The X-Files: "Pilot" (Retrospective)

"The following story is inspired by actual documented accounts."

FBI Special Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder in "Pilot"

These are the chilling words that appear onscreen as The X-Files begins, in a way substituting for the iconic theme song and title sequence, which are noticeably absent from "Pilot." But the story spun by series creator Chris Carter is one that hardly needs bells and whistles to absorb viewers. I remember reading one reviewer who suggested that one always knows when one has entered a world of Carter's making. Things are dark and murky, shadows practically have weight, and there is an ever-encroaching sense of paranoia that leaves one feeling unsettled. The world Carter creates is like a dark, dreamlike version of our own, a strange phantasmagoria of images and characters and happenings that suggest the veil between natural and supernatural is thinner than we might ever dare to hope. I can think of no better way to describe the fictional universe that Carter introduces us to when the title card for The X-Files first appeared on television screens on September 10, 1993.

In "Pilot," we are first introduced to Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), a young medical doctor who has been working as an FBI Special Agent for a couple of years. During a meeting with Section Chief Scott Blevins (Charles Cioffi) and a silent, mysterious Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis), she is assigned to work with another agent on cases outside the Bureau mainstream investigating "unexplained phenomena," cases identified as "X-files." Scully makes her way to the basement of the Hoover building, where she meets her new partner, FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), an Oxford-educated psychologist.

Knowing the direction the show will take, it's incredible just how much of the show's basic DNA is present in "Pilot." It's kind of assumed that a television series will air its first episode, and then course-correct during the first season, before really hitting its stride somewhere between seasons two and three. Not The X-Files. All the ingredients that would go on to make the show one of the most significant cultural milestones in recent history are present from the jump, not least of all the dynamic between Mulder and Scully. Scully brings a hard, scientific edge to Mulder's wild theories about the paranormal. Their intellectual tit-for-tat, as each spits out rapid-fire comebacks that could potentially explain what has been deemed unexplainable, becomes the hallmark of the series, and it's easy to see why. Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny have an electrifying chemistry, and its evident from their first meeting onscreen.

It's no secret that series creator Chris Carter sought to invert the common trope which sees the male as the stoic, skeptical figure, while the female is all too eager to believe in less rational explanations. In this regard, he succeeded with flying colors. Scully is something of a cipher, Mulder is really a boy in an oversized suit. In other words, Scully's is a very masculine presence, whereas Mulder might be viewed as more feminine. When the two walk into a room, Mulder must be dealt with because of his commitment to explain what everyone else has deemed inexplicable, but Scully is the cerebral force with which to be reckoned, the filter through which his unconventional theories must first pass. Mulder is undeniably brilliant, and Duchovny has an ability to sell outlandish theories as actually seeming plausible, no matter how unlikely they are. He delivers his lines in "Pilot" with such earnestness that one wants to believe he's at least partially right, regardless of just how frightening the truth might be. Scully is equally brilliant, and she can fire back at Mulder with her own theories without dehumanizing him. Carter draws his characters well, pairing them as intellectual equals, making this a relationship established fundamentally on mutual respect, rather than attraction. And this has everything to do with the way Duchovny and Anderson inhabit their respective roles. Mulder and Scully are unique in that they are two very vulnerable characters, complicated and multifaceted. They are both a "bundle of paradoxes," to quote the late Brennan Manning. In other words, they're a lot like actual people. Complex, thoughtful, multidimensional characters, who actually embody two archetypes unique to the modern era, the believer and skeptic.

For what it's worth, I believe Chris Carter is one of the unsung creators of our time. The man is, in many ways, a sphinx, an enigma. You never quite know just where his narratives will go. He has a tendency to throw everything and the kitchen sink into his stories, an indicator of someone who is brilliant in a strange way, whose mind darts in a thousand different directions, and creativity is the outlet through which he tries to harness all those thoughts into a tangible something. In some ways, I can relate. But the most important component of understanding Carter's fictional universe is how theological his thinking is about things. All of Carter's shows deal directly with some aspect of theological strata, be it The X-Files (which at some point touches on every major theological conceit one can think of), Millennium (theodicy, apocalypse), Harsh Realm (the nature of reality) or any other lesser-known series he's developed. But all of his works somehow seem to be linked, literally in-universe or thematically, to his magnum opus, The X-Files, creating a kind of modern mythology that should be (but is often not) studied with the same depth and attention given to other mythopoetic works of the past century, from Tolkien's legendarium to Star Wars.

In an interview given in 2016 to John Faulkner of Innovation & Tech Today, Carter said, concerning religion, "It's everything; it is the beating heart of The X-Files. I would say The X-Files is a search for God." And the blueprints for how this search is to be carried out are first put forth in "Pilot." The primary context will be the great conversation of modernity, the conversation between reason and faith, skepticism and belief, science and religion.

If Carter set out lay the groundwork for all of these things in "Pilot," then he clears the hurdle with room to spare. And from the moment Mulder and Scully meet, what transpires is a tightly wound, claustrophobic, haunting story that continues to rile up my imagination upon every subsequent viewing of the episode. When Mulder opens up to Scully in the darkened motel room, the camera slowly tightening on his face as his theories about conspiracies and government cover-ups begin to run wild, the hair on the back of my neck still bristles, the skin on my arms still turns to gooseflesh. Rarely have I found a show that continues to employ directors who can marry theme and image so perfectly. Director Rob Bowman does an incredible job creating the prototypical shots of what will become the show's iconic images in "Pilot." Mulder and Scully navigating the darkness with their flashlights is an image seen time and again throughout the series, an image that has forever been seared into my imagination. Again, this is an instance of what I consider to be the holy grail of filmmaking: the marriage of theme and image. As flashlights cut away the darkness, so too do Mulder and Scully sift through the murky morality of the modern postsecular age in search of "the truth."

But at every turn shadowy forces attempt to cut them off. In "Pilot," vital evidence to their case concerning mysterious abductions goes missing. Mulder and Scully end up racing through a dark forest, only to arrive moments too late to make sense of the events that transpire. And they end the investigation knowing little more than they did when they first began—yet they are strengthened in bond and resolve to continue their search for the truth because of what they have witnessed. It's a theme that becomes more prominent as the series continues, but again is teased here in the show's first episode: don't give up. Though the cost might be great, the truth is worth searching for simply because it is the truth.

And, of course, one would be remiss to discuss "Pilot" without at least a passing mention to that zinger of an ending, which sees that same strange, silent man from Scully's meeting with Blevins return to hide away the only piece of evidence Scully managed to salvage and submit to her superiors. It's a scene that harkens to the final moments of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but here the scene plays out with a heightened sense of paranoia, if only because of the presence of the Cigarette Smoking Man, who has lurked in the background of the entire episode. CSM will go on to become one of the most iconic villains of all time, his Morley's becoming as recognizable as Vader's mask or Blofeld's white Persian cat. A tempter who deals in lies, deceptions, and half-truths, who is perhaps the best representative of the devil himself in pop culture.

In "Pilot," all of these ingredients conspire to become the prototypical form of a series that would take the world by storm, and leave an indelible footprint on the landscape of televised storytelling.

The search for the truth begins here.