Top 6 Season 1 Episodes Of The X-Files

I love The X-Files. Being that I don’t consider myself a fan of alien-centered things, I think everyone should love The X-Files. It’s not your stereotypical science fiction work. There’s no heavy jargon to struggle through, nobody carries on a relationship with an alien, there’s no recurring blue/green/purple/non-human-hued character, everything takes place on this planet, and non-stretchy fabrics abound! Honestly, I’m not big on the mythology episodes, but I at least find them interesting. While watching them, I never once thought, “This is tired”. There should probably be some sort of award for keeping the topic of aliens fresh.

So, since I love the show I thought, “Why not do a top 6 X-Files episodes?!”. I excitedly sat down and sifted through episodes only to find that narrowing it down to 6 is just impossible and even a little insulting. So, the best I can do is narrow it down to a top 6 per season. Without further ado, I give you the top 6 episodes of season 1 (in chronological order).

6. Squeeze (Episode 3) – In this episode, we meet Victor Tooms who is played by Doug Hutchison (and his potrayal of Tooms is no less creepy than his marriage to Courtney Stodden). Tooms is a 100-year-old jaundiced-looking guy with a taste for livers and the ability to super-stretch his way into a tight space. Most of his existence is spent in hibernation, but every 30 years he emerges to feed. Even if Doug Hutchison wasn’t awesome at wtf, this is the first real monster-of-the-week episode and worth mentioning for that fact alone.

5. Ice (Episode 8) – This is the X-Files version of The Thing. A group of scientists die while drilling for ice cores in Alaska and Mulder and Scully team up with a group of scientists familiar with the project to investigate. Everything starts with a dog who appears to have the plague and definitely has creepy crawlies under his skin. Said creepy crawlies attach to the hypothalamus and make the host violently aggresive. Unfortunately, the team ends up stranded and paranoid. Fortunately, it makes for a good episode.

4. Beyond the Sea (Episode 13) – A deathrow inmate played by Brad Dourif claims to have psychic visions, giving him important information on a serial killer. Mulder thinks he’s connected to the murders and is just trying to avoid the death penalty while Scully is unsure because he begins to tell her things about her freshly dead father that rattle her. By this point in the series, things finally feel less awkward. People are wearing their roles better (David Duchovny) and interacting with each other better (David Duchovny). I don’t think this is the strongest story ever, but Brad Dourif’s acting makes this whole episode worth at least one watch. Any description I give wouldn’t come close to doing him justice. He is amazing and getting to watch him is an absolute treat.

3. Gender Bender (Episode 14) – The investigation of post-sex murders involving someone who seems to walk in as one gender and walk out as another leads Mulder and Scully to a sect of isolationists in Massachusetts called The Kindred. This is really all I want to say on this episode because the creepiness should speak for itself.

2. Miracle Man (Episode 18) – A young boy named Samuel raises a man from the dead and when he grows up and becomes super hot, people start dying after taking part in his religious healing show. Samuel believes it’s his fault and a punishment from God and demands to be locked up. After he turns up dead, it comes to light that one of his own betrayed him.

1. Darkness Falls (Episode 20) – The FBI is called in when a group of loggers disappears and eco-terrorism is suspected. Mulder, of course, believes the supernatural is involved and is quickly proven correct when they find a man drained of all his bodily fluids in a cocoon. They come to find the cause is an ancient bioluminescent insect that doesn’t like light. This is one of those episodes in which Mulder and Scully do not win. They, themselves, get cocooned. While they do get saved just in the nick of time, I do greatly appreciate that the show isn’t afraid to put the usual heroes smack dab in the belly of the beast.

-Baby Jane Grey