopsy; Johann Sebastian Bach; billiards; Blue Beret Crash Retrieval Team; Blue Beret UFO Retrieval Team; Boston; Brandenburg Concerto #2; Brandenburg Concerto #3; brick agent; Bryan, Richard; Buenos Aires; C7P 592; California; Caribbean Air; Caribbean Air Flight 519; Cecil; Chilmark; "Come Out and Play"; cranium; "Deep Throat"; Double Jeopardy; Earth; Eastern Daylight Time; Ehman, Jerry; electronic surveillance; elf; extraterrestrial; FBI Academy; FBI Headquarters; Federal Bureau of Investigation; fish; Florida; four-bagger; galactic background noise; Galbrands; Ganz, Professor; Goldstone; Haldeman, H.R.; Hale, George Ellery; Harvard; High Resolution Microwave Survey; "the Hill" Hispanic; Hoover, J. Edgar; Kennedy Space Flight Center; King, Bernard; lightning; Longstreet Motel; lunar; Massachusetts; Miami; Miami International Airport; Miami Post Tribune; Morley; Morse code; Mulder, Samantha; Mulder, Teena; Mulder, William; music appreciation; NASA; National Astronomy & Ionosphere Center; Neptune; Nevada; New York Knicks; Nixon, President; Offspring; Ohio; Palomar Observatory; Paramount; pathologist; planet; Planetary Society; president; professor; Puerto Rico; Quantico; radio telescope; Rockefeller Foundation; Saint Croix; San Diego; San Juan; satellite; Senator; SETI; Sig Sauer 226; smoking; solar system; Sophisticate; SouthCoast Airlines; SouthCoast Flight 184; SouthCoast Flight 397; Spanish; Stratego; Sun; sunflower seeds; The Magician; Timothy's Game; Tuesday; UC Berkeley; Universe; US Naval Observatory; Virginia; Voyager Program; Washington, D.C.; Watergate Hotel & Office Complex; Wednesday; white-bread cases; White House; Woods; Wow! signal; X-file

[edit] Airline Passenger Manifests

Archibald; Bensch; Bodner; Chow; Compton; Dickson; Gaynor; Gomez; Hugman; Hunter; Insley; Keeling; Kerr;

Alves, Paulette; Anglin, Donald; Bartle, Sylvia; Berreman, Xinh; Brice, Sarah; Brown, Kelly; Carstensen, Tere; Celio, Gail; Chen, Cliff; Dawson, Hayden; Dawson, Lori; Erickson, Harley; Ferguson, Garn; Giannini, Jodi; Gompf, Jan; Gonzalez, Pat; Gostin, Jeff; Grant, Charles; Grant, Betty; Harris, Andrew; Harris, Melissa; Hill, Linda Lee; Hill, Scott; Hofmann, Eliza;

Previous episode:
The Erlenmeyer Flask

The X-Files
Season 2

Next episode:
The Host

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[1]

[2]


Series:	The X-Files
Original Airdate:	9-16-94
Production Number:	2x01
Written by:	Glen Morgan & James Wong
Directed by:	David Nutter