"The X Files" Field Trip (1999)

User Rating:

8.4/10   

Director:

Kim Manners

Writers:

Chris Carter (creator)
John Shiban (teleplay) ...

TV Series:

"The X Files" (1993)

Original Air Date:

9 May 1999 (Season 6, Episode 21)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Plot:

A young married couple's skeletons are found together on a field in the mountains after only being reported missing for three days...

Plot Keywords:

FBI | FBI Agent | Alien | X Files | Conspiracy

Cast

David Duchovny	...	Fox Mulder
Gillian Anderson	...	Dana Scully
Mitch Pileggi	...	Walter Skinner
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jim Beaver	...	Coroner
Tom Braidwood	...	Melvin Frohike
David Denman	...	Wallace Schiff
Dean Haglund	...	Richard 'Ringo' Langly
Bruce Harwood	...	John Fitzgerald Byers
Robyn Lively	...	Angela Schiff

Runtime:

Argentina:60 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Certification:

Argentina:13

Company:

20th Century Fox Television

Trivia:

The small gray alien was played by seven year old Cody Weselis, son of X-Files stunt coordinator Danny Weselis.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Angela is showering in the opening scenes, the edge of her nude moleskin top can be seen.

Quotes:

Mulder: Brown Mountain, Scully, that doesn't ring a bell?
Scully: No...
Mulder: Brown Mountain lights? It's a famous atmospheric phenomenon dating back nearly 700 years, witnessed by thousands of people, back to the Cherokee Indians. Strange multicolored lights are seen to dance above the peak of the mountain. There's been no geological explanation, no scientific credible explanation at all.
Scully: And, what does that have to do with these two?
Mulder: Well, as I said, there is no scientific explanation, but there are those of us that believe that these multicolored lights are really...
[...]

Movie Connections:

Features StarCraft (1998) (VG)

Best Stand-Alone Episode of Season Six

A hiker (Robyn Lively) has disturbing hallucinations after a trip to a Virginia state park. When her remains and those of her husband are found mysteriously skeletonized, Mulder suspects alien influence. When Mulder investigates he encounters inconsistencies and begins to suspect that his expectations may be determining his interpretation of events. When Scully follows Mulder to the scene of the incident she finds it increasingly difficult to tell fact from fantasy!

This has always been one of my favorite X-Files! The themes of reality and illusion, of expectations determining perception, and the promptings of our own inner sense of truth are enjoyably handled here. The development of the plot is good and the clues that force the viewer to pay attention to the consistency of the storyline are cleverly handled. My only complaint has to do with how the agents are ultimately found. A little more digging for the truth would really have been necessary!

It's also worth noting that the way the agents perceive each other's opinions has obviously changed dramatically from the Rashomon-esquire season 5 comedy, "Bad Blood!"