"Teliko" is the third episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It was written by Howard Gordon and directed by James Charleston. The episode originally aired in the United States on October 18, 1996, on the Fox network. It is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, a stand-alone plot which is unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Teliko" earned a Nielsen rating of 11.3, being watched by 18.01 million people upon its initial broadcast.
The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. In this episode, Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate the unexplained deaths of several African and African-American people whose skin color has turned white as the result of either a rare medical disorder or a bizarre curse.
The episode features the second appearance by Laurie Holden as Marita Covarrubias, following her debut in the fourth-season premiere "Herrenvolk". Carl Lumbly guest stars as a social worker. Inspired by the topics of racial discrimination, "Teliko" explores xenophobia and prejudice. The make-up effects in the episode were difficult to apply and took several hours to be completed. The episode received mixed reviews from critics, who compared the episode to older episodes of the series. The racial topics of the episode drew mixed attention.
Plot
On an international airline flight, an African man enters the bathroom, where he is attacked by a man exhibiting albino traits. The attacker leaves the bathroom with his normal black skin tone. Before the plane lands in the United States, a flight attendant discovers the victim in the bathroom, devoid of his skin pigmentation.
Three months later, Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) calls in Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and informs her that four African American men have been kidnapped in Philadelphia. One of them has been found dead exhibiting depigmentation. A specialist from the CDC believes that the men have died from a disease, and has requested Scully to investigate the case. Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) joins Scully and has some of the evidence samples from Sanders' autopsy analyzed by Agent Pendrell, who finds a seed from a rare West Africanpassionflower. Mulder takes the seed to his UN informant Marita Covarrubias and asks for her help; she provides him with information on the incident on the plane.
Meanwhile, Samuel Aboah (Willie Amakye), an African immigrant who is seeking citizenship, attacks a young black man while he is waiting for a bus, kidnapping him. Investigating the disappearance, Mulder predicts that another seed will be found. They have Marcus Duff (Carl Lumbly), a social worker who is helping Aboah apply for citizenship, cross-reference the names from the flight with those applying for permanent residency or a work visa. This leads them to Aboah, who runs when they try to question him and is discovered after squeezing himself into a drainage pipe. Aboah appears to have no symptoms of disease when he is analyzed at a local medical center, but Scully plans to examine him more.
Mulder sees Diabra, a diplomat from Burkina Faso. Diabra tells him an old folk tale of the Bambara people about the Teliko, which were nocturnal "spirits of the air". Meanwhile, Scully examines a PET scan of Aboah, which shows that he has no pituitary gland. Aboah escapes the hospital and meets Duff in a car; he paralyses Duff in the same manner as his other victims and inserts a long metal object up his nose. A policeman finds Duff and requests an ambulance, and the police tell Mulder and Scully that they are sweeping the area for Aboah. Driving around, Mulder tells Scully that he thinks Aboah is the mythical Teliko.
The agents stop at a demolition site after Mulder remembers that Pendrell found asbestos fibers on Sanders' body. After they split up, Mulder is paralyzed and taken into a duct by Aboah. Scully, having heard Mulder's shouts for help, tracks him in the duct and is able to get him out, finding the depigmented bodies of the other victims. Aboah gets the drop on Scully, but Mulder's look alerts her, and she quickly turns around and shoots him. In her field journal, Scully writes that Aboah is struggling to survive while awaiting trial. She muses that Aboah's condition and survival may be discovered by science, but humans have a fear of an alien among them which causes them to "deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate".[3]
Production
The concept of the episode originated from Howard Gordon, who wanted to write an episode with an immortal antagonist.
Writer and executive producer Howard Gordon was originally working on an episode about someone who appeared to be immortal, but after discussions with consulting producer Ken Horton he added in the notion of xenophobia and "melanin-sucking albino vampires". Series creator Chris Carter approved the storyline, but the first draft of the script was met with disapproval by the writing staff, and the story was restructured and rewritten.[4] As the episode entered pre-production, Carter asked Gordon to refine the script to give it a purpose, and it was then that Gordon came up with the theme of "deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate".[4] This phrase is first spoken by Scully in conversation with Mulder after the post mortem on Owen Sanders, the fourth missing man. Mulder later throws the same phrase back at her in frustration as he leaves the Mt Zion Medical Center (where Aboah has been examined) to meet Diabra, the Burkinabe diplomat. And Scully finally uses the phrase in her field journal during her closing sentiments.[5]
This replaces the usual "The Truth is Out There" tagline during the title sequence of the episode.[6] Carter also came up with Aboah's weapons used to extract the pituitary gland that he kept hidden in his esophagus.[6] "Teliko" is Greek for "end", though "Téliko" is the name of a "spirit of the air" in Bambara mythology which is sometimes thought to be an albino.[6] Fellow writer John Shiban suggested that the Teliko emerge from the country of Burkina Faso based on his former job of programming foreign air-mail rates for a computer software company.[6]
Casting for the episode was difficult, as the production team wanted real Africans. They auditioned every one they could find, including an African theater troupe that was passing by.[6] The role of Marcus Duff eventually went to Carl Lumbly, who was known for his role on CBS's Cagney & Lacey.[6] The role of Aboah went to Willie Amakye, a Ghanaian Olympic runner who had just returned to his home in Southern California from the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.[6] To appear albino, Amakye's skin underwent several layers of cover-up cream, layers of white powder, and a little pink powder for color. He also wore contacts for the transparent pink eyes.[6] Amakye's hair was dyed orange for post-production special effects to change it back and forth from black and white.[6] As revealed on his resident alien card, Aboah's birthday is September 25, a reference to the birthday of Gillian Anderson's daughter.[6]
"Teliko"'s opening sequence makes use of an airplane cabin set built for the later season episodes "Tempus Fugit" and "Max", though the set's hydraulic shaking rig had not been completed yet.[6] Composer Mark Snow used African drums, flutes, and chants in his score for the episode. He also used samples from "The Bulgarian Women's Chorus", a recording known in Southern California in promotion for a local radio station.[6][7] Compositions by Snow often utilized elements of African tribal drums, but "Teliko" features rather prominent usage.[8]
Themes
What sustains The X-Files' imagining of otherness is not merely the strangeness of the esoteric, but its coding as opposed to the Law and to civic order. Mapped onto the chronotopes of the dark alleyways of the inner city, this other of the civic order is then easily imagined as that other which resists the Law or, more usually, fails to be fully integrated into the civil order. In the "Teliko" example I have noted from the X-Files, this other is of course the illegal immigrant who lives among the ethnic minorities of his own color and preys upon them. Thus, the image of otherness in The X-Files is conjoined to a major concern of political systems in the West.
"Teliko" explores the concept of the other, with characters of a different race representing the "other".[8][10] In the episode, the US and its culture are treated as the norm, wherein the African culture in the episode is depicted in an intimidating way. African folk tales, which are not often considered strange in their own context, are presented in the episode as ominous and bizarre.[10] The episode also prominently features African tribal music, and Howard Gordon claimed that linking the supernatural ethnic character to the tribal music added a more "exotic" feeling to the character.[11] However, Allan F. Moore, in his book Analyzing Popular Music, argues that the usage of the music in this episode reinforces a "culturally dangerous slippage between the others."[8]
By making the character seem more unnatural, he exudes in many ways an "extraterrestrial" quality to him.[11] Charles D. Martin mused in The White African American Body that "blackness is clearly attached to racial identity" in the episode, commenting that the episode equates the cultural understanding of race to mere skin color.[12] Martin cites Mulder's joke about Michael Jackson as a self-aware comment on "another contemporary white negro" which reinforces a stereotype.[13]
Zoe Detsi-Diamanti, in her book The Flesh Made Text Made Flesh, commented on the episode's depiction of race.[14] She argues that the episode makes the point that a "perfectly normal" black man looks a certain way, pointing out that the episode states that a black man is defined by a "certain skin pigment".[14] Any exception to this norm is depicted in a negative manner, with science being the only answer to unnatural phenomena.[14] Dean Kowalski agreed with the analysis in The Philosophy of The X-Files, commenting that one of the main themes of the episodes revolved around science's attempt to explain folk theories and paranormal phenomena.[15] The episode's antagonist Aboah, escapes the FBI by fitting into a dinner cart, a feat that was compared to slaves escaping in unconformable slave ships.[16]
Broadcast and reception
"Teliko" originally aired on the Fox network on October18,1996.[1] The episode marked the final time that an episode of the series aired on a Friday.[17] This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 11.3, with a 20 share, meaning that roughly 11.3 percent of all television-equipped households, and 20 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. "Teliko" was seen by 18.01 million viewers on first broadcast.[18]
The episode received generally mixed reviews from critics. Entertainment Weekly gave "Teliko" a grade of "C−", finding it similar to the first season episode "Squeeze".[19] Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave it a "B−", also noting its similarity to "Squeeze" and finding that it had uncomfortable racial overtones. However, he did feel that the climax was "wonderfully tense" and "one of the better climaxes the show's done".[20]Sarah Stegall awarded the episode two stars out of five, also noting the similarities to "Squeeze".[21] She criticized the depiction of Mulder and Scully, commenting that the two lacked quality scenes together. She did compliment the scene where Agent Pendrell is disappointed at not seeing Scully, describing it as the highlight of the episode.[21] In his book The Nitpicker's Guide for X-Philes, author Phil Farrand pointed out an inconsistency in the episode; before the timeline of the episode, Aboah only kills four men in three months, but during the duration of the episode he kills two men in a matter of days.[22]
Moore, Alan F. (2009). Analyzing Popular Music. Cambridge University Press.
Quayson, Ato (2005). "Postcolonialism and Postmodernism". In Schwarz, Henry; Ray, Sangeeta (eds.). A Companion to Postcolonial Studies. Blackwell Companions in Cultural Studies. Wiley-Blackwell. pp.87–111.
The fourth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files commenced airing on the Fox network in the United States on October 4, 1996, concluding on the same channel on May 18, 1997, and contained 24 episodes. Following the filming and airing of the season, production began on The X-Files feature film, which was released in 1998 following the show's fifth season.
"Squeeze" is the third episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on September 24, 1993. "Squeeze" was written by Glen Morgan and James Wong and directed by Harry Longstreet, with Michael Katleman directing additional footage. The episode featured the first of two guest appearances by Doug Hutchison as the mutant serial killer Eugene Victor Tooms, a role he would reprise in "Tooms". "Squeeze" is the first "monster-of-the-week" episode of The X-Files, unconnected to the series' overarching mythology.
"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.
"Unruhe" is the fourth episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 27, 1996, and was the first episode to air on Sunday night when the show was moved from Fridays to Sundays. "Unruhe" was written by Vince Gilligan, directed by Rob Bowman, and featured a guest appearance from Pruitt Taylor Vince. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Unruhe" earned a Nielsen rating of 11.7, being watched by 19.10 million people upon its initial broadcast.
"Leonard Betts" is the twelfth episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on January 26, 1997. It was written by Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, and Frank Spotnitz, directed by Kim Manners, and featured a guest appearance by Paul McCrane as Leonard Betts/Albert Tanner. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. Aired following Super Bowl XXXI, "Leonard Betts" became Fox's debut Super Bowl lead-out program since the network acquired NFL broadcast rights in 1994.
"Memento Mori" is the fourteenth episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on February 9, 1997. It was directed by Rob Bowman, and written by series creator Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban and Frank Spotnitz. "Memento Mori" featured guest appearances by Sheila Larken, David Lovgren and Morris Panych. The episode helped to explore the overarching mythology, or fictional history of The X-Files. "Memento Mori" earned a Nielsen household rating of 15.5, being watched by 19.1 million people in its initial broadcast. The title translates from Latin as "remember that you will die."
"Unrequited" is the sixteenth episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It was written by Howard Gordon and series creator Chris Carter, and directed by Michael Lange. It originally aired in the United States on February 23, 1997, on the Fox network. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, a stand-alone plot which is unconnected to the series' wider mythology. This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 10.9 and was seen by 16.56 million viewers upon its initial broadcast. "Unrequited" received mixed to negative reviews from television critics.
"Max" is the eighteenth episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on March 23, 1997. It was directed by Kim Manners, and written by Frank Spotnitz and series creator Chris Carter. "Max" featured guest appearances by Joe Spano, Tom O'Brien and Scott Bellis, and saw the final appearance of Brendan Beiser as special agent Pendrell. The episode helped to explore the overarching mythology, or fictional history of The X-Files. "Max" earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.6, being watched by 18.34 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed to positive reviews from critics.
"Zero Sum" is the twenty-first episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on April 27, 1997. It was directed by Kim Manners, and written by Frank Spotnitz and Howard Gordon. "Zero Sum" included appearances by William B. Davis, Laurie Holden and Morris Panych. The episode helped to explore the overarching mythology, or fictional history of The X-Files. "Zero Sum" earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.7, being watched by 18.6 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode has received mixed to positive responses from critics.
"Redux" is the two-part fifth season premiere of the science fiction television series The X-Files. "Redux" first aired on November 2, 1997, on Fox in the United States, with "Redux II" airing on November 9. Both episodes subsequently aired in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Both episodes were written by series creator Chris Carter, with "Redux" directed by R. W. Goodwin and "Redux II" helmed by Kim Manners. "Redux" became the second-most-watched episode ever broadcast, earning more than 27 million viewers in the United States alone. The first part of the episode received mixed to negative reviews, whereas the second part received mixed to positive reviews from critics.
"Kitsunegari" is the eighth episode of the fifth season of American science fiction television series The X-Files. It was written by Vince Gilligan and Tim Minear, and directed by Daniel Sackheim. It aired in the United States on January 4, 1998 on the Fox network. "Kitsunegari" earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.6, being watched by 19.75 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed reviews from television critics.
The X-Files Mythology – Volume 3 collection is the third DVD release containing selected episodes from the fifth to the eighth seasons of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. The episodes collected in the release form the middle of the series' mythology, and are centered on alien colonization efforts, the fall of the Syndicate, and Fox Mulder's abduction.
"Field Trip" is the twenty-first episode of the sixth season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on May 9, 1999, in the United States and Canada, and subsequently aired in the United Kingdom on Sky1 on July 18. The episode was written by John Shiban and Vince Gilligan, from a story by Frank Spotnitz, and was directed by Kim Manners. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Field Trip" earned a Nielsen household rating of 9.5, being watched by 15.40 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received largely positive reviews from television critics.
"The Pine Bluff Variant" is the eighteenth episode of the fifth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It was written by John Shiban and directed by Rob Bowman. The episode aired in the United States on May 3, 1998 on the Fox network. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, a stand-alone plot which is unconnected to the series' wider mythology, or fictional history. "The Pine Bluff Variant" received a Nielsen household rating of 11.4 and was watched by 18.24 million viewers in its initial broadcast. It received largely positive reviews from television critics as well as fans on the internet.
"One Son" is the twelfth episode from the sixth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It first aired on February 14, 1999, on the Fox network. The episode was written by series creator Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, and directed by Rob Bowman. It explores the series' overarching mythology and concludes the Syndicate story arc.
"Biogenesis" is the twenty-second episode and the sixth season finale of the science fiction television series The X-Files. The episode first aired in the United States and Canada on May 16, 1999, on the Fox Network, and aired in the United Kingdom and Ireland on July 25, 1999, on Sky1. It was written by executive producers Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, and directed by Rob Bowman. "Biogenesis" earned a Nielsen household rating of 9.4, being watched by 15.86 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed reviews from critics.
"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.
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.
"Tempus Fugit" is the seventeenth episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on March 16, 1997. It was directed by Rob Bowman, and written by Frank Spotnitz and series creator Chris Carter. "Tempus Fugit" featured guest appearances by Joe Spano, Tom O'Brien and Brendan Beiser, and saw the return of Scott Bellis as alien abductee Max Fenig. The episode helped to explore the overarching mythology, or fictional history of The X-Files. "Tempus Fugit" earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.9, being watched by 18.85 million people in its initial broadcast. The title translates from Latin as "time flies."
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