"The Beginning" is the first episode of the sixth season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network in the United States on November 8, 1998. The episode was written by Chris Carter, and directed by Kim Manners. It helps explore the series' overarching mythology. "The Beginning" earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.9, being watched by 20.34 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed reviews from television critics.
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. Mulder is a believer in the paranormal, while the skeptical Scully has been assigned to debunk his work. In the episode, Mulder and Scully eagerly hunt for a deadly creature in the Arizona desert. What they find seems to support Mulder's revived belief in aliens, but is discredited when the agents are not reassigned to the now re-opened X-Files, with Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens) and Diana Fowley (Mimi Rogers) taking over instead.
"The Beginning" was the first episode of the series to not be filmed in Vancouver, Canada, after production was moved to Los Angeles at the behest of lead actor David Duchovny. The episode follows directly from The X-Files feature film (1998). The writers sought to bring back characters, such as Spender, Fowley, and Gibson Praise (Jeff Gulka) who had not been featured in the movie, but had played a pivotal role in the show's fifth season.
Plot
In Phoenix, Arizona, a scientist working for Roush Technologies is exposed to the black oil; an alien creature gestates and bursts from his body the next morning. A few hours after his death, a co-worker who arrives at his house is attacked and killed by the newborn alien.
In Washington, D.C., Agent Fox Mulder appears before an FBI panel regarding his experiences in Antarctica. Meanwhile, the Smoking Man (William B. Davis) reports to the Syndicate on the alien in Phoenix, confident that he'll be able to kill it. Assistant Director Walter Skinner tells Mulder, who is working on restoring the burned X-Files, that he and Scully have been denied reassignment on the unit, but that Mulder should seek out a folder left on the desk in his old office. Mulder goes there, only to discover that Jeffrey Spender and Diana Fowley have been assigned to the X-files. Feeling betrayed by Fowley, Mulder leaves, but not before stealthily taking the folder with him.
The Smoking Man seeks Gibson Praise, who is undergoing brain surgery at that very moment. Mulder and Scully head to the home where the alien gestated, finding an alien's nail in the wall. The Smoking Man arrives soon after with Gibson, who tells him that the alien is no longer there. At a nuclear power plant, the alien kills another person, but Mulder and Scully are denied access by Spender and Fowley. Upon returning to their car, they find a hiding Gibson, having escaped from the Smoking Man. Later that night, Fowley tells Mulder she was offered the X-files and is protecting his interests. Mulder leaves Gibson with Scully and heads off with her. Mulder and Fowley believe the alien is seeking heat, which is why it is at the power plant. Inside, they find organic material on the ground and cooling pipes.
Scully brings Gibson to a hospital, where it is determined that he has the alien virus in his blood. The Black-Haired Man (Scott Eberlein) kidnaps him soon after and brings him to the power plant. They find the alien, who attacks the Black-Haired Man but not Gibson, as witnessed by Mulder from outside a locked door. Afterward, Mulder and Scully are ordered to not associate with the X-files and are reassigned under Assistant Director Alvin Kersh. Spender is visited by the Smoking Man in his office. Mulder continues to work on restoring the X-Files and is told by Scully that Fowley's report does not reflect what really happened. She reveals that the alien virus DNA is also part of all human DNA, but in Gibson, the DNA is active. Meanwhile, at the power plant, Gibson is trapped inside with the alien, which sheds its skin inside a spent fuel pool, revealing the traditional grey alien form.[1]
Production
"The Beginning" was the first episode of The X-Files to be filmed in Los Angeles, California.
Pre-production
"The Beginning" was the first episode of the series to be filmed in Los Angeles, California. The move was instigated by David Duchovny, who portrayed Mulder, in order to increase his opportunity to find movie work as well as to give him a chance to be nearer to his wife, Téa Leoni. Series creator Chris Carter opposed the move; others, like series director Kim Manners and Gillian Anderson supported the move but were less vocal than Duchovny. Fox network officials eventually made the decision to film in California.[2][3] According to Andy Meisler, "The very first shot of the season a long look directly into a bright sun shining on a barren desert was designed to boldly announce the show's arrival in Southern California."[4] As a result of the move, the episode featured a largely new group of crew members, hired by Carter, Frank Spotnitz and new co-executive producer Michael Watkins; this necessitated the show's new crewmembers spending five weeks, receiving, unpacking, and cataloging filming material from their Vancouver counterparts.[4]
"The Beginning" featured the return of the newborn alien, as featured in The X-Files movie.
Because of the shift from Vancouver to Los Angeles, some fans of the series were alienated. Many accused the show of "Hollywood-izing" the series by adding notable guest stars as well as making the plots simpler and more enjoyable for larger audiences. According to Space.com, a number of fans of the show specifically loved "the moody ambiance filming around Vancouver lent the series [during seasons 1–5]", which the sixth season reportedly lacked.[5]
Writing and filming
Spotnitz said that the hardest part about writing "The Beginning" was the task of not only segueing from a movie but also tying the story into the previous season finale. To accomplish this delicate task, the writers brought back characters like Gibson Praise, Diana Fowley and Jeffrey Spender (none of whom were in the film), as well as those that had been introduced in the film, like the alien. Carter claims to have thought of the episode's rough plot almost two years prior, when he was developing the plot of The X-Files movie.[4]
The character Sandy, who is killed in the teaser sequence, was played by the show's casting director Rick Millikan at the request of Carter. Millikan later joked that he spent most of the shoot on the phone casting others for future X-Files episodes.[6] One of the nuclear power plant workers is named Homer, a reference to Homer Simpson, one of the main characters from the animated Fox television seriesThe Simpsons.[7]
The scenes in an Arizona suburb were filmed in Valencia, California, because the producers wanted "something really Edward Scissorhands."[6] The scenes set in the nuclear power plant were filmed in a Long Beach, California-based building owned by the electricity supply company Southern California Edison. Due to a heat wave, many of the scenes were filmed "in temperatures well above one hundred degrees", and some lines had to be re-recorded in the studio due to excessive background noise.[6] The scenes of the alien molting in the power plant's spent fuel pool were filmed in a tank of water located in Marina del Rey, California that was frequently used by the producers of the show Baywatch. Filming the plant scenes proved to be troublesome, and many shots needed to be filmed multiple times due to prop and set issues. These problems persisted into post-production, and some scenes were not finalized until the end of October—nearly two months after principal filming ended.[6]
Broadcast and reception
"The Beginning" first aired in the United States on November 8, 1998.[8] The episode earned a Nielsen rating of 11.9, with a 17 share, meaning that roughly 11.9 percent of all television-equipped households, and 17 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode.[9] It was viewed by 20.34 million viewers and was the second highest rated episode of the sixth season.[9] The episode aired in the United Kingdom and Ireland on Sky1 on March 7, 1999, and received 1.08 million viewers, making it the second most watched episode that week.[10] Fox promoted the episode with the tagline "The new beginning."[11] The episode was later included on The X-Files Mythology, Volume 3 – Colonization, a DVD collection that contains episodes involved with the alien Colonist's plans to take over the earth.[12]
Critical reception to the episode was divided, as reviews ranged from largely positive to negative. In the book The End and the Beginning: The Official Guide to The X-Files, Vol. 5, author Andy Meisler wrote that some fans and critics responded positively to "The Beginning," most notably because the episode functioned as "a particularly artful and effective way to launch the series's new season—and era."[4] Tom Kessenich, in his book Examination: An Unauthorized Look at Seasons 6–9 of the X-Files wrote positively of the episode, saying "'The Beginning' was a pretty good premiere episode. I was quite pleased to see how Chris Carter took last season's finale and the movie and tied things together to get Season 6 off to a fresh start."[13] Emily VanDerWerff from The A.V. Club gave it a B. She praised the performance of Chris Owens, saying that he was "acting the shit out of Spender".[14] Despite this, however she called the episode "lackluster" and wrote that it "isn’t a great episode of the show, but it works well enough".[14] VanDerWerff's main issue with the entry was that it chose to wrap up the plot thread left dangling with the fifth-season finale, but did little to expand upon the revelations of the series' feature film. VanDerWerff also criticized the fact that Scully was, once again, a skeptic of the paranormal after all she saw.[14]
Not all reviews were positive, however. Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode one star out of five, writing that "'The Beginning' opens witty enough […] and then offers the viewer no substance. It's a better season opener than 'Redux' […] but it's still very poor."[7] Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique gave the episode a largely negative review and awarded it one-and-a-half stars out of four.[15] She derided the episode's plot, saying that the episode was "another mile down the X-Files Road of Mythology. Monster aliens? This is something out of a schlocky pulp novel with the science of the show dissolved into complete technobabble".[15]
↑ "BARB's multichannel top 10 programmes". barb.co.uk. Retrieved 1 January 2012. Note: Information is in the section titled "w/e March 1–7, 1999", listed under Sky 1
Shearman, Robert; Pearson, Lars (2009). Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen. Mad Norwegian Press. ISBN978-0-9759446-9-1.
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.
The fifth season of the science fiction television series The X-Files commenced airing on the Fox network in the United States on November 2, 1997, concluding on the same channel on May 17, 1998, and contained 20 episodes. The season was the last in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; subsequent episodes would be shot in Los Angeles, California. In addition, this was the first season of the show where the course of the story was planned, due to the 1998 The X-Files feature film being filmed before it, but scheduled to be released after it aired.
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. This season marks the end of various story lines; during this season, Fox Mulder learned the true fate of his sister, Samantha.
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.
"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.
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.
"Patient X" is the thirteenth episode of the fifth season of American science fiction television series The X-Files. It was written by series creator Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, directed by Kim Manners and aired in the United States on March 1, 1998, on the Fox network. The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 12.6, being watched by 20.21 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received moderately positive reviews from critics.
"The Red and the Black" is the fourteenth episode of the fifth season of American science fiction television series The X-Files. It was written by series creator Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz, directed by Carter and aired in the United States on March 8, 1998, on the Fox network. The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 12.0, being watched by 19.98 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received moderately positive reviews from critics.
"The End" is the 20th and final episode of the fifth season, and 117th overall of the science fiction television series The X-Files. The episode first aired in the United States and Canada on May 17, 1998. "The End" subsequently aired in the United Kingdom on March 17, 1999, on BBC One. The episode was written by executive producer Chris Carter, and directed by R. W. Goodwin. "The End" earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.9, being watched by 18.76 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed to positive reviews from television critics.
"Triangle" is the third episode of the sixth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on November 22, 1998. Written and directed by series creator Chris Carter, "Triangle" is a "Monster-of-the-Week" episode, a stand-alone plot which is unconnected to the overarching mythology of The X-Files. "Triangle" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.8, being watched by 18.20 million viewers in its initial broadcast. The episode generally received positive reviews with many critics commenting on the episode's directing style.
"Terms of Endearment" is the seventh episode of the sixth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files, and originally aired on the Fox network on January 3, 1999. Written by David Amann and directed by Rob Bowman, "Terms of Endearment" is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. It earned a Nielsen rating of 10.5 and was watched by 18.7 million people on its initial broadcast. The performance given by guest actor Bruce Campbell attracted positive comments, but the plot was criticized.
"Two Fathers" is the eleventh episode of the sixth season and the 128th episode overall of the science fiction television series The X-Files. The episode first aired in the United States and Canada on February 7, 1999, on the Fox Network and subsequently aired in the United Kingdom on Sky1. It was written by executive producers Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz and directed by Kim Manners. The episode earned a Nielsen rating of 11.5, a total of 18.81 million viewers. The episode received mostly positive reviews.
"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.
"Arcadia" is the fifteenth episode of the sixth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on March 7, 1999. The episode was written by Daniel Arkin and directed by Michael Watkins. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Arcadia" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.5, being watched by 17.91 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mostly positive critical reception, with many reviewers praising the episode's humor.
"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.
"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" is the first episode of the seventh season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It was first shown on the Fox network on November 7, 1999, in the United States. The episode was written by Chris Carter and directed by Kim Manners. "The Sixth Extinction" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.6, being watched by 17.82 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed to positive 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.
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