X-Files Episode Guide: Pilot

Written By: Chris Carter

Directed by: Robert Mandel

Due to various syndication wrangles and poor timing, I never saw The X-Files opening episode until 2001 (which made certain later episodes hard to fathom, but that's a story we'll get to later) and, even in reruns it is probably one of the episodes I watched the least. And I have to admit, twenty years later, that may have been for the best. If I had to judge the pilot on as a model for the series, I probably wouldn't have kept watching. It's something of a miracle that the Fox executives decided to buy the series anyway.

The pilot on any series has to manage to sell the viewer that this storyline and, more importantly, the characters are enough to keep you tuning in from week to week. The rules for a network pilot (which, at this time, were virtually the only game in town) are even  stricter, considering you're given practically no money and even less resources. What Chris Carter tries to do is establish a scenario that hadn't been seen in a very long time--- an anthology show based on the paranormal with grounding in the real world. In this episode, he only partially succeeds. The teaser is great--- it very quickly establishes a frightening scenario that mystifies both the viewer and the characters. This would become one of the shows trademark, as would the transmission to the 'real world' of the FBI.

As for the characters--- well, he kind of stumbles there. Scully is very quickly established, and very well done. We tend to feel that she is being examined before being thrown to the wolves. She establishes herself very forcefully as someone who has been trying to break down glass ceilings her whole life, and who views the world in  a very rational, scientific approach. She doesn't knuckle to anyone--- not her superiors at the opening and closing, not to all the numerous authority figures that get in her way, and certainly not to Mulder. Gillian Anderson, perhaps striking out at the network executives, who didn't see her as beautiful enough to be worthy of this role, very quickly stakes out her territory, and does a good job. The problem with the episode is Mulder.  In the years to come, many would unfairly criticize David Duchovny for much of his work on this series, and one can't help but think that this is due to what we see in the Pilot. His Mulder is all over the place--- he plays him as if he were rather significantly overdosed on caffeine, and it comes across as arrogance at best, and very out of place it worse. We will learn as the series progresses that many in the corridors of power consider Mulder a little crazy; if his behavior had been like we would see all too frequently in Season 1, one could hardly blame them.

If we try to subtract the story from what would later be considered 'the mythology', this one is fairly coherent. Someone is killing graduates of a high school class in Oregon, and at the very least, there is a coverup by the local government to try and hide the culpability of one of their own. The problem is that Carter, in trying to sell this series, throws in just about everything but the kitchen sink. There's the blaring of the radio and instrument panel before they even arrive at their crime scenes. The autopsy which seems to reveal an alien body, completely with foreign devices hidden within the body. There are mysterious markings one what appear to be everybody connected with the class, the coverup at the forest, the power outage and time loss as Mulder and Scully drive away---- it seems a bit extreme even for a show that will openly wallow in it. In later episodes, Carter will learn a modicum of moderation when it comes to dealing out these bits of evidence: right now, it's like he's showing all his bag of tricks at once. And in doing so, he also reveals something that is one of his greater weaknesses--- his unwillingness to show character over story. This is a level which other writers would eventually manage to polish until it eventually became it's greatest strength, but Carter would often deal with style over substance. This would end up eventually working for many of the episodes that he wrote, but right now, when you're trying to sell the story, it seems a bit much. (Then again, this may only be a flaw in retrospect, especially considering how many great pilot would emerge after X-Files premiered.)

Where the story works best is in the smaller moments. Without question, the best scene of the Pilot occurs when Scully storms into Mulder's room late at night, panicking about what turn out to be mosquito bites. Had the series been made a few years earlier, the writer might have used it to exploit sexual tension. Carter instead uses is to establish a friendship. Mulder confides in Scully about the abduction of his sister Samantha, how he eventually led him to Quantico, which eventually led him to the X-Files. It becomes very clear that Mulder isn't a man who trusts easily (with good reason, as we shall find out) and the fact that he tells Scully all this indicates how much he needs an ally. Scully may not believe in extraterrestrials, but it becomes very clear that she believes in Mulder, and that foundation, not the aliens, will be the strongest part of the show.

Considering that it is vital for a series to work that its lead characters remain exactly the same from week to week (if not season to season), Mulder and Scully essentially come away from the episode with nothing, and are all but laughed out of Oregon, and by their superiors. It is not until the episodes final scene that we get the proof that there is something rotten in Washington, and that at least one person may know the truth. Had we known that such nibbles were all we were going to get, we might have been a little less satisfied by the denouement.

Now let me be absolutely clear: the Pilot is competently written, (mostly) well acted, and technologically sound. But compared to some of the truly great first episodes in television history (the pilots of Twin Peaks and ER  come to mind almost immediately), it is severely lacking. There is no great spectacle, no monsters tearing up trees, no deaths of characters we've gotten used to.  Then again, some of the other truly great shows like Law & Order and The Twilight Zone began out of even more inconsequential beginning. Compared to what the show would be able to do, it's somewhat disappointing, and sometimes seems rather cheap. One wonders what exactly the network saw in it that made them green light it.

My Score: 2.5 Stars (out of 5)