"Colony" is the sixteenth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on February 10, 1995. It was directed by Nick Marck, and written by series creator Chris Carter based on a story developed by Carter and lead actor David Duchovny. "Colony" featured guest appearances by Megan Leitch, Peter Donat and Brian Thompson. The episode helped explore the series' overarching mythology. "Colony" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.3, being watched by 9.8 million households in its initial broadcast. "Colony" is a two-part episode, with the plot continuing in the next episode, "End Game".
The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. In this episode, Mulder and Scully investigate the murders of human clones working in abortion clinics at the hands of a shapeshifting assassin (Thompson). Mulder receives news that his younger sister Samantha (Leitch), who had been abducted as a child, may have returned.
"Colony" introduced the recurring role of the Alien Bounty Hunter. Actor Brian Thompson auditioned and later won the role. Frank Spotnitz and Carter did not have much time to cast this character, but they knew this casting would be important since he was intended to be a recurring character. Thompson was chosen according to Spotnitz because he had a very "distinctive look" about him, most notably his face and mouth.
Plot
The episode opens in medias res with Fox Mulder in a field hospital in the Arctic. As Mulder is lowered into a tub of water, Dana Scully bursts in and tells the doctors that the cold is the only thing keeping him alive. Suddenly, Mulder's heart monitor flatlines.
Two weeks earlier, in the Beaufort Sea, crewmen on a ship spot a light in the sky that soon crashes into the sea. A body is retrieved from the crash, revealed to be an Alien Bounty Hunter. Two days later, the Bounty Hunter arrives at an abortion clinic in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and kills a doctor by stabbing him in the back of the neck with a stiletto weapon, then sets the building on fire and escapes. Mulder receives emails containing the doctor's obituary along with two other identical doctors. After interviewing a pro-life priest who had threatened one of the doctors, they are able to use a newspaper advertisement looking for one of the men to track another one, Aaron Baker, to Syracuse, New York.
Mulder has a fellow FBI agent, Barrett Weiss, visit Baker's residence. Weiss and Baker are both killed by the Bounty Hunter, who impersonates Weiss and tells Mulder and Scully that no one is home. After Walter Skinner hears of Weiss' death and closes the case, the agents meet CIA official Ambrose Chapel, who tells them that the doctors are clones from a Soviet genetics program and are being systematically killed by the Russian and U.S. governments. Mulder, Scully, and Chapel head to pick up another doctor named James Dickens, but Dickens flees at the sight of Chapel, who is really the disguised Bounty Hunter. Dickens is killed by the Bounty Hunter in the subsequent pursuit, unknowingly aided by Mulder and Scully.
Scully doubts "Chapel's" credibility, but Mulder believes his story due to his credentials and experience. Scully performs an autopsy on Weiss and finds that his blood has coagulated, while his red blood cell count is excessively high. Scully finds an address on a bag recovered from Dickens' residence and heads there, discovering a lab that is in the process of being destroyed by "Chapel." Meanwhile, Mulder is summoned to the home of his father, Bill, and learns that his sister Samantha has seemingly returned home after being abducted decades before. Samantha claims that she was returned around age nine with no memory, and recently recalled her experience through regression hypnosis.
Samantha tells Mulder that the Bounty Hunter and the clones are actually aliens, and the Bounty Hunter will begin chasing her as soon as he has killed the remaining clones. Meanwhile, Scully heads to a hotel to hide from the Bounty Hunter. Returning to the lab, she finds four more clones, who claim to be the last. Scully arranges for them to be transported to a safe place, but the Bounty Hunter follows her and watches. The four clones are taken to a local jail, where they are killed by the Alien Bounty Hunter, who has disguised himself as a prison official. At her hotel room, Scully lets in a man who seems to be Mulder, only to receive a phone call from the actual Mulder soon after.[1]
Production
Casting
As in all other episodes of The X-Files at that point, the casting process took eight days.[2]Megan Leitch, the woman who portrayed Samantha Mulder, did according to Frank Spotnitz a "phenomenal job".[2] Leitch returned to The X-Files over the years to portray Samantha or one of her many clones.[2] She had a lot of lines, which she felt were "very hard" and "specific."[2] Actor Darren McGavin, star of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, was originally sought to play the role of Bill Mulder, but was unable due to his work schedule. The role was ultimately played by Peter Donat.[3]
Brian Thompsonauditioned for the role of the bounty hunter in a casting session, where he was competing with another actor.[2]Frank Spotnitz and Carter did not have much time to cast this character, but they knew this casting would be important since he intended to be a recurring character.[2] Thompson was chosen according to Spotnitz because he had a very "distinctive look" about him, most notably his face and mouth.[2] After casting him, they told Thompson's agent that Thompson needed a hair cut, because at the start the Alien Bounty Hunter was supposed to be a kind of military pilot who'd been shot down.[2] But when the day came that Thompson came to Vancouver, there had been some "misunderstanding" and he hadn't been told of the "crewcut", so the hairstyle seen in this episode was a "compromise" of sorts.[2]
Writing and filming
Carter said that while "Colony" was a "crystallization of the series' mythology", it "came about inadvertently", following David Duchovny's suggestion to face an alien bounty hunter. Thus he sat with the actor and decided to also add Mulder's disappeared sister.[4] The alien weapon, described by the cast and crew as "the ice pick", was done with an air hose that ran through Brian Thompson's arm. To create a unique and otherworldly sound made by the weapon used by the hunter, several sound effects were considered before co-producer Paul Rabwin voiced the noise himself on a microphone.[5]
Carter had initially wanted to set the first season episode "Ice" at the North Pole, but this was too ambitious at the time. "Colony" provided an opportunity to create an episode using such a setting.[6] Some of the interior shots on the icebreaker were filmed aboard HMCSMackenzie, a decommissioned Canadian Armed Forces destroyer, which was also used in the episode's follow-up, "End Game", and the later second season episode "Død Kalm".[7]
Reception
"Colony" premiered on the Fox network on February 10, 1995.[8] The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.3 with a 17 share, meaning that roughly 10.3 percent of all television-equipped households, and 17 percent of households watching TV, were tuned in to the episode.[9] A total of 9.8 million households watched this episode during its original airing.[9]
In a retrospective of the second season in Entertainment Weekly, the episode was rated a B+. The review stated that "untangling this web of shifting allegiances and identities requires intense concentration. Hang on, though; the payoff's worth it".[10] Writing for The A.V. Club, Zack Handlen rated the episode an A, noting that it was "X-Files in top form". He praised how the character of Samantha Mulder was presented, saying that "In the seasons to come, we end up with enough Samantha's [sic] to fill a clown-car, but here, the reveal is shocking, effective, and unsettling"; and also felt that the episode's flashforwardcold open was particularly well-handled.[11] Michelle Bush, in her book Myth-X, wrote that "Colony" presents a moral dilemma for the characters, noting that "on the surface Mulder's quest appears righteous, however, the results of his quest would suggest otherwise", and adding "generally the ideology that focuses on a single life's (be that human or alien) importance is successful, whereas Mulder's ideology of finding the truth at all costs is not".[12] Duchovny's portrayal of Fox Mulder in this episode has been cited as an example of the character's reversal of traditional gender roles—his openness and vulnerability when confronted with what he believes is his prodigal sister casts him "in a pattern typically engendered as female."[13]
Fox William Mulder is a fictional FBI Special Agent and the secondary protagonist of the Fox science fiction-supernatural television series The X-Files, played by David Duchovny. Mulder's peers dismiss his many theories on extraterrestrial or paranormal activity as those of a conspiracy theorist and supernaturalist; however, his skeptical but supportive partner, Special Agent Dana Scully, often finds them to be unexpectedly correct. He and Scully work in the X-Files office, concerned with unsolved FBI cases that are often revealed to be supernatural or extraterrestrial in nature. Mulder was a main character for the first seven seasons, but was limited to a recurring character for the following two seasons. He returns as a main character for the tenth and eleventh seasons.
The second season of the science fiction television series The X-Files commenced airing on the Fox network in the United States on September 16, 1994, concluded on the same channel on May 19, 1995, after airing all 25 episodes. The series follows Federal Bureau of Investigation special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, portrayed by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson respectively, who investigate paranormal or supernatural cases, known as X-Files by the FBI.
The sixth season of the science fiction television series The X-Files commenced airing on the Fox network in the United States on November 8, 1998, concluding on the same channel on May 16, 1999, and consisted of twenty-two episodes. The season continued from the 1998 feature film and focused heavily on FBI federal agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully's separation from the X-Files Division and the demise of the Syndicate—a "shadow government" group attempting to cover up the existence of extraterrestrials—in the two-part episode "Two Fathers" and "One Son".
The seventh season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files commenced airing on the Fox network in the United States on November 7, 1999, concluded on May 21, 2000, and consists of twenty-two episodes. Taking place after the destruction of the Syndicate, this season marks the end of various other story lines; during this season, Fox Mulder learned the true fate of his sister, Samantha.
The eighth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files commenced airing in the United States on November 5, 2000, concluded on May 20, 2001, and consisted of twenty-one episodes. Season eight takes place after Fox Mulder's alien abduction in the seventh season. The story arc for the search of Mulder continues until the second half of the season, while a new arc about Dana Scully's pregnancy is formed. This arc would continue, and end, with the next season. The season explores various themes such as life, death, and belief.
Samantha Ann Mulder is a fictional character in the television series The X-Files. She is the younger sister of FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder and the daughter of Teena and Bill Mulder. As a child, Samantha was abducted, ostensibly by aliens, and was never returned. It is this experience that drives her older brother Fox Mulder to join the FBI, and later take the reins of the X-Files section.
FBI Special agent Jeffrey Frank Spender is a fictional character in the American Fox television series The X-Files, a science fiction show about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of alien existence. Spender was in control of the X-Files office after Fox Mulder's and Dana Scully's forced leaves in "The Beginning". The X-Files office is concerned with cases with particularly mysterious or possibly supernatural circumstances that were left unsolved and shelved by the FBI. Portrayed by Canadian actor Chris Owens, Spender was a recurring character during the fifth and sixth seasons, before returning for the ninth season of The X-Files in a guest role. He returned for the eleventh season of the show.
"End Game" is the seventeenth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on February 17, 1995. It was directed by Rob Bowman, and written by Frank Spotnitz. "End Game" featured guest appearances by Megan Leitch, Peter Donat, Brian Thompson and saw Steven Williams reprise his role as X. The episode helped explore the series' overarching mythology. "End Game" earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.2, being watched by 10.7 million households in its initial broadcast. It received positive reviews from critics.
"Talitha Cumi" is the twenty-fourth episode and the season finale of the third season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on May 17, 1996, in the United States. The teleplay was written by series creator Chris Carter, based on a story he developed with lead actor David Duchovny and was directed by R. W. Goodwin. The episode is one of several that explored the series' overarching mythology. "Talitha Cumi" achieved a Nielsen household rating of 11.2, being watched by 17.86 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mostly positive reviews from critics.
"Herrenvolk" is the fourth season premiere of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on October 4, 1996. It was directed by R.W. Goodwin, and written by series creator Chris Carter. "Herrenvolk" featured guest appearances by Roy Thinnes and Brian Thompson, and introduced Laurie Holden as recurring character Marita Covarrubias. The episode helped to explore the overarching mythology, or fictional history of The X-Files. "Herrenvolk" earned a Nielsen household rating of 13.2, being watched by 21.11 million people in its initial broadcast.
Volume 1 of The X-Files Mythology collection is a DVD release containing selected episodes from the first to the third seasons of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. The episodes collected in the release form the beginning of the series' mythology, and are centred on alien abduction at the hands of "colonists". Several of the elements introduced in the collected episodes arose through necessity during production, as working around the pregnancy of lead actress Gillian Anderson led to both the creation of unifying plot thread and the introduction of several recurring characters.
"The Unnatural" is the 19th episode of the sixth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files, which first aired on April 25, 1999, on the Fox network. Written and directed by lead actor David Duchovny, the episode is tangentially connected to the wider mythology of The X-Files, but narratively functions as a "Monster-of-the-Week" story. "The Unnatural" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.1, and its first broadcast was watched by 16.88 million people. The episode received positive reviews from critics, and was well-liked by members of the cast and crew, including series creator Chris Carter and co-star Gillian Anderson.
"The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati" is the second episode of the seventh season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It was directed by Michael Watkins and written by lead actor David Duchovny and series creator Chris Carter. The installment explores the series' overarching mythology and concludes a trilogy of episodes revolving around Fox Mulder's (Duchovny) severe reaction to an alien artifact. Originally aired by the Fox network on November 14, 1999, "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati" received a Nielsen rating of 10.1 and was seen by 16.15 million viewers. Initial reviews were mixed, and the plot and dialogue attracted criticism. Later critics viewed the episode in a more positive light, and several writers named it among the best in the series.
"Without" is the second episode of the eighth season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. The episode first aired in the United States and Canada on November 12, 2000, on Fox and subsequently aired in the United Kingdom on February 18, 2001. It was written by executive producer Chris Carter and directed by Kim Manners. The episode helps to explore the series' overarching mythology and continues from the seventh season finale, "Requiem", and season eight premiere, "Within", in which Fox Mulder was abducted by aliens who are planning to colonize Earth. The episode earned a Nielsen rating of 9.0 in the United States and was seen by 15.1 million viewers. As with the previous episode, "Within," it was generally well-received by critics, although some detractors criticized various plot points.
"Deadalive" is the fifteenth episode of the eighth season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It was written by executive producers Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, and was directed by Tony Wharmby. It explores the series' alien mythology story arc. Following its North American premiere on April 1, 2001, it received a Nielsen household rating of 7.3 and was watched by 12.4 million viewers. It garnered mixed reviews; while most critics were happy with the return of actor David Duchovny, some criticized the episode's plot holes. It later won the show's last Emmy Award, for Outstanding Makeup.
"Per Manum" is the thirteenth episode of the eighth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on February 18, 2001. Written by Frank Spotnitz and series creator Chris Carter, and directed by Kim Manners, the episode helps to explore the series' overarching mythology. "Per Manum" received a Nielsen rating of 9.4 and was watched by 9.61 million households. Overall, the episode received mostly positive reviews from critics.
"This Is Not Happening" is the fourteenth episode of the eighth season and the 175th episode overall of the science fiction television series The X-Files. The episode first aired in the United States on February 25, 2001, on the Fox Network, and subsequently aired in the United Kingdom. It was written by executive producers Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, and directed by Kim Manners, and forms part of the series' overarching mythology. The episode received a Nielsen household rating of 9.7 and was watched by 16.9 million viewers, making it the highest-rated episode of the season. "This Is Not Happening" was received positively by television critics.
The mythology of The X-Files, sometimes referred to as its "mytharc" by the show's staff and fans, follows the quest of FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder, a believer in supernatural phenomena, and Dana Scully, his skeptical partner. Their boss, FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner, was also often involved. Beginning with season 8, another skeptic named John Doggett, and Monica Reyes, a believer like Mulder, were also introduced. The overarching story, which spans events as early as the 1940s, is built around a government conspiracy to hide the truth about alien existence and their doomsday plan. Not all episodes advanced the mythology plot, but those that did were often set up by Mulder or Scully via an opening monologue.
The Colonists are an extraterrestrial species and are also the primary group of antagonists in the science fiction television show The X-Files as well as the first X-Files feature film. The mystery revolving around their identity and purpose is slowly revealed across the course of the series. In the series' plot, the Colonists are collaborating with a group of United States government officials known as the Syndicate in a plan to colonize the Earth, hence their name.
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