Episode #001
Pilot

Reviewed:
16th November, 2005

5-Point Plot:

• Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully meet for the first time and Mulder has a case for them to investigate; Several unexplainable deaths in a small town with the only linking aspect being unexplainable puncture marks on the victims necks but Mulder strongly suspects alien abduction after the exhumed body of one of the victims yields an unidentified corpse with a nasal implant.

• Agents discover that the victims, along with two youths in a psychiatric hospital, were all members of the same graduating class.

• A young girl from the same class, Theresa, comes to the agents saying she fears for her safety. She says she wakes up to find herself in the woods at night, not knowing how she got there.

• After it becomes clear that one of the apparent vegetables in the psychiatric hospital has also been going to the woods, Mulder *works out* that the kids come to the forest because it "summons" them, the puncture marks are from tests performed on the abductees, and that these tests cause some sort of genetic mutation that explains the inhuman corpse found in the cemetery.

• Mulder and Scully arrive in the woods just in time to stop the psychiatric patient, Billy Miles, from giving Theresa away to be abducted. Billy is apprehended, says "the light" told him to do things and to take the kids out to the forest for tests.

Opinion:
The X-Files pilot is definitely a solid episode. The acting, especially from Mulder, isn't the best, but I suppose that is to be expected in a pilot episode of a series. The writing too, isn't up to the standard that I'm sure it will rise to in the future.
The completely unnecessary underwear shot of Scully was appreciated, but other scenes are evidence that the X-Files doesn't need women in bras and baggy undies to hold our attention.
The conspiracy arc to the series begins in the pilot with the Cigarette Smoking Man (CSM), appearing in one of the opening scenes when Scully is assigned to the X-Files and then at the end, cataloguing the implant.
As for the plot, it's originality is key to its success. But plot-holes stop this from being a true indication of what the series can grow to be. Most notably is the way in which Mulder makes huge leaps of logic in order to figure out what is truly going on, most notably the scene in the cemetery. Scully and Mulder start laughing, and I suspect this is at the ridiculous lines that Mulder has just said instead of anything in the script. Also, as soon as the agents arrive they exhume one of the victims. Having found the shocking body, they don't decide to exhume any more victims until the end of the episode. Why?
In summary, the pilot is a decent episode which promises so much for the rest of the series.

Oops:
When Scully first meets Mulder in his office, an unobstructed close-up of his "I Want To Believe" poster is shown. In the next shot, papers are covering the bottom of the poster.

Ratings: